Holiday lights in Minneapolis are not concentrated in one place, which is why the question is harder than it looks. There is no single street everyone drives to. What there is instead is a handful of genuinely good displays scattered across the metro, a couple of ticketed events worth the trip, and one residential show that people plan an evening around.

Here is an honest map of it, starting closest to downtown — plus the warm-and-indoors version, which starts here at the Pillsbury Club.

The residential show worth driving to: Hayden’s Holiday Lights

In south Minneapolis, at 5205 Washburn Avenue South, a synchronised music-and-light display has been run for years by a local high school student. It is free, it is genuinely impressive, and it is the closest thing Minneapolis has to a destination residential display. The show has traditionally started on Thanksgiving and run Monday through Saturday from about 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

One caution: the display’s own website is evergreen rather than dated, so confirm the current season before you drive over, and park considerately — this is somebody’s street.

The ticketed ones: GLOW and Bentleyville

Across the river, the GLOW Holiday Festival has confirmed it returns to CHS Field in Saint Paul on 19 November 2026. It is a walk-through, ticketed, and about twenty minutes from downtown Minneapolis.

If you are willing to make a weekend of it, Bentleyville Tour of Lights in Duluth has published dates of 21 November to 26 December 2026, open 5–9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 5–10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It is free to walk through and it is the largest display in the state by a distance.

What is not confirmed yet

Two things worth saying plainly, because plenty of round-up articles will not. The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s winter lights programme has not published 2026–27 dates at the time of writing — its page still shows last season. And a number of listings sites still carry displays that no longer run at all. If a page does not show a date in the current season, treat it as out of date rather than as a plan.

The version that does not involve a cold windshield

The problem with a lights drive is the drive. You sit in a car, you crane your neck, somebody navigates badly, and by the third neighbourhood everybody is quietly ready to go home.

The alternative is to let someone else drive a heated vintage trolley while you look out of the window. The Holiday Light Ride runs in two versions. Santa’s Nice Ride is family friendly and runs about an hour. The Naughty Holiday Party Ride is 21-and-over, runs about two hours, and is billed as a BYOB Christmas party on wheels. Routes vary through the season and cover both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and on the Nice ride guests vote for their favourite decorated house along the way.

The part that makes the difference: where you board

This is the honest reason we think ours is better, and it is a difference you can check. Other holiday light tours in the Twin Cities check guests in at a sports bar on Hennepin Avenue or in a parking lot, then put you on a vehicle. That means dragging a cooler through a crowded bar, and it means paying for parking separately.

Every Holiday Light Ride instead begins inside the restored Pillsbury Club — the 1910s Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion at 100 East 22nd Street. Parking is free directly across the street. You arrive early, you are indoors and warm, and the hour before the trolley pulls up is spent in a holiday market with more than fifty Minnesota artists, with cocktails and something to eat available before you board.

It is the difference between an errand and an evening.

Make it a full night

If you want the lights ride to be the middle of the evening rather than the whole of it, the mansion is set up for exactly that. The dining room and the bar are open to guests with a reservation, and the club rooms include the Emerald Suite for groups of up to ten. Everything you need before you arrive — hours, parking, how far ahead to get here — is on Plan Your Visit.

Staying over? 300 Clifton is a few minutes away in Loring Park, with a garden hot tub that is at its best in December. For a longer winter stay, Oakland’s on 9th rents furnished downtown studios by the month.

Also worth reading: taking a date to see the holiday lights, and what to expect on a first visit to the Club.

Book before the good nights go

December fills from the outside in — the weekends nearest Christmas book first, and the 21-plus ride goes faster than people expect. Reserve your seats on the Holiday Light Ride page, then come early and start the night by a carved fireplace instead of in a parking lot.

Keep reading: What Was on the Grounds of the Pillsbury Mansion? Reading the Original Site Plan