5 week hols with 3 young kids - where to go?

[Loobyfly]

In July/August 2012 my husband has a 5 week sabbatical from work. Our 3 children will be aged 2, 5 and 7 at that time. Where is best place to take them? Round New Zealand in a campervan? Round the world trip visiting Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Bali? How about a cruise? Or just campervan trip around Great Britain? Our budget is a maximum of £12,000. Any ideas or experience in this area please?

What appeals to you? With DCs that age, I suspect the campervan option would be best. NZ would be lovely - but very cold in S Island at that time. Might be better to be somewhere warmer? What about part of US - Yellowstone or somewhere?

Hi there! So exciting planning a trip like this. My dh and I are doing the same at the moment for a 6 week spell in the US travelling around in an RV. We are in the same boat as you more or less -we've never done it and we've got 2 dd's 5 and 1 so we're not expecting it to be relaxing haha! We've decided to minimise flying time so we're just doing a flight to San Francisco and back again and the 6 weeks we're there we're going to rent an RV and go up the coast stopping frequently of course taking in national parks, beaches and perhaps the odd animal and/or theme park. I like your idea of going to NZ and doing the campervan thing as the scenery will obviously be amazing but I'm not sure I'd want to plan a round the world trip in 5 weeks with littlies. It sounds a long time but with a busy itinerary it might get a little stressful. Do let us know if you've got any further with planning stuff....

Round the world will involve a lot of flying/airport time and it won't always be a fun novelty for the kids. If I were you, since I had 5 weeks to play with I'd choose a 'big' country (maybe US or Oz) and spend the time really getting under the skin of the place.

Wonderful that you've got 5 weeks for family adventuring :)

I'd do the States with dc that age. We've done a few RV trips and it's absolutely fab.

I would do something that involved as little stress as possible so a cruise would be great. Otherwise I would go for driving in America or Aus.

Thank you very much for all your suggestions. I've been investigating some cruises but having a third child means we need to pay for 2 cabins, which really bumps the price up. Also looked at campervan hire in Aus and NZ but bit concerned about winter weather over there at the time of year we would need to go. So lots to think about still! But I definitely take on board what you have all said about making it as stressfree as possible. So I think we will abandon any plans for trips which involve a lot of internal flights, etc. Thank you for your ideas :)

Canada?
Round some great lakes and national parks with a camper van, or up into Novia Scotia?

We just spent 3 months in Nepal & India with our 2 year old, fabulous trip.