October UK Break

[FiestyCherry]

Just had term dates in and school have clumped together some inset days to give an extended October half term - was think of doing a weekend break in the uk with DS 8......where would be good to go with an outdoorsy active 8 year old boy that wouldn’t be awful if it rained / was cold - looked at centre parks and its way over budget.

YHA family activity break?

Hi. the larger Havens have things like aerial rope courses, nature trails, archery etc and indoor things like 5 a side for rainy days. I don't have kids so cannot say if they are any good but it all looked pretty impressive. Trip Advisor would be your friend. I went to Devon Cliffs a couple of years ago and it was just beautiful and the staff couldn't do enough for you.

If he’s into theme parks maybe Alton towers waterpark and a day at the theme park?
I also love the Lakes any time of year

North Wales, now before you think I'm crazy we rented a cottage in Blaenau Ffestiniog in November, it had a lovely open fire (and hot tub) there are some great activities near by slate caverns, with a really interesting story told from the pov of a young mining boy (lights etc and going down into the caves), there's also a bit now that has huge trampolines and zipwires inside some of the biggest caverns, the kind of safe but terrifyingly exciting stuff an active right year old would love. There's the Steam railway trip, and a weird little place called it's a small world that had indoor crazy golf, scaletrix and so on. When we went it was cold but hardly rained (this is not guaranteed for Wales) , but if you have dry days there's lots of good hiking/rambling to be done even if you don't fancy Snowdonia. It was also really cheap for nice accommodation.

We got a really cheap deal to sorrento in October last year - with the purpose of visiting Pompeii - which we did, on the train. It was great, weather was warm, Italy was fabulous, and the history lessons were as fab as we expected them to be. It was cheaper than a b&b in the UK. And definitely cheaper than the v expensive centre parks.

We've done North Yorkshire in half term before - lots to do regardless of the weather. We stay near Pickering. Steam trains, Dalby Forest, Scarbrough beach (in wellies if needs be!), Eden Camp...

Thanks for all the ideas...Off to do some research and planning

Flamingo land, the price for a caravan includes zoo and park tickets and entertainment passes and use of leisure facilities.