Canberra’s playgrounds are mostly built with younger children in mind. Once kids reach their teens, what a lot of them want is somewhere to spend time with friends, and those places can be harder to spot. There’s more around than many families realise, though, from youth centres that welcome every young person to free galleries, Saturday parkrun and a few places worth saving up for. Here are 15 to get started with.
When the ACT Children and Young People Commissioner polled 657 students in Years 9 to 12 in 2023, 78 per cent said there weren’t enough accessible play and recreation spaces for their age group. The Commissioner has kept raising it since, and in March 2026 asked the ACT Government to fund more inclusive, safe play spaces in this year’s budget.
For plenty of Canberra teenagers, the default is still the shopping centre. It’s warm, it’s on a bus route and there’s food, and hanging around the mall with friends has been a teenage ritual for about as long as malls have existed. A group of teenagers who aren’t buying anything can start to feel unwelcome there fairly quickly, though, and the same thing happens at playgrounds when they’re sitting on equipment built for much younger kids. When the Commissioner asked older students about this in 2023, it was teenagers who felt it most, and the report backed them, calling for more spaces where young people their age feel properly welcomed.
Some of what young people are after does exist. It’s spread around the city, though, and a fair bit of it sits behind the words “youth centre”, which plenty of people read as somewhere you get sent when things are going wrong.
Purpose Media asked the centres about that. Every one said any young person can turn up, whether they want support or just a game of pool.
These youth centres are for you, and they’re more fun than you’d think
1. Belconnen Youth Centre
Bean bags, pool, table tennis, consoles, board games, and a quiet room for when it all gets a bit loud. Wednesday afternoons are Dungeons and Dragons, and beginners are welcome. On Friday nights there’s a free dinner.
Corner of Chandler St and Swanson Ct, Belconnen. Ages 10 to 24. Free. Tue and Wed 3pm to 6pm, Thu and Fri 3pm to 7.30pm, with dinner from 5.30pm on Fridays.
2. Woden Youth Centre
It’s right across the road from the bus interchange, which matters if nobody can drive you. Inside there’s pool, table tennis, an indoor half basketball court, computers and free food. It has been open since 1989, so there’s a decent chance someone’s parent spent time there too.
29 Callam St, Phillip. Ages 12 to 25. Free. Wed and Thu 3pm to 5pm, Fri 3pm to 6pm, school terms.
3. Gunners Place, Gungahlin
Gungahlin’s youth space moved into the new community centre in July and has a lot more room now. The pool table, Pac-Man, air hockey and PlayStation racing simulator all came along. Northside Community Service, Barnardos, Multicultural Hub Canberra and Relationships Australia run it together, and Multicultural Youth Services, part of Multicultural Hub Canberra, runs the Wednesday drop-in alongside the other partners.
109 The Valley Ave, Gungahlin, near the light rail. Ages 12 to 25. Free. Wed 2pm to 5pm, plus the first Friday of the month 3pm to 7pm, school terms.
4. Mura Lanyon Youth and Community Centre, Conder
YWCA Canberra runs drop-in here with games, a pool table and youth workers who are happy to chat. On Tuesday evenings the A-Z group meets too, a free social group for LGBTQIA+ young people and their allies.
22 Sidney Nolan St, Conder. Ages 10 to 25. Free. Tue and Thu 3pm to 5pm, school terms. A-Z runs Tuesdays 5pm to 7pm for ages 12 to 25.
Canberra’s big national buildings are free, and teenagers are welcome too
5. The national institutions
The National Library, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum and National Film and Sound Archive are all free to walk into. They’re indoors, which counts for a lot in a Canberra July, and nobody there expects a group of friends to buy anything before sitting down.
Free general entry. Some exhibitions and events are ticketed.
6. The National Gallery’s youth programs
On top of free galleries, the National Gallery runs programs and workshops for teens and young adults, and has a youth council for anyone who’d like a say in what the gallery does next.
Free. Upcoming programs are listed on the gallery’s For Young People page.
7. Libraries ACT
Libraries are free, warm and dry, and that’s before the holiday programs. Recent ones for teens have included Pages of Positivity, where you make your own gratitude journal, the Level Up! Teen Board Game Lounge, and an interactive theatre workshop called Performance Playground.
Free. Holiday programs are listed on the Libraries ACT website.
Bring something to play with and these won’t cost a thing
8. Saturday parkrun
A free, timed 5km every Saturday morning. Plenty of people walk it, some chat the whole way round, and nobody minds. Courses run around Lake Burley Griffin, Lake Ginninderra, Yerrabi Pond in Gungahlin and Tuggeranong Town Park.
Free. Saturdays at 8am. Register online first and bring your barcode.
9. Skateparks, with free coaching if you need it
Canberra has skateparks all over, and they’re free. If you don’t own a board yet, the Canberra Skateboarding Association runs free coaching sessions with equipment provided.
Free. Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian to sign them in for coaching.
10. Courts, pump tracks and parks
Bring a basketball or a bike and they’re yours for the afternoon. Not much else to say, really, except that most suburbs have at least one.
Free.
11. Playgrounds built with older kids in mind
A few of Canberra’s newer and upgraded playgrounds have been designed for more than the little ones. The best example is the Maliyan nest area at Point Hut District Playground in Gordon, upgraded in 2024. Its big nest climber and slide were built for junior, pre-teen and teen play, there’s a scramble slope beside the slide, timber and boulder steppers to clamber over, and sandstone blocks that work well as somewhere to sit. The basketball court is right there too. Elsewhere, Casey Community Recreation Park has a flying fox and a multi-purpose court, and the Alston Street playground in Chisholm has climbing poles and a vortex aimed at older children.
Free.
When there’s something to celebrate, these are worth the money
12. Bounce, Belconnen
Around 50 joined-up trampolines, dodgeball courts, a climbing wall and a ninja course, all inside Westfield Belconnen. Loud, sweaty and a good way to wear out a group of friends.
13. Ninja Parc and BlocHaus
Ninja Parc in Fyshwick has the warped wall and obstacle course from the TV show, plus a bouldering wall. If climbing is the main attraction, BlocHaus runs bouldering gyms in Fyshwick and Mitchell.
14. Timezone and Power Kart Raceway
Timezone has a standalone venue at Westfield Woden. Over in Griffith, Power Kart Raceway has indoor karting, glow-in-the-dark mini golf, VR and arcade games under one roof.
15. Networld at Treetops Adventure, Majura Pines
A huge web of bouncy nets, trampolines and ball pits strung up in the pine trees off Lime Kiln Road. It’s active, a bit ridiculous in the best way, and built for all ages, so older teens don’t feel like they’ve wandered into a kids’ play centre. The catch is getting there. Majura Pines is hard to reach without a car, so someone will need to drive.
Prices vary across all of these, so check the website and book ahead.
Some places are built around particular communities, and they’re worth knowing about
Gugan Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation, at 36 Grattan Court in Wanniassa, runs programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people aged 12 to 25. The YWCA Clubhouse in Tuggeranong is a free out-of-school learning space for 10 to 18-year-olds. Tuggeranong Arts Centre’s Messengers team runs free art programs for young people too, including Sketchy Southside for 13 to 18-year-olds, though you apply first and there are some criteria.
Evenings are still a work in progress
Most of the drop-ins above finish by early evening and run on weekdays during term. Older students raised exactly that with the Commissioner in 2023, saying they wanted places they could use later in the day once school, work and family were out of the way. The weekend options help. If there’s somewhere teenagers love that isn’t on this list, Purpose Media would like to hear about it.
