Places to take the children and things to do before they grow up?

[Greenbutterlfy566]

What places would you like to take the kids and things to do with them before they grow up?

I Have one 7 year old and would love some inspiration of where to go and things to do before they grow up.

These sort of threads can always result in parents who can't afford these grand experiences in feeling like failures. Kids don't need to see the Grand Canyon for real they just need to be loved and nurtured

Yes I am LOL at the ‘bucket list’ nature of some of this! They have their whole lives ahead of them, mostly as adults. Giving them the foundations to be grown ups with choice and opportunity is more important than Disney and Lapland.

Great if you happen to be able to afford it, but not necessary.

Also I don’t want to bring mine up in a way that they will be dissatisfied with simpler, cheaper things, for fear of debt.

My best memories are of my Mum making little outfits for my trolls and teeny sandwiches for them for troll tea parties. And making toffee on Sunday afternoons.

We did travel etc too. But spending money doesn’t guarantee the important stuff.

Oh yes fossil hunting, agree with that. We love a spot of fossil hunting.

I agree to an extent about destination holidays being about adults but lapland was definitely about all of us, all the kids had a say and loved it and talk about it and they were in awe of the aurora.

In the UK we do simple going for walks, climbing hills/ mountains (the 7 year old loves a good view) cake and hot chocolate, fires, camping, toasting marshmallows etc. They all pitched in planting trees and got really muddy, that sort of thing. When we plan holidays we always talk about it, as adults we might narrow it down to 2 or 3 possible destinations but the kids plan too and we take their interests into account. Croatia involved Roman ruins and dinosaur fossils for example.it is true though that time together is the best. Get them into board games and play!

Agree there’s a lot of unattainable (for most people) ideas on here.
Mine have been to Australia, Barbados, America etc. but one of the absolute favourite things that they still talk about are going to a slightly tacky holiday camp in Cornwall (think Kellerman’s in dirty dancing!) where they made loads of friends and hung out in the “teen den” of an evening and a caravan holiday in the Lake District which involved a family quiz and disco in the clubhouse every night! Also they loved the peter rabbit museum (in Bowness-on-Windermere) and taking a boat along lake Windermere.
So my kids favourite things they’ve done are definitely the cheaper things! I think sometimes city breaks etc can be exhausting and a bit of a “tick-list” of stomping around trying to see everything.
However if you do go to London OP I highly recommend Matilda the Musical - it’s just fabulous.

It’s so true that they often remember completely random bits, or treasure memories from the less exciting places.

We’ve done a lot/been to a lot of places with DS but his ultimate favourite time and happy memory he still talks about was our weekend at Butlins 😂

My littlies are 2 and 6m. I’m saving to take them both (and dh and possibly my sis) to Lapland to see santa before they finish primary school. I’ve always wanted to go but never had the chance so figured do it before the youngest stops believing (or at least give them a renewed belief in the magic of Santa!)

I’ve been saving since the 2 year old was born as I k ow it can be hella expensive.

Despite moaning about it beforehand, my dc loved hiking in the Scottish highlands. They barely mention the 5 star luxury holiday in Greece

Agree with pp. It’s the feelings they’ll remember not the places.
The biggest gift you can give a child is to let yourself go, and let them lead. Play their games. Fall into their world.

It depends what your goal is. To provide them with good memories or you. It's not always compatible. The experiences that we have done which please everyone are; ski holiday, villa with pool, days out in London, Zoo, 'west end' production at local big theatre, Puy de Fou and Futoroscope (both in France) climbing Snowden.

Things which are on the to do list
Duck tour and Mme Tussauds
Buckingham Palace

Wish list
Eurostar to Paris
Northern Lights
Monaco
Andalucia
A 'safari ' hotel in france (forget the name)

So many people I know have admitted that Lapland was rubbish and they regretted the money spent on it. The photos I've seen don't look "magical" either with straggly reindeer in pens and a coach park in the background.

My kids have travelled all over and they do talk about the more expensive trips as well as the cheaper ones. They remember the times we were having fun as a family.

Do whatever you enjoy and the kids will enjoy it too.

Those who have done fossil hunting- any where you can recommend?

My list-
Campfire under a clear sky looking at stars and the moon (or even just a drive out into the country to see the stars- you can see so many away from streetlights.
Sandcastles on the beach
Birdwatching (it's the RSPB bird watch this weekend)
Growing flowers or vegetables
Learn to swim
Set yourself a challenge and achieve it

Sometimes it’s actually the kids who want to do these.
Mine (secondary school age now) want to see the northern lights because we’ve seen tv programmes about it. They want to climb a mountain because we went halfway up one once and had to turn around and were so disappointed they never got to the top.
My eldest really wants to go to Greenland (it’s never been on my list). He wants to see the dramatic landscape.
He’s passionate about the environment, is interested in conservation and has a love for exploring. This has come about because of his childhood and the places he’s been to.
Most of the places have been in the UK and some have been abroad.
He might not remember all the things I do but it’s certainly nurtured a love of the world.

Its interesting how few people mention the all inclusive to x expenaive pool resort!

I just remembered, one thing that we kept up for a long time was after tea on Saturday in the winter we would play board games. This always rubbish until much later into the evening when the kids had gone to bed anyway so we did a mixture of classic and new games.

As they got older we would have a classic DVD night ( I know no one does DVDs anymore!). To save arguments I would write down on a slip of paper the name of some films and each week one of them would choose a paper to reveal which film we were going to watch. Who ever picked the film meant the other picked the snacks!

Kids always remember really random banal things about experiences anyway. I took mine to London for the first time a couple of years ago and rather than talk about the museums, art galleries, Legoland or sights they talk about spending their money in the Lego shop and eating McDonald’s afterwards .

I have taken my DC all over and found this tends to be the case. They usually appreciate simpler more basic things in life like a good playground or trip to the seaside.

We go fossil hunting at Charmouth in Dorset - the rangers there run fantastic guided fossil huts during the summer and everyone is more or less guaranteed to find at least one fossil - my guys have a collection of belamites, ammonites and petrified wood that they found at Charmouth.

notacooldad - agree about watching movies as a family - my older kids were reminiscing about Blockbuster the other day. We used to go every Saturday and choose a couple of DVD’s to watch for family film night, and buy popcorn/Doritos. We also loved the guys that worked there. I miss that! Another thing they talk about are favourite films they watched together (some to the point of obsession!) - “aliens in the attic”, “coraline” and “bee movie” come to mind!
Miss that place!

When my ds was in year 6 they were doing volcanoes at school, we took him to Vesuvius (and Pompeii, Rome).

Venice is also good to see, safe from cars but need to be careful near the water. There are probably pigeons still there too and as there are lots of films set in Venice (think James Bond), it's nice to recognise the sights on the screen.

We visited some churches but mostly just walked around in awe.

Oh, and arriving in Venice on the train across the water was almost magical.

We also went to Verona to see the famous balcony, very relatable to the school curriculum too.

Flying a kite and / or kicking a football whilst walking the wonderful beaches and coastline in Northumberland. Then eating kippers from Craster.

My daughters best memory and I've taken her all over the world.

I have to admit it is a pretty special place for a week away. Easter is always best as not too busy. Just wrap up.

And walking up Arthur's seat in Edinburgh when my daughter studied volcanoes at school.

My children have loved WDW Florida and Disneyland Paris, seeing their faces is just magical but equally they love visiting our relatives caravan and staying in premier inns, especially my youngest, he finds staying in any form of hotel so exciting!

My eldest fondly remembers swimming out to see turtles in Turkey, but then she also talks about collecting pieces of Turkish delight in the markets as the ladies on the stalls kept giving her pieces!

On of my aims for this year is to get out and about more with them at weekends, not necessarily big days out, just experiencing different places and having fun together. This weekend for example we found a new woodland with a ruined castle to explore, my youngest was fascinated with being able to walk in a stream along the way in his welly boots!

Disney Florida

My kids love the beach (in the summer) they are 4 and 6. They love going for walks (oldest not a fan of rain though although neither am I ) so we usually do this kind of thing in summer too or when it's dry. They like castles and exploring. We can't afford expensive holidays. Our holidays are usually the ones where you save the code words from the sun paper and stay at a haven site. But do you know what, they love it! I always thought I would want to take them to Disney, but I think unless they really want to go when they're older we won't, I think it's overhyped and if they want to go on rides there are plenty of theme parks in the UK. I would like to take them to Legoland as they both love Lego and I think they'll be amazed!
All they want is your attention and time

Some lovely suggestions, I’m open to everything lol.

Don’t want them to miss out basically and we have some time in front of us to go places

While there are ton of natural and cultural highlights all over the world and worth seeing, I agree, most children will remember mundane things and episodes they can laugh about years later.

I think for DD it was so far snorkling with turtles in Barbados in a way of out of the ordinary holidays, but she also loves London, riding in Wales, falling face down in a muddy puddle in a NT park and having a boulder falling on her in the same location a year later.

We are lucky that we are able to go away a lot and show DD the world but it is spending time together instead of rushing from one site to another. For her the pool bar in our first AI in Spain is equally memorising than visiting Versaille or the Anne Frank House.

The cold potato mash and burnt sausages from her Scout camp and being covered in tick larves is what made one Summer memorable, more than visiting cathedrals and museums four weeks later.