Our Favorite Parks
Durham has MANY parks. These are some of our members' favorites.
The City of Durham's Parks Locator is interactive in a limited sort of way. You must select a park by name (it looks like you could click on a map dot, but you can't) or by amenities. It can be a little hard to figure out where the park is, if you're not familiar with Durham.
...in Durham
- Forest Hills Park, 1639 University Dr south of downtown, features water play, giant sand area, and a nice climbing structure.
- Rock Quarry Park/Edison Johnson,
600 W Murray Ave (next to the Museum of Life & Science), looks like two different parks.
The Edison Johnson complex, on the north side of Murray Ave, has a nice playground and climbing structure and a large arts complex.
Rock Quarry Park, on the south side of Murray Ave, has a paved walking trail and a giant dinosaur in the woods! - Cook Road Park, a spiffy new park on Cook Rd about 1/2mi north of Martin Luther King Dr, has two wonderful climbing structures, swings, a half basketball court, and a hilly loop trail. (It has not yet been added to the Parks Locator. It's on the west side of Cook Rd; the sign is VERY hard to spot.)
- Solite Park, 4600 Fayetteville Rd at Barbee Rd, adjoins the American Tobacco Trail. Climbing structures, swings, picnic pavilion, and a level loop trail great for letting little ones ride bikes.
- Rockwood Park, 300 Stuart Rd (off University Drive behind the Little Gym), is *shady*!
- Wrightwood Park, 200 Bivens St (also accessible from Anderson Rd south of Duke Gardens), is also shady.
- Piney Wood Park, off East Woodcroft Parkway (the section just east of Fayetteville Rd) is a nice, relatively shady park that also has a fenced dog park. The equipment is older and geared more to preschoolers than toddlers.
- ...and more! The City of Durham's Parks Locator has info on all of Durham's 60+ parks.
...and elsewhere
- Morrisville Park: for kids who REALLY like to climb!
- Pullen Park in Raleigh: carousel, train rides, paddleboats, more.
- Baileywick Park: north Raleigh, not far from Brier Creek.
- RDU Airport Observation Park: watch airplanes take off and land, and listen to the tower talk. Plus there's always a breeze.