Meow Wolf Santa Fe with Kids: A Review
Taking your kids to Meow Wolf Santa Fe will probably leave them with more questions than answers, but that’s also kind of the point!
This immersive, walkable art project is part mystery story, part sci-fi adventure, and part psychedelic playground.
At the heart of the experience is the question of what happened to the family who once lived in the full sized farmhouse that now resides in the Meow Wolf warehouse.
But, you don’t even need your kids to adhere to that thread completely for them to have an incredible experience here.
In the guide below, you’ll learn about everything you need to know about visiting this iconic spot in Santa Fe, including what exactly to expect throughout your exploration, what to bring and do, and why the portals to another world are in all of the appliances!
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What is Meow Wolf Santa Fe?
My dad and kids exploring an underwater-themed part of the multiverse at Meow Wolf!
Describing Meow Wolf Santa Fe to someone who hasn’t ever been can be a bit of a challenge since it breaks so many molds.
It’s an interactive art project, but it’s nothing like you’d find in a museum.
It’s a role playing mystery, but you can still get plenty of the experience without fully exploring that element.
It’s a family drama meets sci-fi multiverses, with a splash of the psychedelic thrown in!
This is also the first Meow Wolf experience, and its popularity has spawned several others across the United States:
Convergence Station in Denver, Colorado,
Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Nevada,
Radio Tave in Houston, Texas,
The Real Unreal in Grapevine, Texas.
Meow Wolf New York City (under construction), and
Meow Wolf Los Angeles (also under construction).
Each of the Meow Wolf locations immerses you into a completely new, mind-bending world and story, so if your family likes Meow Wolf Santa Fe, look for the others elsewhere on your travels!
But seriously, what am I taking my kids to see?
One way into the multiverse at Meow Wolf Santa Fe is through the refrigerator.
Alright, I’ll stop tantalizing you with the project’s larger concepts and get right into the heart of what’s actually here.
Meow Wolf Santa Fe is an interactive experience, where you walk through what seems to be a farm house, but it’s actually connected to a multiverse.
What could be hidden through the dryer? My kids can’t wait to find out!
As a thread to help guide you through the experience, there’s a family drama to unravel.
The grandfather of the family who lives in the farm house has disappeared, and, to the Meow Wolf visitors, it looks as if some—or all—of the family has managed to follow him.
But, Grandpa didn’t wander to the next town over, of course.
What happened to him is a web of intergalactic mystery and time travel.
The full name of the experience is called Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return, which more completely drives home the idea of time travel and experience than the moniker of Meow Wolf Santa Fe.
If you’re visiting with younger kids who might not want to wade through the time travel details, that’s okay, too, as they’ll be just as captivated crawling through the dryer, walking through the refrigerator, finding hidden doors, and exploring the brightly colored rooms along the way.
What’s with the name?
The experience doesn’t have anything to do with cats or wolves or animals of any kind.
The founders of the project were looking for something to name it that felt fresh and unexpected and those were the 2 words that they picked out of a jar with a variety of words in it!
What to Expect When You Get There
Get reservations.
Despite Meow Wolf first opening its doors in 2016, it is still wildly popular, and you will need reservations.
You can choose your arrival time when you purchase your tickets online.
For younger kids, plan to stay here for a couple of hours. They’ll enjoy climbing on the different elements, seeing the neon lights, and exploring the main farm house, but they won’t need a full day here.
In this case, you could start your visit around 1 or 2 PM, and explore until dinner time.
For older kids who are interested in helping to unravel the mystery of the central family, you’ll want to plan a longer stay.
My daughter, who was 10 when we visited, really got into the different clues hidden all over the house, and how each of them led to a new part of the multi-verse part of the exhibit.
I had to balance her interest in that part of the experience with my then 6-year-old, who just wanted to run, jump, and play.
Ultimately, we stayed for a half day, but if I’d just gone with my older child, we easily could’ve stayed all day with a break in the middle for lunch. There’s honestly that much to dive into, read, and see here if you’re willing to fully immerse yourself in the experience.
For those families with older kids who will want to do the same, plan to get one of the earlier time slots in the day. This will then allow you a more leisurely placed exploration with time to break for a snack, drink, or meal.
However you approach your stay, choose a time that you know you’ll be able to make. The security team will let you through if you’re a little early or a little behind your ticketed time, but you will be asked to reschedule if you’re massively off one way or the other.
You’ll go through security.
Because there are so many people actively exploring the space at one time, and there are small areas to wiggle through and find, you can’t bring in bulky bags.
You also aren’t allowed to bring in strollers as they simply will not fit most of the attraction.
Stop by the gift shop.
If you’re looking for a fun, funky souvenir that showcases local artists, head over to the gift shop.
There are Meow Wolf themed shirts, stickers, and stationery, but you’ll also find local and indie artists who’ve contributed their artwork to clothing, bags, and more.
You’ll even find baby onesies and kids’ t-shirts if your little ones want to take something home after their time here.
My son in a groovy-futuristic themed room in the multiverse section
Remember: there’s no right or wrong way to go through the space.
Unlike a theme park ride, which has a very clear beginning, middle, and end, your time at Meow Wolf can take any number of paths.
Perhaps you want to start at the mailbox, reading through the family’s letters, or maybe barging through the front door is a better way in.
There are side doors as well, to further provide you with starting points.
Once you’re inside the house, you can explore the living room, dining room, kitchen, or laundry on the first floor, or head upstairs to see what’s there.
You’ll find different access points to the multiverse in the unlikeliest of places in the house, so don’t leave anything unexplored!
As you move through the warehouse that contains Meow Wolf, you’ll likely pop out in places that you’ve already visited, so you path will cross and recross.
The Meow Wolf Experience
The thing I want to emphasize for families visiting Meow Wolf Santa Fe is that the experience is immersive but not scary.
You won’t have any props jumping out at you, and there are no employees trying to scare you or be creepy like at a haunted house.
From time to time, there will be a “visitor” or two from the multiverse exploring the space alongside you, but these actors are there to enhance the immersive experience, not make it frightening. You can’t miss them, as they’ll be in fun and funky retro-futuristic costuming.
The focus is on exploration rather than a single experience, and no two visits are going to be exactly alike.
As I mentioned earlier, you’ll enter from the lobby into a massive, darkened warehouse. In this warehouse, you’ll find a 2 story farmhouse, which is fully decorated and explorable.
The curtains are made of real fabric, the lamps turn on and off, you can sit at the dining room table, and there are spices in the cabinets.
But, hidden just from sight is an entire world—the multiverse sections of the experience—that is full of color and sound and light.
The way that you get to the multiverse varies, as well. You can crawl through the fireplace in the living room, or open the door of the refrigerator in the kitchen. There’s a portal in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and a starry slide to the multiverse in the dryer!
Once you’re in the multiverse sections, you’ll see why this experience is often labeled “psychedelic” as many areas have that colorful assault on the senses that experimental art of the 1960s and 70s did.
But it’s more than wild splashes of color.
3D kids in a comic book world
One room looks like it came to life from a black and white comic. Another room has a 2 story tall tree with a bus stuck in its branches.
There’s another room with music you can manipulate, another that looks like an old saloon, and another that has abstract, colorful film projected onto the walls.
As you pass through the multiverse into the farmhouse and then back again, you’ll find letters, newspapers, handwritten notes, books, and computer printouts that help you piece together exactly what’s so special about this house and the family who lived here.
Meow Wolf is a great way to see interest based learning in action since the way through it is so fluid and individual. It’s fun to just follow your kids through the space to see what catches their eye, and what makes them turn right instead of left at different junctures.
Why Meow Wolf Santa Fe is a Great Option for Families
Only at Meow Wolf will you find the universe inside the pantry.
While Santa Fe has so much to offer families, including the incredible museums and historic sites of downtown, Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return needs to be on your itinerary, too.
I especially love that it is accessible to a wide range of ages and interests, so you could bring a toddler and a teen here, and they’d get equally great but very different things out of the experience.
The lights, bright colors, and creative spaces are eye-catching and interactive for younger kids
For your upper elementary and middle school visitors, they’ll have the experience of living inside of a sci-fi mystery.
And, for high schoolers, they’ll have the challenge of solving a complex story across time and space.
What to Bring (and Not Bring)
Do bring: a small purse.
The maximum size for a purse or handbag here is 8” x 8”, so only pack the essentials.
Find a waist pack or sling-style bag that will hold your car keys, wallet, phone, chap stick, and any essential medications, and leave the rest in a safe place.
On a note of practicality, you don’t want a big, bulky purse or backpack holding you back from fully exploring the space, which would quickly get in the way if they were allowed.
Don’t bring: food.
You aren’t able to take snacks or drinks back into the farmhouse or multi-verse, so don’t try to bring in food.
If you do get hungry, there is an onsite cafe that has everything from futuristic-inspired drinks to sandwiches and chips.
If you’re thirsty but don’t want to buy anything, you can get water from a fountain in the lobby.
Do bring: money.
You and/or your children are going to want a snack and a souvenir, so make sure that you have cash or a credit card on you to buy those.
Once you’re in the venue, food and items in the gift shop are all that you could spend money on. There’s nothing in the farmhouse or multi-verse to purchase.
Final Thoughts on Visiting Meow Wolf Santa Fe with Kids
I’m always looking for new ways to introduce the arts to my kids (like the time we explored all of the best museums in St. Petersburg, Florida, for families!) and Meow Wolf seemed like an excellent fit while we were visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I expected my kids to think it was weird and interesting, but we all ended up loving it. We stayed for several hours, and, honestly, could’ve made it an all day activity. I’d booked a later slot in the afternoon, which cut down on our overall time to explore.
Giving us more breathing room to wander through the space would be my biggest piece of advice, as this place does not need to be rushed.
Your kids will love it for its brilliantly colored, sparklingly, and otherworldly rooms, and you’ll love all of the creative thinking and mind-body movement that has to occur to fully experience the project.
If you’re in Santa Fe with kids, this absolutely has to be on your list of things to do!
