Ideas for month-long holdiay next March with 3 yr old + 10 mo old

[lolalight]

Just wanted to pick people's brains about ideas for a month-long holiday either next March/April or over Xmas while I'm on maternity leave and before ds starts school in September. I'm keen on NZ having lived there ages ago and loved it, but DH worried about flights being a nightmare so wondered about other people's ideas - happy to consider anywhere in the world (South America / Asia / U.S etc) with my only consideration being access to good medical care and sanitary conditions as we'll have a 10 month old by then and would be nervous taking him/her anywhere too remote or with lots of weird tropical diseases! We'd ideally do self-catering with long-ish periods in each place rather than constantly moving all the time. Thanks for your thoughts!

my vote either california or thailand, done both with small kids and really easy although too lazy to check march weather in either for you!

thank you - have been pondering both of those - do you mind telling me where you went in both? did you self-cater or do hotels?? Thanks!

Thailand is easy with kids and feels very safe. We have also been to South Africa, Italy and Portugal (lakes and algarve) all successfully with our little ones. We also went to South of France but although we had a nice time i would not recommend it as child friendly.

Any more info u want on Thailand let me know - we have time in Krabi (ao Nang) and than met friends in Pattaya. All v child friendly- thai's just love kids and will do anything to help.

Dinodino - yes please - did you self-cater or do hotels? Also, do you think 3 weeks would be too long in one place, DS1 will be 3 by then and DS2 about 10 months - do you think there's enough for them to do? We live in London so used to going to museums / trains / tubes / classes etc all the time but I love the idea of just chilling out on the beach, swimming, fishing etc, but do you think DS1 would get fed up..? Also, do you think the medical care would be OK in case of emergencies...? Thank you!

remember Thailand is a dengue zone so 24/7 Deet needed as well as full set of jabs. You can stay clear of the malaria zones.

California weather would not be warm.

NZ in March would be into early autumn so not beach weather; you have to be fairly hardy for the beach in NZ outside high summer! Xmas would be good but humungous flight prices.

Hmmm, we are pretty hardy and don't want it to be superhot, but any other ideas of where would be nice..? am wondering whether we should just do a couple of weeks somewhere like the Seychelles / Mauritius which is safe and free of tropical diseases...

We stayed in a hotel in Ao Nang - only breakfast included. We ate out all the other meals. Very cheap to eat out.

In Pattaya it is difficult to describe the place we stayed but i suppose the nearest thing to it would be a villa. It was self catering. We ate out EVERY meal - including breakfast . There are just so many cafes and all so cheap. Sometimes we ate at street stalls. The kids loved it.

By the way the weather was very hot - but we never found it too bad. We stayed in places with air conditioning. Went exploring early morning and evening. Had a siesta during the hottest part of the day. Sometimes if the kids would not sleep - we just went indoors and put cartoon network on telly.

Seychelles and Mauritius also have dengue, although fairly low risk.

it is everywhere that doesn't get cold in the winter.

Canada? try and go somewhere that neither of you have been before would be good. my dcs are older so if we had a month it would be florida keys and then into south America. would personally avoid anywhere needing jabs or with mosquitos with young ones as this means you are stressing about something too much. a mix of places - luxury ai and self catering or hotels would be good too.

hey all, thanks for your replies - we are now thinking we might do a week skiing (to capitalise on the last year of non-school holiday holidays) and then the French Caribbean as it looks pretty safe and also interesting with lovely beaches...also you don't need any jabs I don't think.

Sounds fantastic v jealous ! - good luck