Jo Addison & her boys
Travel blogger Jo Addison is an expert in finding child friendly things to do! Here she shares her 5 top places to take your kids during the summer holiday. Over to Jo…
With the 6 week school holidays fast approaching, most parents are starting to think about how they are going to entertain the kids without losing their sanity or spending a fortune. I’ve got 2 boys; one of which is school age, so I’ve already started thinking about what we are going to do over the summer. These are some of the ideas I’ve come up with – I hope you find them useful.
1. Visit Our Local National Trust Properties
Our annual National Trust membership is one of the best things we have bought as a family. For aprox £100 a year, we can visit hundreds of memorable places throughout the UK and take part in amazing family friendly activities which the National Trust organise and run. Each National Trust is unique, and is usually a spectacular building or area with loads of wide open space to explore (and a nice tea room if you are lucky!).
Visit the National Trust website to find where your local National Trust is and what activities are taking place.
2. Visit a Museum
The UK is lucky enough to have some of the best museums in the world. One of our favourite days out is to Eureka! which is the National Children’s Museum – here children can learn about their body, play in the pretend bank and post office and have lunch in a disused train carriage. Throughout the summer holidays, there are often special activities taking place, which we will most certainly be participating in.
3. A Day At The Seaside
We love a day at the seaside in the summer. You can’t beat a bit of sandcastle making, paddling in the sea and a donkey ride. Here in Yorkshire, we have hundreds of miles of spectacular coastline and quintessential seaside towns which are great for a summer’s day out.
Our favourite place for a day out at the seaside is Filey, where there is 7 miles of sand, rockpools , donkey rides and a little fairground. The beach is so big that even in the summer it doesn’t get crowded. For more ideas about great days out at the seaside in Yorkshire click here.
4. Plan a Picnic
For a nice, cheap day out in the summer holidays make yourself a picnic and take it to your local park to eat. Kids love being outside and in the summer it’s the perfect place to be. We take a football and a Frisbee and spend a few hours working up an appetite for a well deserved ice cream.
5. Go On A Bike Ride
We spent a week in the Peak District recently, and were amazed at the number of cycling trails which were available. These were all former train tracks which were perfect for taking children on as they were flat, wide and most importantly traffic free. My youngest son is getting really good on his balance bike, so a biking day is definitely on the agenda for this summer!
About the author: Jo is a Yorkshire born and bred mum of two little boys, occasional marathon runner and once RTW traveller. She blogs about holidays and days out for babies and toddlers at Kiddieholidays.
Home page image by Olesia Bilkei via Shutterstock
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Karen
Thursday 7th of July 2016
Hi Jo - some great ideas here. It's great fun to combine 1-4 with a bike ride where it's safe to do so. The National Trust property Wray Castle is one we visited, combining with the Windermere Bike Boat - a fabulous day out. Here's my blog about it. http://www.cyclesprog.co.uk/get-cycling/windermere-bike-boat-wray-castle-lake-district/