The Algarve is an incredibly popular destination for families and with cheap flights to Faro, year-round sun and more Mateus Rose than you can shake a stick at (if it’s good enough for Cliff Richard, it’s good enough for us) it’s easy to see why. For families, Portugal also makes good fiscal sense; it’s one…
Child- Friendly New York: How to spend a week in the Big Apple without breaking the bank.
There are two ways of visiting New York with kids. The first way is to devote the bulk of your time attempting to see all the ‘sights.’ If you take this approach, not only will you haemorrhage cash from every orifice, but you’ll also spend an awful lot of time standing in queues or being squished into elevators or…
Stress-free Disney: How to do Disneyland, California with young kids
If you’re in California and in two minds about visiting Disneyland, let me help you make a decision. You should go. Bite the bullet, take the hit on the wallet and go. Because, despite the prices, the queues, the out of control materialism and folks wandering around inexplicably gnawing on overpriced turkey legs (really) – there is something surprisingly charming…
Child-Friendly LA: Family fun in La-La land
Having close family in California means we have been regular visitors to Los Angeles for the last decade or so. A huge, sprawling city -busy and crazy and full of cars – LA might not be an obvious choice for a child friendly trip. It hasn’t got the greatest reputation in the world either meaning some people visit…
Child-Friendly London: Bloomsbury, Covent Garden and Victoria
What are we going to do? We’re going to have a classic London day – visiting a museum, walking past some iconic London sights and taking in a West End show. Since London is best seen on foot, we’re not going to take the tube or get a bus – so avoid a heel, pack a…
Child-Friendly UK: How to (and how not to ) camp with kids in England
Camping with kids can either be utterly wonderful or completely hideous – a triumph or a tragedy. Having had both types of camping ‘experiences’ including one where things got seriously Shakespearean – think A Comedy of Errors meets The Tempest – I know from experience that when camping goes wrong, it can go very wrong. A bad anything can put you…
Child-Friendly Mallorca: Beautiful Fornalutx and Soller
Although Mallorca has managed to shake off most of its ‘Boozy Brits behaving badly in the Balearics ‘ image, if you have young children and are planning a family trip to the island, you might have a touch of the heebie jeebies about where to base yourselves. The last thing anyone wants when they’re trying to gently…
Child-Friendly Iceland: A weekend in super-cool Reykjavik with the kids
With its glaciers, geysers, waterfalls and wild beaches, Iceland is a magical place to visit. Aesthetically, it’s a combination of the moon, Middle Earth and the Highlands of Scotland making it uniquely other-worldly looking. Just the journey in from Keflavik airport to central Reykjavik gives a tantalising glimpse of the mysterious landscape; lava fields and hazy mountains in the distance, plumes of steam…
Child-Friendly Italy: Bologna, Florence, Lucca and Venice by rail. Part 3 – Venice.
Our final stop on our Italian adventure, after Bologna and Florence, was the beautiful floating city of Venice. I don’t think anything can prepare you for the sensory overload of seeing Venice for the first time. For the first couple of hours of being in the city, we wandered around in a trance. I mean I know it’s famously…
Child-Friendly Italy: Bologna, Florence, Lucca and Venice by rail. Part 2 – Florence and Lucca
Florence was the next stop on our Italian adventure. Read Part 1 here. Famously beautiful, its compact city centre is a World Heritage Site and very simple to navigate on foot, making it easy to walk around with children. Many of the main attractions sit either side of the River Arno and are located around the Ponte Vecchio; a medieval…
Child-Friendly UK: Museums, Markets and Messing about on the river in Oxford
I do love a day out in Oxford. Just being there makes you feel clever. It has museums to rival London and its compact city centre means it is much easier to get around and see the sights. In the sprit of this, the University of Oxford have given an absolute gift to parents in…
Child-Friendly Italy: Bologna, Florence, Lucca and Venice by rail. Part 1 – Bologna.
The Italian cities are perhaps not the first places you think of when planning a summer holiday for your family; they’re hot, there’s *some* walking required and most children generally have minimal to zero interest in looking at the great art works of the Renaissance. But sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith….
