Top 5 'must see' places for kids

[MyCatIsCalledPotato]

I need to get organised and get booking some days/weekends out for this year for the kids. It would be nice to have things to look forward to.

Where have your kids loved? What is a 'must see/do' for your kids?

Mine are aged 9+, we're happy to give anything a go and I we don't mind travelling anywhere in the Uk.

Any ideas/tips for the journey would be great!

Depends where you want to go! My DSs are 8 and 10 and have loved:

In/around London:
All the museums in South Ken (V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum)
Westminster Abbey
The Horniman Museum
Imperial War Museum
Tate Modern
Windsor Castle
Hampton Court
London Museum of Water & Steam

Further afield:
The Eden Project (Cornwall)
Geevor Tin Mine (Cornwall)
Maritime Museum (Cornwall)
Natural History Museum (Oxford)
National Historic Dockyard (Portsmouth)

But if your kids hate museums, then maybe your top 5 will look a bit different

I think you might need to be a bit more specific op. Are we talking about places to visit around the world, in the U.K or just in Cornwall?

If you are in Scotland Stirling Castle looks like a proper castle rather than Edinburgh castle.
I think Anglesey has a lot going for it but better in a car maybe. Conway, north Wales has a brilliant castle and location. Accessible by train and then with a beautiful railway running down the Conway valley. You can get off at Betws y Coed where there's a railway museum and miniature railway. One for the railway enthusiast!

They do like some museums, the more interactive the better.

I'm not in Cornwall but we're happy to travel anywhere in the uk for a weekend away

Ignore me I clearly didn't read the op properly so I apologize. But the museum of witchcraft in Boscastle and the Yorkshire sculpture park are both great.

With kids I'd stick to nearby tbh. Explore your local part of the UK: there are always places to go and see and sometimes the quirky things are popular.
One of mine loved visiting a big bird reserve up here in Scotland. It was good but I was surprised how impressed he was iyswim!

The UK is crammed with great stuff to do, but I’d start by looking at what’s convenient to you. For a weekend, I’d much rather travel one or two hours and have longer to spend doing things than spend six hours each way travelling only to be too knackered to properly enjoy it when we got there.
Which region are you in?

*A big city
*A castle
*A beach with cliffs and rockpools and sand! May be more than one trip!
*A wild area (moorland, forest....)
*A fabulous museum

If I'm allowed to extend it:
A theme park
A big stadium event (football, music etc etc)

More than happy to stay local, there are lots of things to do here.
But for example, last year we went to the big cat sanctuary in Kent because my kids love big cats. However, I only came across the sanctuary by chance or I'd never have known about it
So I was wondering what other places there are that are not necessarily local to me that has been popular with your children.

I'm in the north east 🙂

I'm in the north east
Some of the Hadrian's Wall forts/museum, obviously, if you've not already been. And Holy Island, Dunstanburgh castle and/or Bamburgh.

Jorvik centre and other attractions in York
Lots of castles/ruins in the borders of Scotland
Kielder Forest at night for dark skies and star-gazing (also Galloway Forest park)

It's difficult to come up with a top five things to do in the UK as there are so much to do! Also trying to not be too London-centric.

But off the top of my head I would suggest:

Wookey Hole/Cheddar Gorge/bike ride/parkrun on Strawberry Line
Antrim Coast/Giant's Causeway
Stirling castle and surrounding countryside
Greenwich and boat trip on Thames
Chairlift trip over the Needles, Isle of Wight

Places I would like to go but haven't:

Fleet Air Arm museum
National Computing Museum
Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales
Conwy castle and north Wales generally
National Railway Museum, York (have been but not since I was 14)

I imagine as your north east you’ve already explored York but my dds favourite day out in the summer is York maze.
There’s so much to do there and the theme and design of the main maze changes every year.

If your children are into Harry Potter the Harry Potter studio tour near Watford is expensive but fabulous at that age.

Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight blackgangchine.com/
Letterboxing on Dartmoor visitdartmoor.co.uk/get-active/letterboxing
Kentwell Hall's "all history in one day" www.kentwell.co.uk/events/historyfestival

Yes mine loved HP studios. We have also enjoyed Chester Zoo, Natural History Museum, Zip World

The countryside
The beach
A castle
A sweetie shop
A big hill (to climb)

York - good museums, interesting city, on the river

The Scottish Highlands- a trip up the Cairngorms in the winter, stay somewhere a tad remote so you can wake and sledge and make snowmen from your front door. Good wildlife park with polar bears etc.

Some of these places are great but I would not call them 'must see' and certainly wouldn't spend hours out of a weekend travelling to them. I think the kids would be disappointed.

A bit hit at that age was going back to the places that we'd visited a few years ago. Places that DC knew they had visited when they were aged perhaps 3-6 but couldn’t really remember or didn't appreciate fully the first time.

@WallaceinAnderland

Some of these places are great but I would not call them 'must see' and certainly wouldn't spend hours out of a weekend travelling to them. I think the kids would be disappointed.

What would you call 'must see' then?

Stonehenge. Apparently my child’s favourite place to visit they’ve asked to go again this year!

There's loads to do in Edinburgh for a weekend if you're in the NE - get the train up, it's quicker than driving and parking is a nightmare. The castle, National Museum, Zoo (has the only pandas in the UK), Harry Potter walking tour, climb Arthur's Seat, portobello beach, royal yacht britannia.....actually, you'd better book a week!

Have you been over the causeway to Lindisfarne? I remember that being quite cool when i was a kid.
see puffins - there's some round the NE, maybe Flamborough?
Jodrell Bank
Stand-up paddle boarding
Alton towers
Ride on a steam train (North Yorks Moors railway)

Kids can be funny though, you'll plan what appears on paper to be the most amazing trip ever and they'll get home and tell everyone about how they sat on the front of the bus upstairs or some other random feature of the holiday!!