Schulz Museum, a play-forward children’s museum, and dessert-first dinners, this Sonoma County town is basically Charlie Brown’s world IRL. When the chance came to visit Santa Rosa, California, and experience the Charles M. Schulz Museum, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
Our little one is ~deep~ in a Snoopy phase. We’ve been rotating Peanuts classics with The Snoopy Show on Apple TV+ because they’re such great low-stimulation wind-down shows before bed (parents included). So Peanuts Gang vibes were definitely what we wanted out of a family trip, and Santa Rosa delivered: walkable cozy dining, cute cartoon sightings around every corner, and plenty for a little kid to get into.
Getting there was definitely the most stressful part because our once-dozing darling of the skies had grown into a ball of energy bouncing around the cabin. Thankfully, the flight was only an hour long from our home base of Los Angeles. Once we hit the road the rest of the way in a rental car, our drive from San Francisco to Santa Rosa washed away the stress as we road-tripped over the water on the Golden Gate Bridge and into the lush greenery of Sonoma County.
Visit Santa Rosa hosted Scary Mommy at the Art House Hotel and put together a family-friendly itinerary built around the Charles M. Schulz Museum and the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County, with some of the town’s best food mixed in. First up was the Poppy Bank Epicenter, where we got to shake loose energy from all the travel sitting.
There’s a toddler play area, an arcade, bowling, and Sky Zone, where if your kid is too restless to sit for food, you can pack it up and head over to an activity to tire them out. We’re in the restaurant training era, and she was just not having it. Still, Victory House at Epicenter was a great spot; we got massive burgers with fries, plus kids' dino nuggets to go.
After a workout on the awesome 4-person Omni Motion VR screen games, we headed back to the hotel to put her to bed and reheat our food. Here's where Art House really shines for families. Once our little one knocked out, we were able to make use of a full kitchen and sit down at a real dining table to eat like actual adults while still keeping an eye on our snoozing kid.
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