Looking for recommendations on vacations out of Texas (not international) with 3 young boys (ages 1, 3 and 5). We've been to the Smokey mountains and went to cloudcroft last year. In general we're more outdoorsy and a mountain family than we are beach but also trying to keep in mind entertaining the kiddos.

Hit me with your best!

Tent Camping in Yellowstone/ Grand Teton, Rabun county Georgia , Boxley Valley Arkansas, Beavers Bend , Ely, Minnesota gateway to Boundary Waters, Mentone, Al ( Little River area) , Fall Creek Falls-Tennessee , Rock City and Tennessee aquarium Chattanooga

I'm a fan of Red River. We went 5 years in a row over July 4th week starting when our kids were 2&3. Plenty of things to do in town, including the community house with daily activities, go karts, mountain tubing and more. Right on the River so at that age, letting them throw rocks in the water generally killed any downtime. Plenty of fishing ponds that are kid friendly in red River and Questa. If you center your stay near the park, pretty much everything is walkable, so that allowed me to take the truck fly fishing without stranding my wife and kids at the house with nothing to do. Chuck wagon dinner at Bobcat pass is fun once with the kids.

We generally go into Taos one day (about 40 mins away). They have a place called Twirl that's fun for the kids for an hour or 2. Paddle boats in Angelfire (about 30 mins away).

We're going back this year for the first time in 4 years, so I'll take the boys in a guided fly fishing trip with me and some self guided mornings. We will also be doing some off-roading and hiking to some of the mountain lakes

vacation with kids? you mean parenting in a different city.

Are you living in Texas?

We've always found Colorado Springs / Manitou Springs to be fun with young kids. Cooler temps, lots of outdoor activities and our kids favorite at that age was The North Pole at the base of Pike's Peak. It's a Christmas Themed park with just tons of rides for kids of yours' age. https://northpolecolorado.com/

Garden of the Gods is a lot of fun too.
Dinosaur Museum in nearby Woodland Park if your kids are into Dinosaurs https://www.rmdrc.com/
Olympic Museum is great.
At that age I feel like you are just trying to enjoy spending time with them someplace new so make it easy on yourself, right?

I wouldn't do Yellowstone or any of the "big parks" at that age as none of your kids will really remember or appreciate it just yet. (When they get older make sure to do the Jr. Ranger programs in all the National Parks.)

Also, we always sought out the different Children's museums wherever we went when our kids were that age. Santa Fe has a good one and it also has Meow Wolf which they'd probably love too.

We did a trip to Oregon last year with 1 kid (about 20 months old at the time) and it was spectacular. Stayed in Pacific City.

We're not normally beach people either, but this is a cooler weather beach and was different than your typical sunny/warm. We went out to the beach a couple of times, but there are other places to explore around there.

Not sure how it would be with 3 kids. Probably much more difficult, ha.

We did a visit to Tillamook in my aforementioned Oregon post. On the way to pacific City we hit up the cheese/ice cream place and it was great, would be great for multiple kids.

Then another day we went up to a big air museum outside of town.