Tips & Thoughts on Taking Children on Holiday In Europe*

Tips & Thoughts on Taking Children on Holiday In Europe*

Photo taken by and kindly used with permission from Vikki at Family Travel With Ellie

*This is a collaborative post with HolidayGems*

We’ve just come back from a lovely holiday in Cornwall – it was relaxing, but as is commonly accepted, the British weather didn’t want to play ball. We had the odd few hours of sunshine but it was mainly grey and overcast. It does limit what you can do, and so we have discussed maybe heading to Europe next year – possibly France or Spain. There are some really good deals around, and I will definitely be checking prices online. websites such as HolidayGems can offer you holidays to Europe or further afield. They offer package holidays with flights, or hotel only too – which would probably be or choice, considering I pack the kitchen sink and therefore it would be useful to be able to take our car.  

I started making a list (anyone who knows me, knows I love a good list) about what we would need to think about when travelling with kids to Europe. We have only travelled within Europe a couple of times since having children – to Majorca with Izzie 5 years ago and twice to Disneyland Paris, and so I am pretty clueless. I decided to ask some other lovely parenting bloggers if they had any tips and here’s what they came up with…

Fi from A Mum Track Mind says “My biggest tip is to stay in Air Bnb’s if you can as there are some real gems for a bargain and self-catering accommodation is almost always the most flexible way to spend a family holiday. Top tip is to enter the address into google images before booking though and see if the images that come up match the property description – it’s just a good little sanity check I picked up.”

Jemma from Have Kids Will Travel wrote this post about her iteniery for 10 days in Northern Italy with her two children. it made for a really interesting read and appealed to me because an itinerary is another form of a list!

Jodie from Maiden Head Mum says “There are some Eurocamp sites in some amazing places! We have stayed in one across the bay from Venice. It had a water park, direct access to the beach, and you could do a day trip to Venice: winning for everyone in the family!”

Helen from All The Beautiful Things says “Buy a plug in cool box for the car, you can pick them up from Halfords for a reasonable price. They are brill for storing milk (and wine) and other foodie bits to keep you going if you’re travelling a long distance over a couple of days. They really are super handy”

Emma from Our Fairy Tale Adventure says “I did a road trip recently from the UK to Denmark going through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. I highly recommend Copenhagen (Denmark), Geithoorn (water village with no roads in The Netherlands) and the Harz Mountains (Germany). I can Imagine Hamburg would be great if you are there for a few days too.” You can find all of her posts here

Emma from Wanderlust and Wetwipes says “We used these people for a golf buggy tour of Rome.  and it was absolutely amazing. Kids loved it and we got to see 10 times more than we would have seen doing it on our own / on foot. Golf cart tours are so much better than in a car as you have the panoramic views instead of looking out of a window.”

Beth at Twinderelmo says “If you have fussy kids like I do, take snacks and little squash sachets with you so they don’t moan when everything in the shops they “don’t like”. Makes it that little bit more stress free”

Kate at Kate On Thin Ice suggests “Use it to develop basic language skills”

Helena at Babyfoote has written a whole series of posts about their travels in Europe which you can read here. I will definitely be given these a read through when I have sometime to spare.

Simone at Dog Days and Delights says “Take children’s audio books if travelling by car. Some libraries do self contained ones, where you just plug in headphones. These are great as the adults don’t have to listen to CDs of kiddies’ stories. Buy (or make) flash cards to help your children learn languages. If you’re driving, don’t forget European breakdown cover – I’ve always found Euro Plus to be good value for money. I’d also second the above recommendation for Eurocamp.”

Candace at Buckets Of Tea says “We did a 5 week European tour when my kids were 8 & 9 by car. Plan toilet stops every hour and enable them to stretch their legs. Limit foods than may make them sick. Carry sick bags and wipes because it is bound to happen at some point. We purchased travel DVD players. They were a life saver. Do a little research and make a spot the xxx pack. They have to count how many lorries, vehicles from different countries etc. Make sure you get rest too.”

Rebecca at Kizmetcava has a list of Car games to play for the journey here

and finally,

Carol at Family Makes has a post all about tips for road trips with kids which you can find here

I hope this post has been useful to anyone thinking of taking a holiday in Europe next year with children in tow – it has certainly given me food for thought and I can’t wait to get organising.

Thankyou to everyone who kindly contributed to this post.

DISCLAIMER: This is a collaborative post – all photographs are my own, unless otherwise stated  (credits are given)  and all opinions are mine and the lovely bloggers linked within this post.

Follow:

2 Comments

  1. August 25, 2017 / 8:59 am

    Great list of tips to really get the most of a trip to Europe and thanks for including mine,

    • Gemma
      Author
      September 12, 2017 / 11:11 am

      Thankyou lovely xx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.