Skip global navigation
St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud State University

About St. Cloud

Entertainment

Whatever your world involves, you can find it in greater St. Cloud:

  • Enjoy shopping? Coffee? Live music? Farmers’ markets? Check out the downtown and Courthouse Square areas.
  • Movies: The Parkwood 18 Theatre has 18 screens.  
  • Live theater: Local, regional and national companies perform at Paramount Theatre and Visual Arts Center and Pioneer Place on Fifth.
  • Live music: The St. Cloud Municipal Band, St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra and Minnesota Center Chorale present concerts throughout the year. Small groups and solo musicians perform at clubs and coffee houses throughout the area.  
  • Art: Galleries include Paramount Gallery and Oasis Fine Arts Gallery.
  • History: The Stearns History Museum offers Stearns County history exhibits, education and research opportunities.
  • Water activities: Lake George and the Mississippi River are at your doorstep. Deep-water lakes, including the 3,196-acre Clearwater Lake, are minutes from campus. Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake, is less than three hours away. Minnesota has 11,842 lakes and more than 63,000 miles of natural streams and rivers.
  • Outdoors: Riverside Park and its acclaimed 18-hole disc-golf course are across University Bridge from campus. Riverside is one of 93 St. Cloud parks. The Stearns County park system includes Quarry Park & Nature Preserve, a student favorite for swimming, rock climbing and scuba diving. Sand Prairie Wildlife Management Area is a fabulous flora-and-fauna opportunity on the southeast edge of St. Cloud. Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge’s oak savanna, prairie and wetlands are home to a vast number of plant and animal species, including butterfly weed, rough blazing star, bald eagle, pelican, wolf and bear. The 30,700-acre federal preserve is a half-hour southeast of St. Cloud.  
  • Gardening: Tour buses from around the region visit Clemens Gardens and Munsinger Gardens for spectacular floral displays.
  • Trout fishing: Hook rainbow and brown trout from the cold waters of Big Watab Lake just 25 minutes west of St. Cloud. Thirty minutes south of St. Cloud you can fish brookies in Willow Creek, one 12 trout streams in Stearns County.  
  • Fun and games:  Just east of town is Summerland, with a water slide, go-carts, batting cages, mini-golf and more.  

  • “St. Cloud is a pretty big town where there are tons of places to go out to eat. There’s a nice mall. And the fact that it’s only an hour away from the Twin Cities is really convenient. You just say, ‘I’m going to the cities’, and there’s always something big going on, like concerts and sporting events.”

    Lisa Pearson
    Mass Communications ’08
    Princeton, Minn.

    Roller skating: Enjoy indoor roller skating and roller blading at Skatin’ Place in south St. Cloud.
  • Baseball: The Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, in downtown St. Cloud, has memorabilia and photographs from more than 150 years of organized baseball in the North Star State.