Things to do in Birmingham, AL with kids on the cheap.
I’ll elaborate…
One of my very favorite things to do is to explore a new city. I like to do all the touristy stuff and see things that maybe aren’t as popular or well known. And, with a family of 6, I like to keep it fairly cheap! We stopped in Birmingham for 2 nights on our way to Destin this year.
On our way down, we stopped in Huntsville, AL to go to the US Space and Rocket Center. I have to say, it was pretty awesome. This is where the super smart people in the 1960’s figured out how to use rockets to propel us into space. The kids had a blast riding in the simulator, doing the Mars climbing wall, and riding the outdoor rides which are all included with admission. If you have a local science center membership, you can get in free! Saved us $100!
The next day, we went to see the Vulcan Statue which is the largest cast iron statue in the world and overlooks the city on a small mountain. There is a small museum that tells the history of Birmingham. They have a fun little scavenger hunt for kids to do of things to find in the museum. Then, you can take an elevator about 4 stories up to walk around the base of the statue and see amazing views of the city. This cost us about $26 for all of us and was worth it for the view alone.
Then, we drove over to The Southern Flight Museum, mainly because we could get in free with our science center membership card. It was pretty interesting and had lots of planes, helicopters, engines, and flight simulators. The kids had a good time and I’d say it was worth it to do once.
Next, we went downtown to the McWane Science Center. Again, we got in free. This place was huge! It had 4 floors of exhibits to explore and a pretty good food court. We spent about 3 hours here.
Then, to end the day, we wanted to go to the park that commemorates some of the civil rights history of Birmingham. Its called Kelly Ingram Park and it is right across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church where 4 girls were killed in a KKK bombing in 1963. We had learned about this at the Civil Right Institute in Atlanta so it was interesting to see it in person. The park also had many statues depicting some of the horrors that occurred during that era.
The next day, we stopped in Selma, AL to see the bridge where the march to Montgomery began and to learn about the first attempt to march called Bloody Sunday. The National Park System has 2 interpretive centers to visit to learn about what happened. One is in Selma and depicts the violence towards the peaceful protesters from the police. It was hard to see some of the pictures and how awful people could treat other human beings. The other interpretive center is halfway to Montgomery and teaches about the Voting Rights Act.
All, in all, we learned a lot and enjoyed seeing new things before our week at the beach began!
Here’s where I get really excited about our trip though. We stayed at a Hyatt Place in Hoover, AL near the Galleria. We stayed for FREE with points that I transferred from my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card to my Hyatt account. This took 1 minute of my time to do! It’s that easy. The hotel would have cost us $300 after taxes for 2 nights. Instead, I used the equivalent of $100 worth of points for 2 nights! ****I saved $200***You must have a sapphire level card from Chase to transfer to their travel partners. Here is my referral link if you’re interested in the Chase Sapphire Preferred (Disclosure: I get 15,000 points per referral up to 5 referrals per year). I’ll briefly mention that I just booked flights to Denver for a trip in September on Southwest using Chase points that I transferred (saved $150). And, I transferred points to Hyatt to cover the 5 nights at our hotel (saved $155). This makes me so happy! 🤗🤗