Best holiday without a car

[beatricequimby]

Hoping to go on first ever family holiday abroad next year. Dcs will be 11,9 and 7. I have no idea where to start looking as the sort of holidays we liked pre-dc - city breaks, obscure Greek islands - wouldn't work.

So where would Mumsnetters recommend?

Depends on your budget but there were 2 all-inclusive holidays we have had that the kids loved: les Orangers in Tunisia and Aqua Vasia in Crete. Fine if you don't want to go out and about too much, but enough on your doorstep to go and see.

Having said that, we only went for a week both times!

Thanks Daft, will have a look at those.

We have just spent a week in Sissi, Crete and we liked it a lot. It is off the beaten track as far as public transport is concerned so we booked a couple of tours, but they were very well organised and we enjoyed them.

Lake Garda is probably my all time favourite summer holiday destination as you can travel about so easily on the ferries or by bus. And the place is utterly beautiful.

Oh! just wanted to say that the place I mentioned in Crete was in Sissi also. The "beach" is too rocky for comfort but there's a lovely inlet you can swim in in the village.

We stayed at the Castello Boutique hotel which wasn't far from Boufos beach. Just a little further on was a lovely sandy beach at Kalimera and then another at Spliada, but they would have been a bit of a trek from your hotel. We spent time at Boufos and by the pool when we weren't out and about.

The comments about AI at the Vasia hotel are interesting, but unsurprising. Quite frankly if I was staying AI I wouldn't be expecting top quality food and drink (which is why we don't do AI). The food where we stayed was lovely.

Did you like Sissi?

We took our DS (9mo) away for the first time this year and had the same problem as you choosing where to go as our normal choices weren't going to work. We ended up randomly booking Torremolinos without doing any research and it turned out to be a really good choice for a simple, child-friendly holiday.

We went to the beach, the sealife centre, up Calamorro mountain on the cable car and squeezed in a day trip to Malaga (more our kind of choice pre-baby). There were quite a lot of things we didn't get round to (e.g. the zoo and trips to nearby villages) because we were only there for a week and worked around DS's naps
. We didn't hire a car and relied on trains and buses which worked well (even with a buggy). We did go just outside of peak season so it was quite quiet and stayed in Torremolinos itself which looked a bit quieter than the neighbouring resorts.

We did Sorrento a few years ago and I remember that being quiet easy without a car (we got trains to Vesuvius and Pompeii and a boat to Capri).

Hope you have a great trip wherever you end up!

Actually, my favourite car free holiday destination is Sark, which is a 45 minute ferry ride from Guernsey. There are no cars on the island. You either walk or hire a bike. It is utterly beautiful and very safe, and feels like stepping back in time.

We've also been to Sissi in Crete and loved it, however as mentioned, public transport isn't great. This year we're staying over the Chania side of Crete, which has reliable and regular public transport (or so I've read!)