Active holidays with 9-11 year olds?

[Adventureee]

Planning our summer holiday and I’d like to do something active. Was considering a cycling holiday, or a multi activity. Looking for some inspiration!

I’d like to be somewhere warm (ie: not the uk) and it has to be good for children aged 9-11.

Any recommendations?

My dc loved Costa Rica at that age.
Zip lining, jungle trekking, monkey river boat cruise, night time frog trek and snorkeling.

Our 11yo likes walking. We’re staying in a relative’s holiday home in the Austrian alps this year. We’re also spending a few days on Lake Constance cycling and swimming on the way back.

We’ve usually holidays in the French alps. So much to do… we take our own bikes, but you can hire. Mountain biking is fab (on easy runs in ski resorts), you can swim in the lakes and many have aqua parks. They also have Go Ape type places.

UK based but definitely active.. we are booked for the third year running at Gone Wild - Devon. It's a Bear Grylls activity festival for families run by the Royal Marines. Honestly it's the highlight of our summer break ☺️ my boys are 12&13

Organised or diy? Mark warner is the obvious one. We had a caravan on the the Core Sauvage in France. Loaded up the bikes on the car, cycling, surfing. Horse riding, walking. Didn't for years.

Some Eurocamps may fit the bill.
We stayed several times at one that was on a lake, surrounded by forest, and a 10 min drive to the beach which is a popular surfing spot, so plenty of scope both on-site and locally for various water sports and cycling. They also had their own water park.
Another we've stayed in had a large pool complex, zip-lining, Go-Ape style high wires, horse riding, and cable waterskiing on site.

Hotel Brennseehof is Austria is a family sports hotel.

Exodus and/or Explore have week long active family trips, like kayaking in Croatia and sailing in Greece or Turkey. They have something in Sicily too. It's definitely not cheap, I don't know how it compares to like Mark Warner, but you could also just steal some of their itinerary ideas and DIY.

Austria, France and some parts of Germany are great for cycling holidays: Dedicated cycle paths, good Hotels/Hostels, swimming pools, etc. Lake Constance and the Danube cycle path will be very busy in summer so perhaps one wants to book in advance. In summer it will be hot, so the option to go into the mountains to cool down a bit is tempting.

These are great suggestions! Looking them up!

Neilsons, Mark Warner or Club la Santa

Wow these sound fabulous. I don't suppose you remember the names please @SkankingWombat ?

We're doing Costa Rica this summer. We have kayaking, turtle tour, canyoning, white water rafting, zip lining, volcano hike and horse riding planned. Can't wait!

La Rive and Domaine des Ormes 🙂

We’ve been to Costa Rica before, and it’s exactly the kind of holiday we love! But we’ve been.

You’ll have an amazing time!

I'm currently saving for Costa Rica 2026 if anyone is happy to share their itinerary 😁

To add to all these great suggestions, Sani in Greece fitted the bill perfectly for our active son between 9 and 11.

@GraciousGracious

We've ended up going longer than planned as flights were cheaper