‘Adventure’ holidays with toddlers

[Fiddledeedeeee]

DP and I loved to have an adventure while on holiday, pre-DC. Previous examples include backpacking in India with no plan as to where to go next, ditto SE Asia, trekking holidays, multi-stop holidays. We’re happy to have a couple of beach days a week, but basically not beach/ pool resort based holidays. We also love cities.
This isn’t really possible now we have DC (2.5 and one on the way), but we really don’t want a weeks AI in a resort either. This year (first foreign trip with DC) we had 4 days at a Spanish coast location and then got the train to a Spanish city for another 3 days and we were happy with this sort of compromise for now. We’re also going to Cornwall later this year where we can base ourselves and have days out.

We’re looking for ideas similar to the Spanish trip for next year. Neither of us would be confident driving on the right, especially with the DC and we’d ideally like somewhere where either English is understood, or we wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb for not speaking the local language (we like cities for this reason).

We’ll have roughly a 3.5yr old and 6 month old at this point, so somewhere child friendly, fairly short flight (4hrs ish max) and not too hot ideally, but warm would be great (c.25c max) We don’t Mind changing location once during a weeks holiday, or happy to stay in one base as long as there are fairly close things to do each day.
close to a beach for one or two half days on the beach would be a bonus for DC1.

Does anyone have any ideas for locations that would fit all this criteria?

thank you.

We loved French / European campsite holidays at this age and above - you can do your adventure by driving across Europe with lots of stops in different sites - static mobile homes mean you don't have to drag a tent around with you but they're all very outdoorsy and huge variety of beach / mountains / rivers / near cities etc

We did similar to you many years ago with a week at the Spanish coast self catering and a few days in Seville, it worked very well.
French alps with appropriate carriers or bike carriers for the DC.
Scandinavia, we did two centre self catering in Denmark and Sweden has lots to see and explore .
Netherlands have a good train network .
Driving on the other side of the road isn't difficult at all.You follow the other traffic( I'm a terrible driver and manage fine).I wouldn't want to do it in a big city but suburbs , motorways and resorts are fine.It is even easier if you hire a car as the steering wheel is on the left .
The Italian rail network is good and DC welcomed so you could do coast plus a city stay easily.
How about the Camino de Santiago or part of it?

Chamonix, Morzine

Lisbon is good for a family city break - went there with my kids when they were 2 and 4 and we had a good time. Could combine with Cascais if you want beaches too.

We went to Brittany when DC were that age but if you don’t take a car, you are limited. So maybe Bordeaux and hire a car when you are there? You might also like northern Spain. Bilbao and then the cost? Hire a car when there? Our DC liked pools and beaches. Cities were hard work! They liked travelling further afield from about 5/6. Time goes by in a flash!

We were adventurous backpackers pre kids. Don’t laugh, but a cruise scratches that itch. Get off the ship in a new place to explore each day, we taxi or train or hike with the kids independently - never used the ships tours.

I wouldn’t have been seen dead on a cruise ship pre kids, but it’s a great compromise. I also hate resorts.

The free childcare allows us to actually relax and enjoy our dinner and a cocktail.

Amazing holiday when you have kids
and pretty good value.

I’d just advise against P&O personally as it’s too British (not in a good way!). Prefer the European or American ships

Have you done Scotland? No issue with language or driving on the other side of the road and there’s some stunning beaches on the west coast. Island hopping might fulfil your lust for adventure.

Get the train to Europe and tour about that way. Sleeper trains are brilliant with small kids because you are in your own private area and don't have to worry about annoying other passengers.

Plus it's a more environmentally friendly way to travel so more chance of leaving the world inhabitable for future generations 🙂

Another vote for Lisbon - split between Lisbon and cascais . You can do day trips to Sintra for the castles and mountains and then beach days at guincho etc.

Trains in Italy are excellent - the lakes would be very accessible and you could combine with Venice, bologna or Milan.

Or mallorca - so many day trips from palma and you could do a few days on the Coast and a few days in Palma.

Further afield, we planned a trip to Thailand with my little one (damn covid!!) And had quite a good family trip planned out with no driving

We had a week in Devon last year which my 3 year old still talks about.

We did a couple of cruises when DC were older. They do suit the DC regarding activities but are very regimented. Some ports are remote from anywhere you went to go to so you have to get a taxi or use cruise shore trip at great expense.

The American ships are full of fun for DC. Mine saw lots of really huge people in the pool. If you are travellers who are used to being free spirits, don’t cruise!!

@deplorabelle sadly the sleeper train from France to Italy is no more since Covid :(
Very sad as we loved the Thello sleeper train and combined with Eurostar was an fun way to travel to Italy

@TizerorFizz funny how we all have different perceptions- a cruise is freedom to me, get to see different places every day, experience the local culture cheaply, while only unpacking once and not having to think about food. The ports usually have a bus or train link to somewhere interesting- and some of the ports are interesting workaday places themselves, like Livorno

Find it to be a really relaxing holiday with children. Whereas I feel trapped in a resort type holiday like Tenerife or holiday park! But I must be in minority as a lot of families I know love the Canary Islands

@WhyWhyaretheynotdoinganything there are loads of other sleepers though -Nightjet leaving from Brussels and Amsterdam (so just a change from an afternoon Eurostar).

@Whyaretheynotdoinganything
Wd did Mark Warner once. Totally awful. We don’t do AI!

We have been to a number of cruise destinations and you really can be some distance away from anything worth looking at. We decided that when DC got older we would continued going to Brittany and did a lot more adventurous holidays. By tgd time youngest was 8, we did New York, Boston snd Cape Cod. They did safaris and we went to Peru and later to Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. We liked villas with a car.

Posted too soon ! We liked villas with a car in Europe. We also did sailing in the Caribbean and rented houses there too. We decided to spend more time in each place.

I think adventure type holidays are easier than lazy beach holidays with a child tbh

more to to taking our toddler travelling around japan in March (if they allow tourists back in by then) gonna travel around by train - stay in various cities - do a bit of countryside

she loves trains, we live in a big city already and she commutes with me daily - we’ve taken her on heaps of hikes in a backpack thing - she’s been attempting to walk some of the way the last while (not super successful yet)

I honestly think hunk you can still do any trips you want within reason once you make it a bit more child friendly

we visit my parents abroad regularly and she is not bother on a plane she’s well used to it now.

we will do a day or 2 at Disney land Tokyo which we wouldn’t have done pre kids so that will be fun

If you were used to backpacking pre-kids, it's still possible. We went to the same places we would have gone on our own but just had earlier nights, looked for a park in any town we were in and avoided anywhere malerial until dd was old enough to take meds (you can get medicine rather than tablets when they're young).

Anywhere can seem exciting - when dd was a toddler we did a trip to Lebanon and Syria (before the civil war obviously). We wandered around Roman ruins in Lebanon. She obviously wasn't interested in the ruins but was really happy to walk around picking up little stones. She loved the crusade castles in Syria.

One of the best holidays we did when she was a toddler was China. She liked looking for statues of lions and for a very long time afterwards she would get very excited if we saw a young Chinese woman because they had made such a fuss of her.

I can confirm sleeper train still exist, but fewer of them. We did this this summer, went from SW England to Southern Italy and back. Was great.

I recommend this: Istanbul for a couple of nights, internal flight to Antalya and stay in Cirali. You can see an ancient city on the beach, clear clear seas, beautiful food and you can take an evening torchlight short hike (we took the kids they coped fine) to see the fascinating Chimera.

This was one of our most memorable holidays. Our kids made friends with a Turkish family after spending a while at a playground in Istanbul, and after 3 days of bumping into them there, they invited us around for dinner in their city apartment. The husband was a tailor and showed us his work, and the children translated as best they could, one was a huge ManU fan and I'm sure was a bit short changed when we couldn't really have a chat about the team as we are clueless! They were so generous.

We stayed here

www.canadahotel.net/

Switzerland, very child friendly, you can go with pushchair up the highest mountain and they have playgrounds everywhere. We were in Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken is good base and you have the lakes. I planned our inetary with this blog: mysiwssfamilyfun

Austria is supposed to be great for children too, but I havent been

Is the travel/adventure for yourself or for the children or both? Having done a lot of travel pre children we surprised ourselves and found UK child focused adventures worked well for us - rock pools, power kitting, camping, wildlife etc as the children didn't need a more far flung destination to start exploring the world. We did however also ski in the winter. Once the children were a bit older we went further afield they now plan their own adventures. We have come across a lot of travellers with baby's and children e.g. climbing in Nepal however these were not people on an annual two week break.

Rhodes or Crete would suit - but go in May/June or September to reduce the heat.

La Rochelle & Ile de Re

Copenhagen and Amsterdam are v child friendly, not really beachy but there are centre parca type places nearby they would enjoy (but you might hate!)

However. Travelling with a 3yo and baby is a LOT harder work than travelling with one toddler IME, especially if either of them isn’t a great sleeper. So I would wait and see how you find two DC and make your plans then. I note the very adventurous travels described by pps are all with one child, not two.

Is warm weather a guaranteed must?

Otherwise Germany, Austria or Scandinavia?

Find a base or two or three with good public transport and toddler friendly things to do. You can hike if you have carriers, you can keep your routine if your child/baby needs it. Get self-catering accomodation or look for Kinderhotels if you want it a bit easier.

Friends just did Norwegen, Sweden and Denmark with their kids purely with public transport and ferries.

For me a cruise is a nightmare, too strict with their schedule, we like to do things when we want, not when the ship comes into port. We did AI for convenience but I think we went out at least 1/2 of the time or more to explore.

Wow thank you so much for all the replies. There are a lot of great ideas that we’ll look into in detail.
I especially like the idea of a train based trip. Hadn’t thought about cruising but the idea of seeing lots of places but luggage being all in one place might be a good one, but I get that it might be restrictive too.
we’ll definitely wait for DC2 to arrive safely and see what sort of baby they are before we book, but at least we can map out some plans and think about costs etc. We’ll probably aim to go away before they are 6 months old and start weaning, as if I can breastfeed again it will take away a lot of faff.

Thank you all again.