Where do you take the kids on a UK holiday?

[Ginevere]

I’m in my third trimester with my first, and have just started musing about holidays. Where do you take kids? Especially small ones? Since becoming an adult I’ve mainly gone abroad, and UK trips have been city breaks or places unsuitable for children. People say ‘Devon and Cornwall’, but where exactly? (I’m south east)

When I cast my mind back, the only childhood holiday I remember is a holiday camp we used to love, but I’ve just looked and it’s shut. That’s the only idea I had aside from centre parks, which seems very expensive. Is that unavoidable with children?

Forgive me if this is all very naive, but I am utterly clueless! Feels like the latest in a long list of things I can’t even imagine happening once the baby arrives.

And when you're looking further afield, one year we went to Centerparcs in the Netherlands after reading about it on Mumsnet. I phoned the day I read the thread and the woman was so helpful, knocking off money for family rate and finding a well placed cabin. The week cost us £2k, which was half board, including flights and three skiing lessons for each child.

We did Cornwall, Devon, Isle of Wight, Derbyshire, Scotland.

Honestly, as long there is something to do for them like parks, beach, zoo, farms etc you are fine wherever you are.

We had a back carrier when DD was 8 months, the large structure like a hiking rucksack, and took her for walks and with a soft carrier went to museums and castles. You adapt when they get older.

I hate holiday parks but what we found worked well were farm stays where there are animals and other children to play with.

We only did hotels when DD was 7 and able to stay up longer. She never stayed asleep in a buggy for us to sit in a bar to have a drink.

We also went to Majorca with her twice before school and that is a great island for children.

City breaks with babies are great. Long walks with pram, sightseeing in pram, long lunches when they nap. Make sure you don't tie yourself to cot naps from early on. Lots of cities have lovely parks and waterfront to explore. Just try and pick somewhere with good weather.

We went to weymouth a fair bit, haven holidays usually

We did lots of weymouth stuff in the day and the haven entertainment at other times

They did fencing one holiday with polystyrene swords 😀