Win a trip to Santorini for two, $3,000Enter free
Skip to main content

Things to Do With Kids, Ordered by What They Cost You

Most family guides rank attractions by fame, which tells you nothing about whether two of them fit in one day. These are ordered by stamina: the hours each one really takes, how heavy it is on small legs, and the nearest thing to do instead when it rains.

Oliver, who writes the Journey Finder city guides, holding a paper map under palm trees

Oliver

Published

In Brief

What do these family city guides tell you?

How long each thing takes, how much energy it costs, the age band it suits and any height minimum in centimetres, plus the nearest indoor alternative when the weather turns. Entries run from low stamina to high so a day can be built out of things that actually fit together, and each guide ends at where to base yourself.

Key takeaways

  • Hours needed and a low, medium or high stamina cost on every entry
  • An indoor fallback attached to each outdoor entry, not filed separately
  • Published age bands, height minimums and prices, or an honest gap

Choose a city

Start here instead

How these guides work

What stamina means here, and what these pages will never ask you for.

Because a day with children is a budget of energy, not a list of sights. A famous museum that costs four hours and a long walk can end the day at two in the afternoon, while three smaller things in the same area can fill it comfortably. Each entry carries the hours it realistically takes and a low, medium or high stamina cost, so a day can be built out of things that fit together.

It is the nearest thing worth doing when the weather turns, and it is attached to each outdoor entry rather than listed in a separate section at the bottom. Rain is the single most common reason a planned family day collapses, and the useful answer is not a list of museums across town but the one that is a few minutes from where you already are.

No. Recommendations are written against published facts: the age band an attraction is aimed at, the height a ride requires, the hours a playground is open. Nothing asks you to enter a child's age or name, nothing is stored, and no guide is personalised to your family. Age bands and heights come from the operator, not from you.

From the attraction's own site, dated. Where an operator prices by date, or hides the figure behind a booking widget, the guide says the price is not published rather than printing a number that will be wrong by the time you read it. Height minimums are printed in centimetres because that is what gets measured at the gate.

Each guide has a where to base yourself step that points at the family hotel or resort guide for the same place, so the question of which area works with children is answered before the question of which hotel. That order matters: the wrong neighbourhood costs you an hour of transit twice a day no matter how good the room is.

Continue Planning Your Trip

Photo credits (35)

Photos via Wikimedia Commons, used under their respective licences.