Frisco is known as Sports City USA. 

In fact, the city just launched a docuseries exploring how it evolved from a sleepy rural town into a hotspot for major sports organizations. The city is home to notable names including the Dallas Cowboys, PGA Tour, Frisco RoughRiders, and the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

But what if you’re not into sports? There’s still plenty to enjoy in Frisco, whether you’re rolling solo or bringing the entire family along. Discover how to plan a sports-free Frisco getaway.

Grab a Controller at the National Videogame Museum

Two things welcome guests as soon as they enter the National Videogame Museum. First, an inviting sculpture featuring classic characters like Mario, Sonic, and Pac-Man greets everyone with open arms. Second, there’s a screen displaying the largest game of Pong in the world.

From there, it’s a journey through the history of video games. You’ll see the early days of controllers with a joystick and one button all the way to the immersive worlds of Minecraft and other online games. There are more than 100,000 pieces of video-game related hardware, software, memorabilia, and documentation. And yes, there are ample opportunities to play.

A row of consoles offers a nice place to rest and explore classic games from the vaults of companies like Nintendo and Sony. If you’re like me and grew up on a Nintendo 64, you may wince watching a youngster struggle to figure out a puzzle on Super Mario 64. But hey, we all have to start somewhere. There’s also a bevy of classic computer games, from titles that even die-hards probably haven’t tried to nostalgia rushes like Oregon Trail. Just remember: If the water is shallow, choose to ford the river.

Even if gaming isn’t your thing, the attention to detail in the National Videogame Museum is impressive. There’s a recreation of a vintage bedroom and living room with spot-on posters, artwork, and furniture stylings. Or perhaps you’ll be drawn to the retail store recreation from the video game crash of 1983, with cries of “Everything must go!” The museum hosts regular rotating exhibits, too, such as the evolution of Pokémon as a global brand. NVM may not have caught them all in its display case of collectibles, but it got pretty darn close.

Before heading out, guests walk through the Pixel Dreams Arcade. The price of the museum’s admission includes four tokens, so try your hand at some of the finest cabinets from the glory days of arcades. A notable highlight is Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, where you can use the “Thriller” dance to destroy cartoonish villains. There’s also Tapper, a game that steps inside the life of a beer-slinging bartender with endless thirsty customers. It might make you crave a frosty beverage of your own. You can even keep the vibes going by sipping and playing at the nearby Nerdvana gaming bar.

Take a Ride at TrainTopia

Located inside the Museum of the American Railroad, TrainTopia is the legacy of Steve Sanders. He was a train enthusiast who amassed a staggering collection throughout his life. TrainTopia boasts over 2,500 square feet of trains, tracks, characters, and scenery across the southwestern United States, from Texas to Colorado.

TrainTopia is especially intriguing for eagle-eyed visitors since it offers multiple scavenger hunts. The space might set a record for most Easter Eggs in one location, and some of the items on the scavenger hunt checklist require quite a bit of searching. Something like a billboard for a beverage company is easy to spot. Scooby-Doo and Shaggy waiting to cross a busy street is a little less obvious.

Every few minutes, the environment changes from day to night. Nighttime illuminates new features among the trains and settings, and the drive-in movie theater—complete with Looney Tunes showings and vintage cars in the parking lot—feels so cozy that you just might saddle up and grab a seat yourself.

Should you need to see some trains that aren’t miniature, the Museum of the American Railroad does regular walking tours of its locomotives and other cars outside. Learn about the history of rail expansion across Texas while hopping on board some retired trains, which are still in surprisingly sturdy condition.

Get Learning at the Sci-Tech Discovery Center

STEM experiments are the best when you can dive right in and test things out yourself. The Sci-Tech Discovery Center has no shortage of those opportunities. Its activities are widely spaced out, so you never feel like you’re infringing on anyone else.

You might take a turn or two on the extra-large Operation board—how someone ingests all these things, we don’t want to know—or play around on the colorful shadow wall. Or maybe engineering is more your interest. In that case, build a rocket from a plastic bottle and create and race mechanized wooden cars. 

Sci-Tech has cool educational components on lesser-known subjects, like structural simulations of earthquake tremors or how a supply chain works. True to that theme, the center delivers good times in strong supply.

Step Back in Time at the Heritage Center and Museum

The Frisco Heritage Center and Museum is free and houses several exhibits that explore the city’s history in some pretty creative ways. You’ll hear a radio announcer delivering updates next to a vintage car. Or, step into the office of Dr. Erwin Pink, the community’s only doctor when he moved to the city in the 1950s. Because Pink tended to the local football team, his desk is full of raccoon memorabilia in honor of the team’s mascot.

You’ll also find rotating pop-up or seasonal exhibits at the center. For example, aquatic life shines with a glow-in-the-dark deep dive into underwater creatures. During Halloween, the walls undergo a festive transformation into a haunted house complete with ghost stories.

The area around the Heritage Center and Museum is worth a stroll, as well. There are some stunning, vibrant historic buildings, and you can peek inside an old log cabin and schoolhouse. Should you want to tickle the ivories, a community piano sits beneath a gazebo—and it’s still in tune!

Admire the Extensive Texas Sculpture Garden in HALL Park

Every city worth its salt has a couple of eye-catching sculptures that cause people to turn their heads. Austin has Stevie Ray Vaughan and the cool “Vibrancy” guitars. Prague has a giant metal Franz Kafka head and King Wenceslas riding an upside-down horse. Zurich has whatever this contraption is.

Yet Frisco might have them all beat with HALL Park. It’s home to over 200 pieces of public art, including the Texas Sculpture Garden, the largest private collection of contemporary Texas sculpture. Despite that descriptor, the collection is open to the public. The city’s sculptures are spread out over a series of blocks around HALL Park, spanning 162 acres. The Texas Sculpture Garden is a four-acre tract at the beginning of the park. Some works are inside and others are nestled around a lake. Several are delightfully quirky. 

“Time Management” by Dallas artist Zad Roumaya features a trio of life-size blue figures. Two are in a hurry and the third is relaxing and admiring the scenic view of the lake. Joe Barrington’s “The Headline Screamed: Bait House Disappears Without a Trace!” uses galvanized steel to showcase a fish with a shocking number of teeth snatching a bait house out of midair. If you’re in a hurry, stop by Polly Gessell’s “Art Conference.” It references forms and designs from other works in the collection.

To learn more about the works as you explore, download the free Otocast app. It includes voice notes from the collection’s curators and artists. You’ll get insight into the types of materials artists worked with, the inspiration behind their creations, and a few secrets you might not catch at first glance. The app also includes a map to navigate. However, you could simply wander down a path and encounter a work that stops you in your tracks.

That’s a good way to approach Frisco, in general. No matter which direction you head, you’re never too far away from something special.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cover photo Joey Held

Joey Held is a writer, author, and podcaster based in Austin. His book, Kind, But Kind of Weird: Short Stories on Life’s Relationships, features stories inspired by living in the Lone Star State. He’s also the founder of Fun Fact Friyay, a newsletter for curious people, and Wacky Travel, for travelers who enjoy quirky discoveries in the places they visit.