If you've holidayed / travelled quite a bit with your kids

[BrightWinter]

What do you wish you'd done or what was the best thing you did in terms of fitting around school holidays, the time of year and the child's ages?

So, our child starts school this September and for the first time in our lives we realise we are going to have uk plan ahead better with holidays and travel!

I'm putting together a wish list / bucket list for holidays to do with our DC (only child) in the short and medium term throughout their childhood. (I know it's geeky but I'm a planner). We have enjoyed many lovely holidays but now we are going to be fixed around term time. I'm looking into (assuming money not a massive obstacle for now) the ideal / optimum destinations and time of year.

So for example:

Feb half term: northern Sweden Northern Lights
Easter holidays: Lake District/ Canary Islands / Morocco
Summer holidays: Canada tour, France camping,
Christmas holidays: Thailand, Costa Rica, Bruuges

These are just examples. I would then work out which age these would be best suited for, eg primary age, teenage years etc. we are not expecting to go away every single school holiday, but I want to make a list we can use to plan ahead from and book things in advance.

So, assuming you enjoy seeing the world and the UK, what are the holidays / times of year you could recommend?

Christmas - Lapland, New York
Feb half term - Skiing
Easter hols - Florida

Our budget wasn't as high! We mostly booked ferries to France or Spain and took road trips, you get better prices avoiding holiday hotspots

August - California road trip, did last year after her 7th birthday and she had an amazing time
Canaries at Easter are usually a good shout for some sun and pool time as well as having interesting places to visit if you hire a car.
Caribbean at Easter, another good one for warmth but you get stung with school holiday prices :-( we went when she was a toddler, might be best now saved for when a bit older as at the moment slides feature heavily in my hotel selection 😂
We have New Zealand down for Easter 2026 as Easter is earlier meaning weather should be decent there even though it'll be towards the end of their summer.
Greek islands summer holiday spot
We have Costa Rica as an Easter holiday, might save that for when she's around 11/12 as imagine a lot of walking

we carried everything on our backs and went camping by public transport. You really dont need a lot of money for fantastic family holidays - the emphasis is on family.

We did Disneyland when the kids were young 9/7. Took them to the Far East when they were 10/8. First safari around that age.
Last year we did Peru and the Galapagos, this year Botswana and Mozambique.
As a family we love animals so tend to base our holidays around that. We took the kids to Borneo in 2022 which was stunning too.

When they were really little they just enjoyed beach/pool holidays so we did that.

May half term - Cornwall, we’ve been four times then and the weather is always lovely!
Summer - France, Balearic Islands
Christmas - Iceland
October - city breaks uk or abroad. We’ve enjoyed Paris, Rome, New York, York, Bristol, Bath. Centerparcs is good for Oct half term too.

Depends a bit on kids and your interests and preferences which may alter with time. We all dislike heat so tend to avoid places 30C in summer and like rain in a rainforest.

Around 5 to 10 Lapland is amazing pre Christmas and our loved that, husky sledging, reindeer sledging, artic circle, fireworks, snow, santa. We also went back in the summer (before end of July) and saw brown bears in the wild (Arola Bears), moose, reindeer, summer toboggan, white water rafting etc, again 5 to 12ish.

Costa Rica we went in August and for us that was perfect, 27C each day and some rain in afternoons but great to see rain in rainforest and see it green. Sloths, coati, racoons, gecko, rainforest, jungle waterslide, ziplines, horseriding, hot springs. Would say best age is 8 to end teens for kids as many ziplines have height requirements, ours were 10 and 11 and pretty perfect age.

Australia was another great one but needs 3 weeks plus which restricts it to our summer / their winter but again great season for Great Barrier Reef and wildlife in Atherton Tablelands like tree kangaroos, whales and dolphins.

More relaxing one Mauritius Sugar Beach / Long Beach, think under 12s kids are free so better value but we went with teens who loved it just cost more. Again we went in our summer but it is cooler then, maybe 26C each day.

Skiing have done in Feb half term or Easter when cheaper but Easter tends to be more last minute when know there's snow still but good value then and largely empty. 5 plus.

UK - Isles of Scilly and Isle of Skye are favourites. Any age really. Summer for better weather but balance between that and number of people.

Borneo works well in our summer for maybe teens / esp if love wildlife - is 2 flights out.

Iceland in October
Morocco in may/June
City breaks over Christmas
But they are adults now and they said their favourite holidays were the summers we spent in Northumberland, doing outside stuff and them horse riding.

I would do Lake District in May or summer holidays!

A train tour in Europe. (Not necessarily Interrail)

Japan at Easter!

We usually do the following, DS currently in year 3.

February half term - UK break, usually Dorset or European city break
Easter - usually nothing due to dh work, but have done Dorset.
May half term - beach holiday in Europe- Spain, Italy or Portugal
August - 2 x 1 week in the UK and Jersey.
October half term - European city break
Christmas - have done trips to southern Spain, weather fairly pleasant, but we are going to Paris for a few days this year.

We are planning a trip to Canada and New York next August so 2025 will look different. However still planning on 1 European city break and a UK break in Devon.

Looking ahead to when DS is bigger. We'll likely still do the European beach holidays, maybe a Florida holiday but not Disney. We like city breaks and DS has expressed an interest in Germany.

Feb: Switzerland- Skiing + Carnival
Easter: Caribbean, Dominican Republic is particularly good for kids
May: Greek Islands, Turkey, Cyprus
Summer: Camping UK

Great idea for a post! We usually do
Easter - long haul. Belize, Vietnam, Laos/Cambodia/Thailand, Capetown, Jordan

may - Cornwall (agree with a PP the weather is usually lovely!)

Summer - Europe (Greece, France or Spain)

October - uk so center parcs or Lake District.

3 kids aged between 8 and 3. Haven’t thought of safari yet as youngest still too young, ditto Disney.

Aww man I love travelling. I'm so jealous of everyone who can afford to jet off to amazing places every school holiday! You're all so lucky! 😬

We lived in China when my dcs were growing up so my recommendations are mainly weather based:
uk summer- Borneo, central Vietnam, Java, Bali and northwestern Australia - realise that’s a long way from the Uk.
Christmas - Western Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Vietnam (south), Thailand, Laos, Hong Kong, singapore, India
easter- japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China
october - north Vietnam, Bhutan, Nepal, South Korea, China

Hi OP, nice thread!
Just FYI re the northern lights, Easter would be better than Feb - the aurora are linked to solar flare activity which peaks around the equinoxes so usually end of March is a good time. Other than that October.
(I always feel bad for people who go to lapland in December to see Santa but miss the northern lights!)
The aurora activity also relates to solar cycles - this year is a great one to go as it's a solar maximum, the cycles are every 11 years so next one will be 2035...
More info about this here:
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/will-2024-be-the-year-of-the-aurora/
Just FYI! I'm also a fan of getting some sun at Xmas to break up the grotty UK winter, but I know some people love Xmas at home...
Hope all the holidays are lovely.

I need this thread too!