More adventurous holidays with young kids?

[ProfessionalPirate]

2 DC aged 3 (soon to be 4) and 7.5
We’ve done years of European beach holidays and I’m pretty sick of them. Went to Florida in October and found the longer flights fine. Can anyone recommend any destinations / trip itineraries that would be suitable for young children?

I keep looking into places and then talking myself out of them as I don’t think the children are old enough yet. Eg we’d love to go to Costa Rica but there’s no way DD3 would cope with the hiking or be old enough to do the zip lines.

TIA!

Just to say - having done both Center Parcs and a kinderhotel last year with our toddler - they’re very different! Might not be exactly what you want or quite as adventurous- but honestly Austria (we went to the Post Hotel in Unken) was amazing.

Beautiful hotel (chalk and cheese to Center Parcs cabin!), very good food, endless (free, once you’re there) fun for kids - farm, pony rides, brilliant pool, beautiful swimming lake etc. And great walks from the hotel, bike rides (with scenery - and mountain hills… - on a different scale to CPs!) and we went up a gondola etc too, plus to Salzburg for an excellent castle and kids museum, so very much not stuck in the hotel (all the buses were free).

It wasn’t cheap (although far cheaper than the Instagram/italy ones!) but not horrendous for all inclusive, and honestly fab. May not be for you if you want long haul adventure, but we’re considering going back again this summer which we’ve never done before…

@ProfessionalPirateLook at families worldwide. Although 3 is young! We did self catering in France and went to historic towns and beaches. We didn’t get bored. We did long haul when younger dd was 5. We started with a cruise as dc liked the clubs and entertainment. Wasn’t for us though and we moved on to family holidays in Kenya and Ecuador but younger dd was 8. At younger ages, being static with a car worked for us. Lugging stuff for a 3 year old around whilst touring in Asia would not be fun in my view. Wait a bit and so much more becomes easier.

We had a great holiday in Egypt with our dc around that age. 5 days in Cairo exploring the pyramids, riding a camel, seeing the Egypt Museum and coptic churches and the big mosque.

The second 5 days we flew down to Luxor and saw the Valley of Kings, various temples and rode in caleches and on a boat on the Nile.

Generally we split the days, doing an activity in the morning and chilling by the pool in the afternoon. It worked well!

I am not sure if it counts as exotic or adventurous, but we took four children under 10 for three nights in Boston and then a couple of weeks in Cape Cod and absolutely loved it. There is loads to do for families in Boston at the beaches and holiday atmosphere in Cape Cod in the summer are gorgeous.

I agree that they are probably a bit young to make the most of a safari. Not least because of the various vaccinations, malaria, precautions, and other health considerations. Having visited Zimbabwe out of family necessity with several young children and ending up with stomach upsets and doctors visits, I’m not sure I would choose to do that as a holiday. If you wait until they are tweens or even teens, they can participate in all of the activities and will remember it for the rest of their lives. Cape Town of the Cape are of course lovely and you can do a little bit of safari activity there I guess.

@Stompythedinosaur I hope the horses pulling the caleches are in better condition than the ones we saw. We were disgusted. I’m not entirely sure a 3 year old gets much from Egypt.

Probably not a safari. Around 5/6 if you do a family safari but Safari drives start at 6 am! I do think Boston and Cape Cod are good areas for families. Or Garden route in SA at a leisurely pace.

We did Costa rica with a 3 year old and it was fine. They enjoyed nature, went on lots of wildlife walks, and we got to do white water rafting and zip lining one on one with the older child. Has asked to go back.

Well, I can only share my experiences of travel with a similar age dc! But I'm sure dc are all different. We found Egypt quite child friendly.

I have lived in Thailand and it is AMAZING with little children. Recommendations: i love phants (about 2.5 hours from Bangkok) which is a really lovely centre for elephants thst were used in the trade- you can see them whilst eating in their restaurant, kanchanburi (lots of options for mangrove tours and walks), koh chang (so many lovely beaches and amazing sunsets), chiang mai (great for treks and slightly cooler than in bangkok)

@Stompythedinosaur Yes, Eygpt is reasonably child friendly but pretty awful attitudes to teen girls we found! Also I’m not keen on poorly looked after horses pulling the carriages. It was dreadful and shameful.