Sightseeing with kids can be hard work. 

But tears and tantrums are avoidable… Honestly…

I’ve teamed up with a fantastic group of intrepid family travel bloggers from around the world. Together we’ve compiled this really useful collection of tips and tricks to help you pick great activities to do on your next holiday with the kids.

Whether you’re going to the beach or the city, follow their advice and you’ll absolutely nail sightseeing with kids on your next family adventure.

Here at World for a Girl, we find that the key is to spread out our sightseeing with the kids. We spend copious amounts of time play parks and soft plays around the world.

We also try to factor in outdoor activities every day whether it’s beach time or a short hike. Making sure that the children get plenty of time to run around, be wild and have fun is an absolute priority.

When it comes to family-friendly cultural experiences, it’s all about ancient ruins and history museums for us. Visiting ancient ruins with toddlers might sound nightmarish but we love it.

From the Acropolis in Athens with a baby to visiting the temples in Bagan, Myanmar with kids we’ve had nothing but amazing experiences visiting historic ruins. When they were younger, we carried the kids around sites in baby slings but now they run around pretending to be explorers.

H and Z really enjoy history museums too. We’ve had the pleasure of visiting some amazingly child-friendly museums worldwide. For example, visiting South Korea with kids, we found that almost every museum has a superb interactive children’s museum attached. A brilliant way of combining sightseeing with play. 

Even the Vietnamese Women’s Museum in Hanoi, Vietnam had a child-friendly area. 

This is the fourth post in an eight-week series where I collaborate with other amazing family travel experts to bring you the very best family travel advice and inspiration. Don’t forget to check out the previous posts:

Choosing the Perfect Accommodation when Travelling with Kids 

How to Choose the Perfect Family Travel Destination 

Cars, Buses and Flights: How to Save Money when travelling with Kids

Next week, the topic is how to pack like a pro! Make sure you don’t miss a post by following World for a Girl on Facebook or Twitter.

Amazing tips to from expert travellers on how to make sight-seeing work for your family

Make decision-making fun and fair with a family vote.

If you are looking to make the most out of sightseeing then what we do is make a list of all the things we want to do at a particular destination. Then we each vote on our favourites until we have a shortlist. Then we either do all the things, if times allows, or we choose the top three or five attractions that got the most family votes and do them. If you are visiting a city like London, also take into consideration how close attractions are to each other and plan your route ahead of time.

Nikki writes a family travel blog over at http://www.yorkshirewonders.co.uk

Follow the E=MC2 strategy!

Excitement = Museums x Coffee 2 – That was our travel formula before we had teenagers. It was perfect for our little crew. It’s my number one sightseeing and activity planning tip. We’d take in a museum in the morning when we were fresh, stop for a spot of lunch near somewhere that had a place to let the kids get rid of some energy while the parents grabbed a coffee (double shot, of course).

Then, it was onto the next exciting activity. We found that our kids regularly needed a time to just play – at a park, in the water, along a hiking path or out in a grassy field. Museums are fantastic! Art, history and science are all incredibly inspiring but don’t forget to sprinkle in a bit of free play to let their little brains organize and process all that information. Now that we have teenagers, we still follow this sightseeing and activity formula. It’s worked for so many years, it’s now a comforting routine for all of us.

Read more from Shannan at Captivating Compass where she blogs about learning on location using the world as your textbook. 

Buy City Passes and include lots of Outdoor Activities

Activities and sightseeing on a family vacation are very important to us. We choose our destination based on these things. We love to be outdoors so we look for a place with a lot of hiking, camping, swimming or historical sites to see. I start by finding the website for the destination we are going to and seeing what the locals recommend.

We plan our itinerary around these activities starting with the most active activity since the kids have been sitting in a car or airplane for so long. Next, we look for deals online from websites like Groupon. There is even sometimes a “City Pass” type of card that you can purchase for each family member that gets you into the most popular places. Take your time and I’m sure you can find some great deals to maximize your time spent there.

Annette is a wife and mother to 5 kids. She writes at tipsfromatypicalmomblog.com where she shares family-friendly recipes, parenting tips, and product reviews.

Prioritise and Compromise

You have to be incredibly organised when planning your itinerary, especially when you are on a short trip, and when you have a bunch of kids of different ages!

A recent example for us was when we went to Tokyo, for 5 nights, with 4 kids. Tokyo is such an incredible place to visit, but there is just sooooo much to see and do!

We had to consider the weather, it was freezing cold. We were really there for snowboarding in the alps which made Tokyo around 5ºC during the day.

Our boys are into anime and computer games and our daughter loves animals. The baby was easygoing luckily!

So we made a list, and we prioritised. Unfortunately, Tokyo Disney was not an option for us thanks to the cold weather. We didn’t fancy queueing for ages in a light Siberian breeze. But we made sure that every person had something that really appealed to them. Miss 5 got to go to a Hedgehog Cafe, Mr 7 loved the robots at the Miraikan Museum and the giant Gundam Statue, while Mr 9 especially loved all the gadgets at Akihabara Electric Town. Then there was Karaoke Kan, Segaworld VR, a Maid Cafe, Kiddyland Toystore, Takeshita Street, and so much more!

Read this for a full breakdown of our Tokyo visit for 5 days with kids. With a family in a big city with a short time frame, the most important thing to do is to make a list, then have an itinerary so you get the most out of a destination.

Kris and Brian are totally fun-loving Australians on an international gap year with their 4 kids while world schooling and documenting every step on their blog Gadsventure. They believe that life is short and the time is now!

Find Balance and Always be Prepared

Sometimes we plan our whole vacation based on the things we want to see and the activities we want to do. Our bucket list just keeps growing. I believe every place has a great story and there is usually something for all ages. Here are my five most practical tips for sightseeing.

Balance must-see spots that require a ticket purchase with free things to do.

Be prepared in case you’re out longer than you plan. For us, this means snacks and refillable water bottles. It might be extra diapers or cash for the next family. When you’re in the moment or the commute takes twice as long as planned, be prepared.

Download the app Field Trip and find things to do everywhere.

Break up into two groups. One parent with the older kids, the other with the younger kids. Or some other way to divide that suits your family. This works great at theme parks.

Workaround the busy times. Don’t plan to use public transportation during rush hour. Do take advantage of evening or extended hours for sights. Don’t visit at the busiest time of the year. Do go to things early at the opening time when you’re more apt to see the things most important to you. Always look for crowd calendar type apps and sites to stay informed.

Regina Kay is a full-time world explorer, wife, and mother of five awesome travel kids. Regina is the creator and author of Fulltime Fieldtrip, a family travel blog. 

The Internet is your best friend for finding great family-friendly activities

Now that we’re traveling with kids in tow, planning activities is so much different than when it was just the two of us. We’ve got to ensure that there will be things to keep our four-year-old entertained, as well as ourselves. And, it must be baby-friendly, too! Here are our top three tips:

TripAdvisor: We usually start by seeing what TripAdvisor has to say. We’ll read through user comments for additional tips and “can’t miss” ideas.

Family Travel Blogs: Obviously! We’ll do a good old fashioned Google search for “things to do in [+ city].” We’ll comb through family travel blogs for the best family-focused activities and tips, as well as “travel hacks” for traveling with younger kiddos.

Discount Deal Sites: We’re always checking sites like Groupon or Living Social for deals in the local area. You can find everything on these sites, from discounted shows, activities, restaurants, hotels, and more!

Once we’ve narrowed down our wish list, we plan out each day, leaving room for relaxing, snack times, and free time to just play around. We try to plan out restaurants too, to make sure we won’t need reservations and that they are kid-friendly!

Shannon Elizabeth is the creator and author behind the family travel blog, GrabMyPassport.

Remember the journey is half of the adventure!

My best advice is to incorporate some memorable, fun, and unusual-for-you modes of transportation into your sightseeing activities. Preview the area you’re visiting online, including mapping distances, then decide who in your family can walk, light rail, bike, or tuk-tuk to whatever sights you’re prioritizing.

If your kiddos are little, they might get a thrill from an open-air bus tour, and you’ll see places where you want to return and spend more time. The internet is great, but there’s just no way to replace getting the lay of the land with your own eyes.

One of my favorite vacation activities of all time was a horseback ride through the rainforest of Costa Rica, surrounded by howler monkeys, before swimming in a waterfall-fed pond. Getting there was (more than) half the fun. Make the journey part of your sightseeing adventure!

Sarah shares more of her travel ideas on her Positive Learning Page Dandelion Seeds.

Plan activities that suit your budget

For me, planning what to see and do at our next destination is the best part of travel planning, but can possibly be the most difficult part as well. Every destination we have traveled to always has so many amazing things to see and do that it is impossible to fit everything in. So then, how do we pick and choose between all the many options?

Well, being that we are very budget conscious, we try to participate in family-friendly, inexpensive activities that we all will enjoy. This often includes hiking and playgrounds, but can also be visiting museums and historical sites too. Having an ASTC membership has saved us tons of money and allowed us to visit some incredible museums across the country, for free. If you don’t have one of these ASTC memberships, but you enjoy visiting museums when you travel, I highly recommend getting one.

Sometimes, the kids are happy just to walk around town, other times they may need a little more entertainment. We are always on the lookout for a great value. For me this translates to, are we getting a good amount of entertainment, education, or fun, for the price? By waiting until October to visit San Diego for instance, we were able to save a ton of money because kids go free the whole month. So instead of just being able to buy tickets to Legoland, we were able to visit several attractions.

Sarah is a full-time RV traveling wife and mother of three that loves adventure and sharing off-the-beaten-path travel destinations. Find her great tips for saving money when traveling in America here.

Make time for doing nothing 

Fear of Missing Out or FOMO is real. It’s a common mistake to condense everything into how long the trip is. You’re already there, might as well do it, right?

Try to not be tempted to overachieve. Enjoy and relax. Don’t drive yourself nuts as I did when we went to Walt Disney World for the first time. Have time for rest and cool spots. Otherwise, it would just feel like you are running appointment after appointment between every hot spot.

Doing nothing should be in your itinerary. Take this time to rehydrate, rest your aching feet from walking, or talk to your family and reflect on what you just saw and experience.

Yamy writes a multi-generational family travel blog called Gofamgo. Find out about Yamy’s Walt Disney Rookie Mistakes here.

Always be Flexible and Forgiving

Exploring a new travel destination is exciting but can be also be frustrating and exhausting. From our experience, giving yourself lots of time, being prepared and staying flexible are key to creating great memories.

Time. Allow yourself the opportunity to ease into a place, walking around or sitting at a cafe to observe the surroundings and environment, soaking in the sounds, smells, and energy of a place. We find that discovering sights and wildlife on our own is so much more memorable than taking an expensive tour and having someone else show us and tell us about a new place. Often tours go too fast and don’t allow time to just wonder.

Being prepared. We try to do background research as a family before getting to our destination to know about the history, culture, wildlife, language and people. A story helps the kids connect to sights. Maps are fantastic visuals.

Be flexible and forgiving. Most important is balancing the kids’ and adults’ needs. Check in with everyone and learn how to compromise. Don’t be too attached to an idea of what the experience should be. You might not have time to see it all but you have an introduction to the place and can plan to return someday!

Deborah is a California-based environmental educator, polyglot and mother of two adventurous kids. Her family travel blog World Wise Kid Family Travel Blog inspires educational discussions around the globe.

Yay! You got to the end of the page. If you liked this post, you’ll be super excited to know that this is just the fourth in an eight-part family travel bloggers series!

Over the next two months, I’ll be working with this inspirational group of intrepid bloggers to offer you the best family travel advice and tips.

Make sure you don’t miss any of this fantastic series by following World for a Girl on Facebook or Twitter.

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