Families all over Arkansas / Oklahoma and Missouri have had one week in March circled on their calendars since the school year started. Inside that circle are written the words “Eureka Springs”. Why? Because kids’ love to spend Spring Break in a place not too far away that thrills with zip-lines, ghost hunting, lions and tigers, and so much more. That’s why families from “SEC Country” will be traveling to the Arkansas Ozarks and the “Extraordinary Spring Break Escape”: Eureka Springs.
Here families can challenge the state’s highest zip-line as speeds through the canopy of trees high in the Ozark hills. Ozark Mountain Zip-lines offer an extreme adventure for ages three and up. Ten zip-lines 120- to 1800-feet long suspended 20-to 200-feet above the ground.
At least two hotels in Eureka Springs offer top-rated ghost hunting. The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa has become known as “America’s most haunted hotel” because of the unparalleled paranormal discoveries, seen and/or digitally captured by those on the hotel’s nightly ghost tour as well as numerous television programs such as SyFy’s “Ghost Hunters”. The newest venture into the past and the beyond is the 1905 Basin Park Hotel’s “Spirits of The Basin” nightly tour. This top to bottom tour of Downtown Eureka’s only skyscraper introduces names and mental images of those who have walked –and some say still walking- the hallways of this historic seven story structure and the tales that have made them immortal.
Saved from extinction, more than 100 big cats at Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge roam their natural habitats roaring and waiting for families’ close-up looks. These lions and tigers and bears, creatures that someday may be only a picture online, become stars of safe safaris daily. These massive, beautiful animals were rescued from awful circumstances and given a new chance to live out their years here in a loving, caring natural environment.
Other family-friendly Spring Break attractions include hiking the “hills and hollers” of the urban Ozark trails, sojourning through time on the Downtown-N- Underground tour; experiencing the inspiration of The Great Passion Play’s Bible Museum and pre-arranged Holy Land Tour; holding on tight on the back deck of a vintage trolley as it traverses over Eureka’s twisty, zigzag, up and down streets; and capturing “new history” with an antique family photo at Judge Roy Bean’s.