To ask what sort of holidays you take your preteens on.

[Holidayfunfever]

Just back from a week at the Norfolk seaside with DC 7 and 10. We stayed in a lovely cottage and had days at the beach, days out, trip to the theatre etc. DC7 loved all of it, but DC10 was a bit bored with some of it (particularly a trip to a national trust house - fair enough it wasn't that exciting! 🤣)
What sort of holidays do you do with your preteens ? Do they love it all or are they bored by some of it. We would probably need to be UK based or relatively modest as we don't have the budget for expensive overseas breaks.

Usually we try to do active holidays, there has to either be a beach or several activities (climbing wall, water park, punting or canoeing, cycle hire).

My DC likes some historical stuff as long as there is context (eg she's covered it in school or we've read a novel or book about it). And those places must always have some kind of adventure play area and a cafe.

We've had success with those phone-based treasure hunts round cities, too.

The New Forest was a really good holiday.

At 10, beach/pool holidays or water parks were always a hit, I generally went places where they had fun parks and things to do in the evening. In Spain they kindly put bars in the middle of these fun parks for parents Camping was always a hit but I'm not a fan!
I'm quite excited at finally being able to maybe go on some city breaks now mine is a teen.

Beaches and city breaks both go down well with mine. We tend to take one child each for activities (especially for city breaks) so we can follow their interests.

I find my 11 & 12 year old really enjoy activities (9 yr old loves everything).

We haven't been away this summer but days they've really enjoyed have been trampoline park, outdoor pool with slides, climbing wall, soft play (aimed at 10+ more like a padded obstacle course). Also beach days involving body boards, kayaks & paddle boards. Oh and theme parks!

My eldest is nearly 10 - he still enjoys animal sanctuaries / wildlife parks / aquariums.

He’s not a fan of Sandy beaches but we go to a rocky one and do stone skimming, rock balancing, rock pools, inflatable row boat.

Anywhere with big adventure playgrounds still a hit too

We always made sure there were beaches with surf so they could bodyboard and bought them wetsuits. We also included a couple of more active days as they got too old for bucket and spade beach holidays - kayaking / water park. We've even done a few festivals - Camp Bestival combined with camping in Dorset was hands down best family holiday ever.

We camped loads so there was always fire building / outdoor games on the campsite and they usually made friends. Also finding nice places to eat became more important as they got older - finding the best pizza place has been an ongoing contest (Pizza Tipi in Cardigan in case you're wondering!)

We've been promising ds15 a sun and pool type holiday abroad for the past 2 years after all those years of camping and holiday cottages but Covid has buggered that. He'll have moved out before we manage it at this rate.

Oh, and we only did National Trust houses with big outdoor play areas or trails in the grounds!

Thanks for the ideas.
It is a bit painful that older DD would probably rather stay in the cottage and watch TV or do computer games than go out to the zoo etc. But beach, eating out and theatre were popular.
I'm thinking a city break might be good next time.

We do like an activity holiday here - climbing, kayaking, paddleboarding etc (I appreciate this is expensive!)

My Dd 12 also does enjoy a trip to the beach - she probably prefers it not too hot - but I wonder if she’d want to do it every day of a holiday.

She wasn’t so keen on the hotel / beach holiday we went on abroad, although she did love going on a boat trip and sea swimming with fish all around etc

Our kids are 10 and 13 - we usually do city/sightseeing type breaks, but we will throw in beaches/waterparks for a day if that's an option to offer something more for them. They're pretty good with all the cultural stuff but they like to have the 'fun' things too. BIL, with similar age kids, does more active stuff with kayaking, cycling etc but I can't ride a bike and DS and I aren't very physical.

We had a week in the new forest and did activities including slime making, go ape, water park and alpaca trek. It was the best holiday ever and both DDs (11 & 8) loved it

Rollercoasters, Water Parks, Zoos or even better interactive animal experiences.
I’m always exhausted by the time the holiday is over.

Body boarding is always a hit.

I agree with activities. We sent DD twice now on a trip on her own (riding center holiday) and then a week with us, hiking, sightseeing. We all love historic places so that's normally an easy thing for us to do. I do though think of sending her on a PGL trip with a friend next year.

She is a single child so having something physical to do is a great way to ensure a good mood and less electronics.

We did a sc holiday the 4th year in a row and we are ready for something else tbh.

Citybreaks are good, DD and I spent 4 days in Amsterdam, we did Paris and York and will look into Berlin and Rome next year (well, if possible).

We always went somewhere there was a swimming pool with flumes- preferably something indoors incase of rain and a beach nearby. As they got older they liked activities such as tree climbing type things. Haven in the UK or Eurocamp type holuday in Europe. They loved short breaks at Center Parcs.

• holiday

Centerparcs or camping. Mine like the beach but only for half a day and then it’s boring.

We do what you just did. They aren't bored. My eldest is 14 so is more likely to sit and chat with me on the beach than go rock pooling but that's fine. We would normally only pop to a beach for an hour or two though. We walk a lot, see new places, go sightseeing, spend time talking. Screens are only turned on in the evening (not a rule as dich, just what we default to).

A good mix of theme parks/beach/water parks
We focus holidays on what the DC want to do and dream of sipping cocktails on far off beaches

7 and 11 - we go for active holidays mainly - so hillwalking, skiing, sailing. But we try to get a balance within that for both their sakes and mine (disability).

So in a week in Snowdonia we might do 2 proper mountain walks, 2 low-level walks, 1-2 beach am/pm, plus visit some local museums/attractions and eat out. Probably half the week is activity and half 'other'. Sailing holidays similar - switch between sailing (and lessons), beach, walking, tennis, kayaking, and visiting local attractions. Skiing is more intense in that they go to ski school every day for at least half the day, usually all day, and then maybe just 1-2 little trips that don't involve skiing.

We don't really do the pre-baby city break/cultural holidays any more, just do the odd visit amongst everything else. Otherwise though we've just adapted our preferred holidays (active) to have a bit more variety and rest. Children love it (so far!) but I'm not sure they realise beach/resort hotels even exist.

Snowdonia worked well for us. Beaches, mountain climbing, Bounce Below (trampolining in old slate mine), zip wires and high ropes and steam trains.

We've always rented an apartment in the centre lf Liverpool. We have for years and the kids stil love it now as adults. It's a fantastic base, there's southport, chester, chester zoo, beaches, parks plus all the docks and free museums. There's always something going on.
Wondeeful city. And we can all go on the ferry really cheaply and as often as we like instead of paying a small fortune in somewhere like the lake district!
It doesn't get stupidly busy either unlike a lot of holiday destinations.

My two are 11 and 13 now but previously in summer we have always camped at a haven site in cornwall and done a mixture of days on site with swimming and other on site activities, days on different beaches and trips to different places in the area. We also always did a week at a theme park in Devon and mixed up days on site as it was included in the camping price with days out on the local area. It was all very centred around them.
Now they are older we don’t pay the haven premium and they are a bit old for the Devon theme park but they love the merlin parks so we do weekends away at them a couple of times a month and in May half term we did a ten day tour.
This summer we did a week in Devon and planned it as a family with the beaches the kids wanted to visit ( I m really busy so encouraged them to research) and some back up rainy day ideas, zoos etc. So I think the key is involving the kids in planning what you want to do, I know it sounds like i let my kids run the holiday but I like most things they do so I don’t mind. Me and DH make the grown up decisions about where to stay and where to eat at night though!
What I have found is that as they have got older they prefer a shorter time away from home so rather than two weeks we plan a week and mini breaks.
Sorry this is long, I love planning stuff and going away and on days out!