I actually don't know where to start

[SpaceDinosaur]

Title says it all really

DH and I haven't left the country since our Honeymoon. DD has never been abroad. She's now 2. BC I'd book a flight and stay in a hostel and travel around a place for a few weeks... i also did some sport holidays and DH camped around Italy when we holidayed together ogether we'd err on my preference because I hate camping 😂 DD hates camping too!

I've picked up brochures from high street travel agents but I'm finding it all rather uninspiring TBH. It's all cookie cutter rooms with pools in sunny places... nothing seems to change no matter which country you go to or am I being unfair? We won't take advantage of kids clubs or similar so that's not a selling point.

Please, well travelled MNers. Inspire me! How does it work, holidaying with a toddler?

what about a city break? somewhere like Bern in Switzerland? its an hour 40 minute flight, and there is a list of things to do with kids here, such as a bear park and a wonderful green space full of playgrounds and small attractions x

It works with a lot of extra planning! I used to do a lot of backpacking too & while I can see the appeal of the AI places (and we have done it twice) for parents & kids, I get antsy lying in a lounger for hours & my DD would only eat the chips & bread! For the best flight prices, use Skyscanner or Kayak. You probably don't want more than a 2 hour flight first time around, or anywhere too hot where you'll spend a lot of time worrying about sunburn or dealing with a bit sweaty toddler! So if you're looking this summer, somewhere cooler like Germany/Switzerland/Austria would be better high summer & the Mediterranean countries in September. Because our DD literally would eat about 5 things, we rented apartments in the early days (and still do!). It's much nicer to have more space that you can escape to have a break too & relax in for a couple of hours. It helped a lot with getting my DD to eat as well if I'd cooked it - we still had a meal out a day though! We usually went for city apartments & did short train journeys but there are plenty of apartments & villa's with pools in walkable distance to towns. I use a mixture of booking.com, AirBnB & HomeAway for properties. Places I liked that when my DD was small were Bologna, Bruges, Nice, Bergen, Stockholm & Malta.
Hope some of this is useful! My DD screamed the plane down on her first flight & wet the seat which was a nightmare! Basically her ears hurt in the descent.Next time we took loads of sticker books & games/films on her tablet & distracted her with a gurning competition with copious amounts of haribo's as the plane descended!

You just work out where you want to go and what you want to do making sure there's things close by for toddler to do.

Accomodation depends how much cooking you are happy to do but you can get apartments with restaurants on site. Would not recommend a hotel that isn't family orientated but otherwise just whatever you preference is. Would go out of school hols if can, September or June work well. We did Scandinavia and Maderia at that age mainly in apartments and those worked well. I wouldn't do too much travelling long distance with a toddler so few hours max. I dislike camping but once did a mobile home which was lovely, 2 bathrooms, wifi, big TV, dishwasher, 50 metre pool waterslide, beach, food on site. Copenhagen was lovely, doing Norway this year and Sweden and lots of sporting places there plus animals like reindeer, moose, beavers, otters, seals in the wild.

I agree - at two at least your DD isn't going to have opinions about where you go - so use that to your advantage. She will also probably be happy as long as you try to incorporate some stuff for her into each day. So if you go to say Paris, make sure you stop off at a playground or two each day, have an ice cream, take her to the park for a run around, etc. We did all kinds of holidays when our kids were little - from a gite in Brittany with plenty of days out to local historic towns and lovely sandy beaches, to city breaks in Europe.

What I would recommend is that you rent an apartment, not just a hotel room. That way you can put your DD to bed or down for a nap and you won't have to tiptoe around and whisper - you can just go in the living room, crack open a bottle of whatever and be adults.

Thank you ladies!!! I'll get looking!

The first place we went to with my DD when she was about 2 was Umbria in Italy. We booked a place through Babyfriendly Boltholes which was lovely ( think olive groves, goats, swings etc) but was quite rural. We had self catering but actually I would have appreciated a cafe nearby to walk to... although you could buy home made food prepared by the owners. ( frozen). The problem with going out for dinner was that the Italians ate so late and our DD never slept in her pushchair so it was generally out for lunch and cooking at night. The other destination we went to was Marrakech which we visited in December. ( DD was about 3). We stayed in a Riyad in the old town and were spoiled by all the staff. We’ve always managed to find child friendly activities and food that she will eat , although to be fair she’s a pretty adventurous eater. ( think octopus, mussels etc). Since then we’ve done a villa in Croatia, cheapy self catering in Madeira and a visit to friends in Texas. If we don’t go abroad we enjoy the Lake District , Cornwall Yorkshire or Scotland and book via Air BnB or similar. I wouldn’t fuss too much about child centric locations particularly since most destinations we’ve been to have been good with kids and you can usually find something interesting to do or see.