Riverboats, bluff trails, more than three million Rotary Lights and a museum for the kids, sorted by season.
La Crosse is a river town with a wall of bluffs behind it, and nearly everything worth doing here happens either on the water or on the way up the hill. The things to do in La Crosse gather around the point where the Mississippi, Black and La Crosse rivers meet, with bluffs rising about 500 feet behind the downtown grid.
Lieutenant Zebulon Pike recorded the spot as Prairie La Crosse in 1805, after a stick game played there, and Nathan Myrick set up a trading post on Barron Island, today's Pettibone Park, in 1841. About 52,680 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Viterbo University and Western Technical College bring nearly 20,000 students, which keeps the downtown restaurants and music rooms busy through the school year. Choose the season before anything else. Winter belongs to the Rotary Lights, autumn to the beer festival, and any warm weekend to the river and the trails. Oktoberfest USA has finished for 2026, and the festival's own site lists the next dates as September 30 to October 3, 2027.
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Riverside Park and the river
Riverside Park, at 100 State Street, is the natural starting point, because the Queen paddlewheeler, the Rotary Lights and the Oktoberfest grounds all sit within half a mile of it.
The planner John Nolen designed the park, and it was built in 1912. Take the paths slowly, then follow the sound of a paddlewheel.
Rotary Lights, the winter reason to come
Rotary Lights opens on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which in 2026 means November 27, and runs through December 31, from 5 to 10 p.m. on most nights. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day close at 9 p.m., and New Year's Eve runs from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Oktoberfest USA, the autumn festival
Oktoberfest USA was first held in 1961 and is billed as the longest-running Oktoberfest in the Midwest. A local history credits Heileman brewery chief Roy Kumm as one of four golf friends who dreamed it up.
Things to do in La Crosse with children
Rainy day or short attention span, two stops near the river handle both.
Afterward, the sweet option is on Pearl Street, in a building from 1874.
Out on the flat, Myrick Park has the Kids Coulee playground, built by about 3,700 volunteers in 1994, and a marsh loop beside it. Plan a slow hour among the parks in La Crosse, where the marsh, the beach and the forest trails are all free to enter.
Grandad Bluff, Hixon Forest and the trails
Grandad Bluff, the overlook east of downtown and about 2.4 miles from Riverside Park, was bought by Joseph and Irene Hixon in 1909 and given to the city as a park in 1912. Local write-ups put it at about 600 feet above the river valley. Wikipedia says the bluff overlooks the three-state region, so a clear day gives a long view.
Out on the island, the sandy Mississippi beach and the 27-hole disc golf course at Pettibone Park sit on land that belonged to Minnesota until an act of Congress moved it to Wisconsin in 1918.
A market, a movie palace and a fruit winery
Not everything here is outdoors, and a few smaller stops fill a half day well.
The Rivoli Theatre and Pizzeria pairs pizza, beer and wine with screenings, and reviewers describe pizza brought to your seat in a main theater that began as an opera house. Nearby, The Root Note serves crepes, coffee and craft beer, with live music and open-mike nights.
The DnA Vintners tasting room pours cranberry, rhubarb, currant, cherry and pear fruit wines alongside wine slushies, and reviewers say the owners help groups choose. The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a neoclassical church with frescoes, a large mosaic, a cafe and a gift shop, about 5.7 miles south-east of Riverside Park, so treat it as a separate trip by car. Reviewers mention a rosary walk and a fountain.
The old Heileman Old Style plant, founded in 1858, is now City Brewing, a contract brewer that does not offer tours, and the breweries in La Crosse that pour a pint sit north of downtown.
Where to eat while you are here
Dinner within a few blocks of the river runs from a freight depot to a former hotel, and the restaurants in La Crosse that suit a long meal sit in those same streets.
For mornings, there is breakfast in La Crosse that runs from Dutch pancakes to a diner themed around the 1980s.
Coffee stops sit close together downtown, with five of the coffee shops in La Crosse within about a third of a mile of one another.
From the river lawn to the top of the bluff is about 2.4 miles in a straight line, and the Queen, the Lights, the museum and the trails all fit inside that gap.
Frequently asked questions
Published September 21, 2026
