Holiday destination help!

[Mindymaby]

Going round in circles!
we want to go away for a week to ten days

me, partner, four year old and 18 month old

ideally I want to relax by a lake where the kids can swim and splash

we want to go via the train though which is making it hard as I don’t want a big resort

we’ve only taken the kids on glamping trips in the uk so far - cabins, yurts, safari tents, but the car has been totally loaded!

don’t want to hire a car because of car seats, don’t want to drive to Europe. Partner doesn’t want to fly

looked at Switzerland but the hotels were sooo expensive, like 300 a night. I’m happy to spend a bit but by the time we’d done that and paid for trains it was so expensive.

what have been your good holidays with little kids and can anyone recommend specific places to stay?

chargpt has given me some amazing itineraries but I can’t make it work with actual places to stay

I'd drive and get a ferry to the Netherlands if you don't want to fly. You could also do the Eurotunnel and drive anywhere in Belgium, France or the Netherlands but that would be more driving than just Harwich to hook of Holland
https://little-clogs-holidays.co.uk/where-to-stay/

The Yellow villages are great, but without a car you're then factoring in either multiple bus journeys or a very expensive taxi/Uber.... then you'll still need to do a shop.

Driving in France is really easy. Loads of rest stops, with decent loos.

If set on train, then perhaps use a toddler carrier? I did a lot of solo travelling with my son; he was on my back in the carrier, and my trolley went in the pushchair.

To be fair @Oriunda we didn’t need a car seat when we went to the Yelloh at Lacanau.

You could look at Friedrichshafen youth hostel OP. It’s in a good location. It gets booked up quickly though.

Lake Annecy is lovely. We had a great holiday there when the kids were little. It's busy though but I guess most of these places are in the summer.

And this year we are going to lake maggoire. On the Swiss bit v close to the Italian border. I actually managed to find some reasonably priced accommodation so Well see what it's like!

We went to como a couple of years ago but also found that v busy (busier than Annecy actually)

Thank you so much for this everyone. Lot of food for thought. You’re making me think that if we drove and camped, we’d have a lot more options. Don’t want to camp if we’re getting the train because I don’t think we’d manage, but definitely could with the car.
I probably need to split the trip into a city break via train and a camping lakes via car, might be simpler.
so many lovely holiday suggestions here- lakes for all!!

If you go to a campsite, you can use their own accommodation if you prefer that to taking camping equipment. Obviously more pricy though.

Have a look at Byway Travel. I used them to interail around the Netherlands. Absolutely brilliant. https://www.byway.travel/

We’ve just come back from a Eurocamp stay at Beekse Bergen in the Netherlands. LeShuttle and driving there was dead easy, honestly. The Netherlands is great for kids, a really relaxed country, super kid friendly too.

Yes I was going to suggest the Netherlands - have you looked at Duinrell? It's a theme park with Eurocamp-style accommodation plus normal camping, in a nice little town not far from the coast. We took our kids when they were the same ages as yours and loved it.

Another option is the Eurostar + train to Luxembourg, if you're dead set on not driving.