Ten Amazing Things to Do with Kids Around the World
My oldest daughter just turned ten. In those ten years, we’ve taken her and our other two kids (5 and 8) to 32 countries on six continents and have done a lot of amazing things. So I asked the kids to vote for their favorite activities, from zoos to natural wonders to historic sites to theme parks to island adventures to cooking classes, that they would recommend to other families. Here are their top ten, in no particular order.
Find amazing places to go with kids! It’s never too early to encourage wonder.
Explore Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia
One of the most beautiful places on the planet, Plitvice Lakes Park is a series of 16 crystal-clear cascading lakes with waterfalls between and surrounding the lakes. We traveled to the park from Zagreb in late spring and explored for hours, walking and running along the major pathways and taking two boat rides across the larger lakes. I wouldn’t recommend taking a stroller! A lot of the paths are like you see below.
Having fun at Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia
Go on the LEGO Inside Tour in Billund, Denmark
LEGO allows 140 people every year to go behind the scenes at its headquarters, factory and Legoland park in Denmark. If you have kids, or if you feel like a kid when playing with LEGO bricks, try to be one of those 140! Highlights of the three-day event included watching the colored bricks being formed and transported around the factory by robots, and seeing every single LEGO set ever created. Plus we got to go on a discounted shopping spree in the LEGO Employee Store. It’s the best trip ever for anyone who’s put together a LEGO set. My tour review is here, including a link on how to apply next year.
The lobby of LEGO Headquarters in Billund, Denmark
Feed Monkeys in the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali
My 9-year-old daughter fell in love with Bali. Whether we were flying kites on the beach, doing yoga, watching Balinese dance or hiking through the rice terraces, she was in her element. Her favorite activity, though, was the most childlike – letting monkeys climb all over her for bananas in the Monkey Forest. When we go back, it will be our first stop.
Places to go with kids: an Ubud’s Monkey Forest
Stay at the Rosewood Mayakoba in Playa del Carmen, Mexico
When I asked the kids to vote for their ten favorite things they had done around the world, and where to recommend places to go with kids, I didn’t expect a hotel to make the list. But all three kids mentioned the Rosewood Mayakoba. Specific things the kids loved about our stay: the private plunge pool; the other pools; feeding the fish from our private dock; the kid’s club; the food; riding around the resort in golf carts; the beach; seeing coatis running around everywhere; the huge bathtub that became a play fort; and watching the stars from the roof of our villa. Our goal is to choose different destinations every year for winter break and spring break, but the Rosewood could easily become an annual trip.
Places to go with Kids: The beach at the Rosewood Mayakoba
Picnic at the Eiffel Tower
I love that this is the kids’ favorite thing in Paris, because it’s mine too. Whenever we’re in Paris, we have dinner at the Eiffel Tower more often than in restaurants. We pick up breads, cheeses, meats and fruits from vendors in the 7th arr., grab some chocolate mousse and a rosé from a supermarché and head over to Champ de Mars park with a blanket. The kids run and play while we relax – always a perfect end to the day.
Picnicking at the sun goes down in Paris
Kayak in Belize
We’re always up for jumping into boats with our kids, from whitewater rafting in Colorado to kayaking in Bora Bora, Antarctica and Hawaii to rowing around Lake Bled in Slovenia. The only specific water activity that made this top ten list, though, was kayaking in Belize. I was actually disappointed in Belize’s overall kid-friendliness, but my four-year-old loved the trip, and she especially loved the kayaking at the Turtle Inn. Something about being in the front of the kayak on the non-smooth seas made my daughter feel really alive, or maybe it was that she was hanging out with her dad in a really cool place far from her siblings. In either case, she’d recommend kayaking in Belize to everyone!
Kayaking from the Turtle Inn in Belize
Explore Easter Island
My son loves remote islands, history, and mystery, so Easter Island was an appropriate choice for his six-year-old trip. It was a great trip – fun to get to (via layovers in Panama City and Santiago) and very interesting to explore for a few days. In addition to the iconic Moai (statues), it’s a Polynesian island with warm weather, great food, and a fun vibe. We’re off to Palawan shortly for his eight-year-old trip, and will likely add on other remote islands the next few years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he chooses a return to Easter Island too. It’s pretty magical being alone among the ancient stone statues.
My son (at 6) at Ahu Tongariki on Easter Island
Become a Wizard at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando
We’ve taken the kids to amusement parks on four continents, from Luna Park in Sydney to Hong Kong Disneyland to Jardin d’Acclimatation, Efteling, Legoland and Tivoli Gardens in Europe to many Lego, Disney and Universal parks in California and Florida. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando is by far the kids’ favorite. Both Harry Potter areas, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, are extremely well done. They feel…real. And when the kids get home, they’re still in that world for weeks, magic wands standing by. I couldn’t wait for the Harry Potter section of Universal Hollywood to open a few years ago – although for Diagon Alley you’ll still need to travel to Orlando.
Exiting Diagon Alley at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Belly Slide like a Penguin in Antarctica
Antarctica really was one of the kid-friendliest places we’ve been. We walked with penguins. We kayaked. We made snow angels and had snowball fights. We celebrated New Year’s Eve. My 8-year-old daughter and I loved everything about the trip. But the absolute highlight for her was when she got to slide down hills on her belly like a penguin. Of course, you can belly slide anywhere there’s snow, but to do it on the bottom of the world looking out at penguins and icebergs? Priceless. My post on Antarctica with kids is here.
Places to go with kids: Antarctica for belly sliding
Take a Disney Cruise
We’ve loved the Disney Mediterranean cruises we’ve taken. It’s not about the characters – Disney does just about everything right, from food to cabin quality to activities and shows, and we feel completely comfortable with our kids roaming around the ships by themselves. The port stops in Europe are excellent. We’ve embarked/disembarked in Venice and Barcelona, two great cities anyway, and have traveled through Italy, France, Malta, Greece, and Turkey. In 2016 we saw northern Europe with Disney. We typically like slower travel, but every other year or so it’s fun to unpack once, see a lot of great places and let the kids be kids. My Disney cruise review is here.
Seeing Ephesus, Turkey on a Disney Magic port stop
Affordability
After this post appeared on my website and on Yahoo Travel, I received a lot of questions about the affordability of these places to go with kids. My response is here: How to Make Family Travel Affordable, detailing everything I do to bring travel costs down. Not every trip is affordable by everyone, but most are if you’re smart about how you play the mileage game and how you book travel.
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I wish I could take my triplets on a Disney Cruise, but me being a single parent, I could never afford it or any of these vacations with my kids.
I completely understand. I wrote an article for Outside Families Magazine this month on how we do it: https://travelbabbo.com/2015/12/giving-the-gift-of-travel/. All of these may be out of range for some families. But I also hope to inspire people to find a way to get to amazing places with their kids since a lot of destinations are more accessible than people think they are. People spend thousands of dollars on a week at Disneyland. Disney’s great, but there are cheaper, more interesting alternatives: flying to Costa Rica and staying in the rainforest for example.
A couple of these activities are splurges – Antarctica or the Rosewood Mayakoba. But if you play the travel hacking game, you can earn enough miles to fly free to anywhere in the world. If you can get to Paris, Bali, Croatia, Easter Island or Belize for free, then the activities listed are easily accessible and inexpensive. http://www.pointswithacrew.com is a good website to follow – they play all the travel hacking games to get hotels and airfare largely free for their family of 8. If they can do it for 8, you can do it for 4.
Thank you for the tips and I will definitely be checking it out. Thank you so much I appreciate it.
Nice list! I took my kids to Turkey (a few times), to Spain, to Tunisia and Egypt. For 2016 I don’t know yet. By the way, The Netherlands is also nice with kids, especially The Hague/Scheveningen. Just check my blog. 😉
Thanks Denise! Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt are all on our list. We’ll be in Amsterdam again next summer, but we haven’t taken the kids to The Hague yet.
I have always wanted to see Easter Island in person. I’m sure kids would be fascinated by the monoliths too!
Hi Eric, really love your blog and the way you told your experience with your kids. I’m Indonesian and I’m totally agree with your daughter to chose Indonesia (Bali particularly) as her favorite place. By the way, you can visit other places in Indonesia that are suitable also for Kids, such as Yogyakarta (Borobudur temple – UNESCO world heritage), Komodo Island (seeing Komodo the prehistoric animal), Pangandaran (Green Canyon instead of Grand Canyon where your kids can do a body rafting here or just swimming in the canyon), and many other beautiful and exciting places…hopefully Bali is not the first and the last place your kids would like to go.
Absolutely! Borobudur has been near the top of my travel wish list for years. I would love to travel around Indonesia more. Just last week in Palawan I was discussing Indonesian travel with a Canadian who is heading there for the next week. We’ll be back!
Paris is great but if you do come to France don’t ignore Normandy – it’s a lovely part of the country and great for families with sites such as Mont St Michel, the D-Day Landing Beaches, Honfleur and Monet’s Garden 🙂
My wife is fluent in French and we love visiting everywhere in France. We spent a week near Avignon last summer. Would love to visit Normandy as well – it’s just a matter of scheduling it.
Great article! Our 2 1/2 year old has been to 4 countries now (CR, England, France, and MX). We were going to go to Europe this fall for my 40th but he fell in love with CR so we head back there for a third time. I can’t wait to take him to Africa when he’s older (we went the year I got pregnant with him and it was life changing!)
We live in San Diego and try to take advantage of everything we have (beach, zoo, legoland, Disney, etc) when we’re home. Figure we don’t have to see that stuff when we travel and we can go see history, wildlife, culture etc. I’d sure as hell spend thousands on a trip abroad before disneyworld. Thank goodness for miles and points to offset our travel! Wish we could put our mortgage on a card and turn around and pay it off!!
Seeing your pics/stories reinforces our choice to travel with him! It’s amazing to see the world through his eyes ????
Thanks for the awesome comment Kirsten! After a week of getting negative comments to this post, things like “The US is great, so why would you need to take your kids out of the country?” and “We have snow here. It’s stupid to go to Antarctica” and “Only the 1% can ever afford to travel with their kids” it’s great to know that there are other people doing what we’re doing! San Diego is a great place to live. We only get down there once a year or so, but we always have a good time.
Really excited to head to Africa next month. I loved it and am hoping the kids do too. The safari lifestyle is addictive!
Love all of these suggestions!! Great post…I’m dying to get to Easter Island one of these days!!!
I loved this article and how you asked the children what their favorite places are! Often, family travel is all about the parents and what they want to do – the children are an afterthought. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and we love to bring them to as many places as possible – they have been to 4 and 2 countrys respectively – with many more to come! People always act so surprised that we like them to travel with us, and most make comments like, “why do you pay to bring them if they won’t even remember the trips”. Well, the more you travel now, the more they get used to the long flights, layovers, trains, different apartments, etc…plus at an early age they are meeting people that are not like them and they are so open to these experiences. The longer you wait, the harder it might be. Love family travel, love your blog!
Thanks for the great comment Lauren! I wholeheartedly agree with everything!
I’m a big fan of taking your kids everywhere! We are taking our first Disney Cruise this year!
Very cool Amanda! What ship are you going on?
I so appreciate this list. My kids are 2 months and 2, so I’ve bookmarked this for some more ideas when they get a little older. (Antarctica is at the top of our list as soon as they are both a good age to go.) My husband and I took our then 13-month-old to Spain with us and many, many people were shocked we would do such a thing, but we had a great time. We found traveling with him allowed us to interact with locals much more—he charmed all the Spanish ladies we met—which made the trip even more memorable. When he was a little fussy on a train, a lady sitting next to us started entertaining him with the yarn she was using to make baby clothes. She told us she had lots of experience as a grandmother of four. It was lovely. Our youngest will go to his first foreign country by the time he’s 9 months, and we’re already mapping out our trips beyond that (we’re thinking Portugal or Greece). I love your site! You inspire us!
Thanks Rachel – I love getting comments and emails like this! I’ve never written about the cultural bonding component of family travel, but you’re absolutely right – having a toddler in a foreign country is great for encouraging local interaction. My youngest daughter’s third word was “ciao” because older women in Italy would always come up to her, pinch her cheek and say “ciao Bella”! Keep traveling! And if you discover something amazing and kid-friendly and off the beaten path, please let me know.
So many good ideas here. The Bali Bird Park is another nice place to go with kids on the island of Bali. My son loved it, but I loved it, too. I haven’t taken my kids on a Disney cruise, but after taking a cruise in S. America with them last year, we realized that cruising with kids is a very convenient option!
Thanks Jenna – I’ve been to Bali a couple of times but hadn’t heard of the Bird Park. It looks great! My son especially would like it there. Time to plan a return trip!
Thank you for this article. I’m currently at the beginning of planning our adventure with family and this has given me more food for thought! I shall be reading more of your articles for guidance and inspiration.
Huge inspiration!
I love what you do with your kids and i want to offer my girls currently 5 and 6 similar experiences wherever i can. We live in the Uk and they have enjoyed many places her already including a fabulous fun filled trip to London. They have been to Disneyland paris, Menorca, Disneyworld Florida and we took them on the most amazing trip to Mexico this year. They experienced swimming with dolphins, sea turtles at Akumal bay, Stringrays at Xcaret and swam amongst catfish in a breath taking cenote in a mayan village after visiting chitzhen itza. They climbed the coba ruins, visited Tulum ruins and snorkled with tropical fish. They loved it, people thought we were a bit stupid for doing it using the the age old phrase “whats the point they wont remember it, ill take them when theyre older” people are so stuck on this when theyre older phrase they forget that life is happening right now, and i for one intend on enjoying it as much as possible and exposing my children to all the amazing places out there. We are taking them back to Disneyworld next year for 3 weeks, to experience universal since we didnt do it last year. People often say they could never afford it, but honestly i think if its something you truly want….make it a priority and it will happen for you.Other places on the list in coming years are Bruges, Switzerland, Italy, Thailand (myself and my husband have been and i cant wait to take them) Iceland. Oh the list is endless. Very happy travelling to you and your family, i look forward to reading about your plane hopping.
Your travels sound great Victoria – thank you for sharing! Are you on Instagram? I’d love to follow along. I’m always looking for ideas for our own travels. We haven’t done Belgium or Switzerland with the kids yet.
Wow lucky kids! Great ideas thanks so much for sharing.
We live in the UK, and when I was on maternity leave took my 5 month old daughter to Tenerife… Don’t think she appreciated as much as her second overseas trip last year, at the age of 4, to Disneyland Paris!
There are so many great destinations for us to choose from this summer, but we already have our winter trip booked…two days in Lapland; we’re all going to lose our minds a little on that trip.
Like the idea of visiting Denmark to play with Lego… it was one of her favourite shops in DLP. Never heard of Disney Cruises, so will check them out, thanks.
I’m jealous of Lapland! It’s high on my list for a winter trip – Santa, dogsledding, Northern Lights, igloos. How can you go wrong? 🙂
I am a mother of 2 beautiful girls, I started travelling out of the country with my first born when she was 8 mth old. I get comments like, why do u bring your kids along with you when they are so young, they can’t remember a thing! I tell them: I don’t want to stop travelling, I don’t want to leave my kids behind, and I love to travel with them, and in my heart ~ I am not using your money….lol. Love your blogs! Can’t wait to travel again….you gave me so many ideas. I’d love to travel to South America but it is very far from where I am living (Malaysia) and I will need detail & thorough planning. Please keep travelling & inspiring!