Stuart's Best Parks for Kids
Five places to burn off an afternoon — from a downtown playground with a fishing pier to 65 acres of ballfields and trails.
Picked and checked by hand; updated when hours, venues, menus, or source pages change.
The rare park where the kids can climb and you can still walk to lunch. There's playground equipment and a basketball court right in downtown, plus a riverwalk boardwalk that runs out over the St. Lucie and a lighted fishing pier at the end of it. Five pavilions, BBQ grills, and picnic tables mean you can turn a quick stop into a whole afternoon, and there are accessible restrooms on site.
- 201 SW Flagler Ave, Stuart, FL 34994
- Open sunrise to sunset. The downtown location makes this the easiest one to fold into other errands.
Shepard is the two-audience park: a playground for the kids, and a boat launch, fishing dock, and boardwalk over the St. Lucie for everyone else in the family who'd rather be looking at water. Grills, picnic tables, and a pavilion cover the food logistics if you're staying past snack time.
- 600 SW Ocean Blvd, Stuart, FL 34994
- Open sunrise to sunset, with lighted facilities running until 10pm — useful if you're stretching a cookout into the evening.
The straightforward neighborhood pick. Playground equipment, pavilions, picnic tables, BBQ grills, drinking fountains, and accessible restrooms — everything a birthday party or a random Saturday actually needs, and nothing you have to plan around. There's even a free wireless hotspot, which is either a feature or a hazard depending on the ages involved.
- 451 S Colorado Ave, Stuart, FL 34994
- Open sunrise to sunset; lighted facilities stay open until 10pm.
Sandsprit sits right at the entrance to Manatee Pocket, facing the St. Lucie Inlet and the Indian River Lagoon, so the boat traffic is half the entertainment. There's a children's playground, picnic areas, bathrooms, boat ramps, and a beach area — the kind of place where kids alternate between the swings and the shoreline until someone gets wet. It's also a designated site on the Martin County Paddling Trail if you're bringing a kayak.
- 3443 SE St. Lucie Blvd, Stuart, FL 34997
- Dog-friendly under BARK Ranger rules, so the family dog can come along.
This is the big one — the largest park in Martin County, with 65 acres of active parkland wrapped in roughly 500 acres of wetland preserve. Soccer and football fields, tennis, pickleball, disc golf, and a roller-hockey rink cover the organized-sport crowd, while hiking, biking, and paddling trails handle everyone who'd rather wander. Picnic pavilions are scattered throughout, so you can set up a home base and let the day sprawl.
- 8303 SW Lost River Rd, Stuart, FL 34997
- Open every day, 7am to 11pm — by far the widest window on this list.