Traveling Europe with kids

[BeAmberEagle]

We are planning to travel Europe for 4 weeks next summer. We have 3 kids from 4-12. Anyone done this? Any top tips? Advice where to stay, how to travel via trains etc.
Thanks

This is an extremely general question, so perhaps we can narrow things down a bit.

• How active/easygoing/demanding/special needs are your kids?
• What is your daily budget for accommodation and meals?
• How many countries/cities do you want to visit in 28 days?
• If you are flying in, what is your likely starting point?
• How experienced are you in travelling under your own steam (ho ho) as a family group?
• What is your country of origin (Americans will have substantially different expectations to Brits)?

Apologies for all the questions, but they may save everyone's time...

-Kids are pretty easy going, no Sen. 2 older girls and younger boy.

• We live in London.

-We are clueless with travel!

I can't really answer much else as I don't really know.. I want to see what other people have done and use that to guide me. Over all budget is around £8000

I think you need a bit of variety over the course of 4 weeks, so maybe a city for sightseeing, a beach resort (a hotel with pool?), possibly a theme park and then another city again. Don’t try and move around too much as packing and unpacking for 5 people plus working out the logistics won’t feel like a holiday at all! It will be more stress than it’s worth, especially as you say you’re clueless about travel.
Also, with spending 4 weeks together the entire time, tempers are likely to fray. Well, I know they would in my family and my 12yo would want some time with children his own age, or at least away from his parents and siblings. Perhaps include a hotel or a Eurocamp with a kids club and activities for part of it.

At Easter we did 7 countries in two weeks, travelling by train. The most efficient way of doing it was to fly to southern Europe and work out way back, with just the Eurostar booked at the end to aim for. We didn't plan the route but each had a couple of things we'd like to see or do.

Man in seat 61 website is brilliant for planning train journeys. You can download the interrail app for checking timetables. You buy a ticket that entitles you to X days of travel over Y days. If you think you'll run out of days, prioritise the more expensive journeys and pay extra for the cheaper ones.

Sleeper trains cancelled be a great way to save on travel time and accommodation costs, plus it's an adventure for the kids.

As for the itinerary, it's good to mix between cities and countryside/coastal. We spent 1 or 2 nights in each place usually but as you're there for longer it'd prove worth taking your time and having a rest in each new country.

Lastly, only take what you can comfortably carry. Wash clothes as you go, use a launderette once a week for a more thorough clean of everything.

2nd that you need to have a look at www.seat61.com. This covers all European rail travel really well in including interrail passes etc. Interrail works better in Germany/Italy/Eastern Europe than France and Spain (where you quite often need expensive reservations) It really depends what you are interested in but in 4 weeks you could do:
Brussels
Munich
Innsbruck
Venice/Verona
Rome/Naples
Pisa/Lucca
Italian Riviera
Nice
Avignon / Aix en Provence
Lyon
Paris
Just to give an example - maybe spend more time in each place. Or we did Prague/Bratislava/Budapest/Vienna/Tyrol/Munich over 3 weeks. Or down to the the bottom of Italy one side and back the other. Puglia and Calabria.

Over all budget is around £8000

That is going to be put severely to the test. For 4 weeks it works out at £285 per day. You are going to need two hotel rooms and 10 meals every day before you have entered a museum or got on a train.

Perhaps you could make a dry run of 2 or 3 nights in the UK and see how much you actually spend. France/Germany/Italy/Netherlands/Belgium will cost about the same as the UK, Spain/Portugal a bit less, Switzerland/Denmark/Sweden a lot more.

I would go camping and stay in chalets rather than hotels. You could do 3-4 countries.

Thanks all. Gives me a good starting point there with things to think about.

I went Interrailing with my 2 DC for 16 days, and we spent I think £1700 in total for travel and accommodation. Our nightly accommodation budget was £50, and there was only one place where I couldn't find anything for that, and had to bust the budget- Innsbruck. Our compromise was that we often had to stay a long way from the centre of places.

Germany, Italy and France I find cheaper than the UK for accommodation (France has brilliant budget chain hotels, with lots of family rooms/ apartments). Belgium was about the same, the Netherlands is mega pricey. We had to swerve Amsterdam for this reason. Austria was pretty pricey too.

OP, if you get Interrail passes, you get two FREE child passes per adult. The cut off age is 12, so you will probably have to buy your oldest a "youth" pass. For many high speed trains, including Eurostar, you have to pay a supplement per person including kids: for Eurostar it's 30/35 euros, for high speed trains in France and Italy it's usually between 10-20 euros. Some countries, like Germany and the UK, are mostly supplement free.

We're considering going Interrailing again next summer. Last time we went as far as Rome in the Easter holidays- I personally worry that Mediterranean countries are going to be too hot in July/ August, so I'm thinking Germany/ Eastern Europe, maybe as far as Bulgaria. This will also be cheaper and (hopefully, depending on exactly where we go) less crowded.

A night train might be fun, but it's not really a cheap option if you're Interrailing with a family, because there are supplements (usually about 30- 40 euros per head) for sleeper berths. That said, I'd love to give the new Paris- Berlin sleeper a whirl! But most of the sleeper trains book up really fast.

Also....for a family of 5, family rooms in youth hostels might be a good option (for the 3 of us they were usually more expensive than a hotel/ AirBnB room, but as a PP has mentioned, there being 5 of you tips you over into 2 room territory in hotels, whereas hostels have more larger room options).

We did similar time frame last year. We went London - Strasbourg - Bern - Venice - Rimini - Naples - Rome - Pisa - Monaco - Annecy - Lyon - London.
Naples was horrid wouldn't go again and Lyon was too much at the end being a bigger city.
We did a mix of hotels and air bnbs and it was a good mix of sight seeing and relaxing activities.
Agree with staying at least 2 nights in places if you can, otherwise its a lot of packing/ unpacking and gives you a chance to get your bearings in a place.
Also pack and then remove half the stuff, travel light, if your always on the move no-one knows if you've worn it before.

We took the train from London - Brussels - Cologne - Vienna- Bratislava - Prague and back to Brussels in the summer with our two DC. Eurostar to and from Brussels, NightJet sleeper from Cologne to Vienna, European Sleeper from Prague to Brussels. It was a fabulous holiday (not cheap though) - we stayed in Airbnbs everywhere and had at least 2 nights in each place with more in Vienna and Prague (Cologne was just for a day as we had to change trains there).

I planned all the rail travel using seat61 which is an amazing resource.

Good luck and happy planning!

I’m going to be controversial - have you asked dc if they want to be on the move all
the time? It’s exhausting. Would not a shorter holiday using, say, 4 cities, not be better? Your Dc can then really explore what’s there and you aren’t rushing on to the next destination. There’s not much to do on a train. I do think you miss the best of cities by not taking some time to savour them. My DC would have hated all this travelling but they liked museums, grand palaces and even shopping!

Oh please don't do this many stops. Not with 3 children. You need fewer bases as every time you move accommodation the packing/unpacking is so stressful unless your children are exceptionally compliant and good at packing.

Sleepers can be a very good plan.

Traveling Europe with kids can be a blast with a little planning. Consider family-friendly accommodations like apartments or Airbnbs for space and flexibility. For trains, look into Eurail passes or country-specific options—they're convenient and kids often travel free or at a discount. Pack light but include essentials like snacks and entertainment for the journey. Stick to a mix of big cities and smaller, family-friendly spots to keep everyone happy—places like Paris, Amsterdam, and Italian countryside towns are great! Don't overpack the itinerary; leave room for downtime and spontaneous adventures.

We did 8 weeks travelling around Europe with our kids. We hired a campervan - although I think it would have been cheaper to hire a car and stay in cheap motels but the extra space was good.

I would say plan, plan, plan. Our holiday was amazing because we had a very clear plan of what we were doing every day. Even down to instructions to get from places to stay to attractions. It meant I was super relaxed as I knew exactly how our days were going to work. I love planning but it was a lot of work. Also a lot of attractions in Europe you need to buy tickets online before so you need to have a basic plan for this.

We did a lot of fitness stuff with our kids in preparation but also they are good travellers. You could schedule rest days if you think you will need them.