Indoor Things to Do in Boulder
Rain is only one of the reasons to be inside here. Wildfire smoke shuts the outdoors just as fast, and Open Space closes muddy trails outright every spring. Boulder has three genuinely free museums, a free makerspace, three indoor pools and four climbing gyms for exactly those days.
Photo: Mark Gallagher from Colorado Springs, USA ยท CC BY 2.0
Boulder Things To Do › Rainy day / indoor
Last checked: July 26, 2026
If the day has gone against you, there's plenty here to rescue it: three free museums, a free makerspace, three indoor pools and four climbing gyms, all with prices below. Rain is only one reason to be inside in Boulder. Smoke from a fire upwind does it faster, and every spring Open Space closes muddy trails outright rather than let them get wrecked. The answer is the same whichever sent you looking.
Indoor Boulder, with prices
| Place | Town | What it is | Address | Cost | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gateway Park Fun Center | Boulder | Mini golf, go-karts, batting cages and an arcade, indoor and outdoor | 4800 28th St | No admission. Mini golf $11 adult, $9 senior, $8 ages 4 to 7, free under 3. Go-karts $11, kiddie karts $8 | Open every day 10am to 10pm, year round, weather permitting. Single-seat go-karts need age 9 and 58 inches, and you must be 18 to drive someone in a double kart. |
| Boulder Circus Center | Boulder | Circus arts studio. For a visitor, the free Sunday juggling drop-in and the ticketed EQUINOX show | 4747 26th St | Juggling Club free. EQUINOX show ticketed | Juggling Club runs Sundays 6 to 10pm with no booking needed. The classes are a different matter: term-based, mostly registered through student portals, and the one drop-in aerial class is for people with prior experience. This isn't somewhere to turn up and try circus for the first time. |
| Celestial Seasonings | Boulder | Tea factory tour, plus a tea bar pouring more than 80 varieties | Tour $6 per person, ages 5 and up. The tea bar and gift shop are free | Tours Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 4, closed Sunday and Monday. The tour needs an online booking and a signed waiver, and you should arrive 15 minutes early; the tea bar and shop need neither. No photography on the tour, and no animals at all on the factory floor, including service animals. About 30 of the 45 minutes is spent standing and walking on concrete. | |
| CU Art Museum | Boulder | University art museum in the Visual Arts Complex | 1085 18th St | Free | Typically closed on Saturdays with a daytime home football game. |
| Dairy Arts Center | Boulder | Galleries, cinema and theater under one roof | 2590 Walnut St | Galleries free daily 12 to 6; cinema and theater ticketed | The best wet-afternoon combination in Boulder: look at art, then sit down for a film. |
| BMoCA | Boulder | Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, over 50 years old | 1750 13th St | Pay what you want, $1 card minimum | 13th Street closes for the farmers market on Saturdays and Wednesdays in season. |
| Museum of Boulder | Boulder | Local history plus the Playzeum and Google Garage family galleries | 2205 Broadway | $12 adults, $10 seniors, college students and youth 5 to 17, under 5 free, free with a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) card | The strongest option with young children. |
| Fiske Planetarium | Boulder | A 65-foot dome, the largest between Chicago and Los Angeles | 2414 Regent Dr | $12 adults, $8 seniors, students, military and youth 4 to 17, plus a $1.50 fee | Closed during Folsom Field concerts and CU home football games. Ticketed per show. |
| NCAR Mesa Lab | Boulder | The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR): science exhibits and a free guided tour at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays | 1850 Table Mesa Dr | Free, including parking | Open 363 days a year. No public transit up the mesa, so you need a car. |
| Boulder Bookstore | Boulder | Three floors and over 100,000 titles, on the mall since 1973 | 1107 Pearl St | Free to browse | The one indoor stop actually on the Pearl Street Mall. |
| Trident Booksellers and Cafe | Boulder | Bookstore and cafe established 1980, employee-owned since 2020 | 940 Pearl St | Free to browse | Coffee and used books, a block west of the mall. |
| Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse | Boulder | A hand-built teahouse, a gift from Boulder's sister city in Tajikistan | 1770 13th St | Restaurant pricing | No reservations for lunch or brunch, walk-ins only, which is ideal on an unplanned wet day. |
| Boulder Public Library and BLDG 61 | Boulder | Free library plus a free drop-in makerspace, with STUDIO 24 at the NoBo branch | 1001 Arapahoe Ave | Free | Under 18 needs a signed release each visit; under 14 must be supervised. |
| Recreation centers | Boulder | Three city centers with indoor pools, a climbing wall at East, a Ninja Studio at South | 3170 Broadway, 1360 Gillaspie, 5660 Sioux Dr | $15 adults, $9 youth 2 to 17, $32 for a group of four | One pass works at all three the same day. Pools close for maintenance, usually in August. |
| Climbing gyms | Boulder | Movement, Boulder Rock Club, The Spot, and ABC Kids Climbing | 2845 Valmont, 2829 Mapleton, 3240 Prairie, 1960 32nd | Movement day pass $29; others sell passes without publishing a price | The Spot is bouldering only, no ropes. ABC is youth-specific and coach-led. |
| Butterfly Pavilion | Westminster | A walk-through tropical butterfly conservatory, plus tarantulas and stingrays, at an invertebrate zoo | 6252 W 104th Avenue | $19.45 adult, $17.45 over 65, $14.45 child 2 to 12, under 2 free. $5 for up to four people with a SNAP, Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) or Women, Infants and Children (WIC) card. | Everyone calls it Broomfield and it's technically just over the line in Westminster. Timed entry, so book a slot. Nothing like it exists in Boulder. |
| Blue Sport Stable | Superior | Two NHL-size ice rinks plus courts, turf, batting cages and golf simulators | 1 Superior Drive | Public skating $8, or $6 for Superior residents. Skate rental $4. Ten-session card $85 with rental. | This was Boulder Valley Ice and is now rebranded. At least one listing site still marks the old name as closed. It never closed. |
| Longmont Museum | Longmont | Fourteen thousand years of the St Vrain Valley, plus rotating exhibitions and a performance auditorium | 400 Quail Road | $8 adult, $5 student or senior, free under 3 | There's no planetarium here, whatever you may have read. A third-party claim of penny admission days couldn't be confirmed on their own page. |
| Firehouse Art Center | Longmont | A contemporary art gallery running a dozen or more exhibitions a year | 667 4th Avenue | Free | The best free indoor hour within half an hour of Boulder. It also runs drop-in clay sessions. |
| Bob L. Burger Recreation Center | Lafayette | A five-pool complex with a lazy river, plus a gym, an indoor track, racquetball, sauna and steam | 111 W Baseline Road | $5.75 adult, $4 youth or 55-plus, $15 family at weekends | The rare local rec center with NO resident and non-resident split, so you pay what a local pays. Louisville charges visitors two and a half times its resident family rate. |
| Louisville Historical Museum | Louisville | Three historic buildings covering the coal mining the town was built on | 1001 Main Street | Free | Their own page says tours, programs and events are always free as well as admission. |
| Erie Community Library | Erie | A public library with a makerspace running laser cutting, sewing and 3D printing | 400 Powers Street | Free to use, card needed to borrow | Run by the High Plains Library District rather than the town, so a Boulder library card isn't the relevant one. |
| Carousel of Happiness | Nederland | A hand-restored 1910 carousel with 56 hand-carved wooden animals under cover | 20 Lakeview Drive | $3 a ride, or $25 for ten. Watching is free. | Up a mountain canyon, so check the road in winter. The shopping center around it burned down in October 2025 and has been demolished. |
If you only have one afternoon
Go to the Dairy Arts Center at 26th and Walnut. The galleries are free and open daily from noon to 6 p.m., and the same building has a cinema and a theater, so a wet afternoon can be a free hour of art followed by a ticketed film without going back outside. Nothing else in Boulder stacks that neatly under one roof.
If you want free and you have a car, NCAR's Mesa Lab is the best value in the city: free admission, free parking, free guided tours at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, open 363 days a year. The catch is access, not money. There's no public transit up the mesa and the nearest bus stop is a 2.1 mile walk with 610 feet of climbing, so it's a car trip.
Downtown and on foot, Boulder Bookstore is the only indoor stop actually on the pedestrian mall, with three floors and more than 100,000 titles. A block west, Trident has been selling coffee and used books since 1980. And the Dushanbe Teahouse takes no reservations for lunch or brunch, only walk-ins, which makes it the rare good Boulder restaurant you can decide on while already wet.
Free indoors
- CU Art Museum, 1085 18th Street. No admission fee, no ticket. Typically closed on Saturdays with a daytime home football game.
- Dairy Arts Center galleries, 2590 Walnut. Free daily, noon to 6 p.m.
- NCAR Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Drive. Free, including tours and parking.
- BMoCA, 1750 13th Street. Pay what you want, $1 minimum on cards only.
- Boulder Public Library, 1001 Arapahoe Avenue, and its free BLDG 61 makerspace.
- Boulder Bookstore and Trident, both free to browse.
Everything else free in Boulder is in the free things to do guide.
Pools, gyms and the makerspace
The city's three recreation centers all have indoor pools: North Boulder on Broadway, South Boulder on Gillaspie, and East Boulder on Sioux Drive. A day pass runs $15 for adults, $11 for 60 and over, $9 for youth 2 to 17, or $32 for a group of four, and it works at all three on the day you buy it. East Boulder has a climbing wall as well, and South Boulder has a Ninja Studio. The city closes pools for maintenance, usually in August, and posts the dates on each facility page, so check before driving out.
For climbing, Movement on Valmont publishes a $29 day pass with shoes at $6. Boulder Rock Club on Mapleton has ropes and bouldering plus youth programs. The Spot on Prairie Avenue opened in 2002 as the first bouldering gym in the United States and is bouldering only, no ropes. ABC Kids Climbing on 32nd is youth-specific and coach-led rather than drop-in.
And the library's BLDG 61 is a free drop-in workshop with no registration and all ages welcome, with a second space called STUDIO 24 at the NoBo branch. Under 18s need a guardian's signed release each visit, and under 14s need an adult with them.
Two things to cross off your list
There's no public ice rink in Boulder. The only rink belongs to CU's Student Recreation Center, and CU states plainly that a Rec Center membership is required, with skating limited to students, members and their guests. It's a staple of Boulder rainy-day lists and it will cost you an afternoon. There's no roller rink either.
The CU Museum of Natural History is closed. Its own homepage carries a banner saying it reopens in fall 2026. It's exactly the kind of place a rainy-day list should send you, which is why it's worth saying plainly that right now it can't.
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Ask about featuring your business ›Indoor Boulder: frequently asked questions
What's there to do in Boulder when it rains?
The three free indoor options are the CU Art Museum, the Dairy Arts Center's galleries, and NCAR's Mesa Lab, which charges nothing for admission, parking, or its guided noon tours. BMoCA is pay-what-you-want. For a longer afternoon, the Dairy is the best single stop in town because you can see the galleries for free and then sit down for a ticketed film in the same building.
Are there free indoor things to do in Boulder?
Yes, more than most visitors realize. The CU Art Museum charges no admission at all. The Dairy Arts Center's galleries are free and open daily from noon to 6 p.m. NCAR's Mesa Lab is free, including free parking and free guided tours at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The Boulder Public Library and its BLDG 61 makerspace are free. And browsing Boulder Bookstore's three floors or Trident costs nothing.
Is there an indoor pool in Boulder?
Three, all city-run: the North Boulder Recreation Center at 3170 Broadway, the South Boulder Recreation Center at 1360 Gillaspie, and the East Boulder Community Center at 5660 Sioux Drive. A day pass is $15 for adults, $11 for 60 and over, $9 for youth 2 to 17, or $32 for a group of four, and it's valid at all three centers on the day of purchase. Check the facility page first, because the city closes pools for maintenance, generally in August.
Is there an indoor ice rink in Boulder?
Not one open to the public. The only ice rink in Boulder is at CU's Student Recreation Center, and CU's own page states you must hold a Rec Center membership to use it, with skating limited to students, members and their guests. Rainy-day guides list it regularly, and following that advice will cost you an afternoon. Boulder has no roller rink either.
What indoor activities does Boulder have for kids?
The Museum of Boulder's Playzeum and Google Garage galleries are the most child-focused, and the museum runs a Bubble Storytime in its Wonder Garden on summer Wednesday mornings. The library's BLDG 61 makerspace is free and welcomes all ages, with supervision required under 14. Four climbing gyms have youth programs, including ABC Kids Climbing, which is built specifically for children from two and a half up. The three city rec centers have indoor pools at $9 for youth.
What do people in Boulder do on smoky or muddy days?
The same things they do when it rains, which is why this list matters more than the rainfall would suggest. Wildfire smoke closes the outdoors as effectively as a storm, and in spring Open Space and Mountain Parks closes trails outright when they're muddy, to stop them being widened and damaged. Boulder gets a lot of sun, but it also gets a lot of days where going up a trail is a bad idea.
Keep exploring
With children, the family guide covers the same places with ages and prices. The museums get fuller treatment in the Pearl Street and museums guide, somewhere warm to eat is on our sister site Taste Boulder, and the hiking guide on Outdoor Boulder tells you when trails close. The full Boulder guide covers every other category.