Best stroller friendly cities in Europe/where to go with a toddler?

Vienna is exceptionally stroller friendly. Not too many bumpy cobblestones, elevators at all public transport stations. All sidewalks have lowered curbs at the corners.

Bologna. Beaune. Bayeux. Nice. Madrid. Stockholm. These are all relatively flat with lots to offer.

Remember that your son will be on a different time table on this trip. He is not going to be going a lot of places awake and with his eating and sleeping schedule, expect down time. My wife and I traveled with our daughter, son-in-law and 16 month old grandson to London and Wales last May. Daughter and son-in-law learned real fast that our grandson will operate on his own time table. Still was good trip as all of us adults had traveled to the UK several time in the past. I would recommend a maximum of 2 places to stay.

Having just spent 18 months helping to raise a granddaughter I would venture to say your son will spend most of your adventures in a backpack carrier. For a stroller, most friendly: London. Least friendly: Lisbon. While not particularly stroller friendly the Andalusia area of Spain has much to offer. Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada come to mind but there are smaller towns as well.

I will agree with Alan about London. We spent a week there with our son and his family, including their then 22-month old daughter. They rented a nice stroller for the time (delivered to our apartment) and we used it a lot. Our apartment was right on the Thames Path along the south bank, and one can walk this pedestrian path the length of London and to Greenwich, with great views across the city. And the buses are very stroller-friendly.

Strollers and the London Tube do not mix at all. Lots of carrying up and down steps and very narrow hallways.

The large Nordic cities seem very pram friendly including pram friendly transit. Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki (have't been to Stockholm yet) all seemed to be friendly to parents pushing large prams. Note that large diameter wheels will handle cobbles better than small diameter stroller wheels.

I would absolutely not do Andalucía in the summer, with or without a young child. Madrid is likely to be very hot as well. Barcelona's really too crowded to be ideal with a stroller. The Basque Country in Spain would work if you were mainly interested in San Sebastian, Bilbao (much, much less touristy) and the smaller coastal towns. Vitoria-Gasteiz and Hondarribia have quite hilly historic districts, though there are outdoor escalators assisting you in V-G. The Basque Country can be seen by public transportation but a car is more efficient, and the countryside is really pretty.

The Netherlands would be great from the terrain standpoint. I haven't been there recently and don't know how serious a (moving) obstacle all the bikes would be. Little if any risk of miserable heat there.

Normandy has a lot of lovely places that could work. However, Dinard (bi-level historic area) would be inadvisable, and St. Malo is massively crowded to the point that a stroller wouldn't be much fun. Again, summer weather is usually very mild.

Lots of places in England would work. Oxford and Cambridge are of manageable size and seemed essentially flat.

With 10-14 days I'd consider limiting yourself to 1-2 places. Unless your plan is lots of villa/pool/beach time, I'm not convinced southern Spain is a good choice given the weather.

But don't forget, as well as somewhere that suits your pushchair, you also want somewhere that has interesting sights for yourselves. Vienna may be exceptionally stroller friendly, but it is also pretty dull compared to most European capitals.

England would be a good choice, perhaps a few days in London and then the rest in the north, which is nicer. It's also efficient in terms of getting around. But not the cheapest place even with the recent lower pound value.

Don't be taken in by the stereotype that you have to go to Italy because they "love children". Even in Scandinavia, you will find they don't actually hate children, but may not be quite so exuberant about showing it. The Italian cooing over your child won't be around when you need to carry the chair up flights of stairs. But the Swedish lift will still be working.

I suggest Vienna, Berlin and London.

"The Italian cooing over your child won't be around when you need to carry the chair up flights of stairs. But the Swedish lift will still be working." Thanks, Nick, I loved that.

I am a big fan of Berlin, but I think it is not a great idea with a child in a stroller. It is a huge city with attractions very widely scattered. I do a great deal of walking and don't use city transportation very often, but in Berlin I was on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn frequently, by necessity. In the process I went up and down a lot of stairs. I don't know how widely available lifts are in those transit stations.

I was sort of surprised to see Vienna suggested because I remember using pedestrian underpasses to cross some super-wide city streets there. That was memorable because I was traveling with someone who had pulmonary issues. But that was over 20 years ago, and things may have changed.

The only pedestrian underpass in Vienna is at Karlsplatz, which has elevators at every entrance. You can also cross the intersection above ground. You are correct that things have definitely changed in 20 years. I have raised two kids in Vienna and used strollers here for a combined 8 years. I have also traveled just about everywhere in Europe with my kids in their strollers. No place is as easy to get around as Vienna. No doubt. I would also add that Vienna is not only a cultural capital but also a city with a terrific amount of activities for smaller children. Again, I know this as I have raised two kids here.

Thanks, Emily. Glad to know things have changed. I haven't seen too many pedestrian underpasses recently, though Ukraine is still fond of them.

I would absolutely not do Andalucía in the summer, with or without a young child. Madrid is likely to be very hot as well.

acraven you are well traveled and I respect that but some folks only have summers to travel. We were that way in 2016 when we took the RS tour which ended in Sevilla on July 1 (now retired but we travel with our daughter who is a teacher so summers will still be our time). We stayed on to visit Córdoba. Hot? Oh sure, but depends on what you are used to and how you structure your days. We live in the Sacramento Valley and do our outdoor activities in the AM and PM in the summer. We do the same in the warmer areas of Europe. Had we not done that we never would have seen Andalusia, Southern Italy, Greece, etc. We did, enjoyed every minute of it and did not melt!

I've been to hot places in the summer, too, but I don't think it's a good decision if there are other attractive alternatives. Why deal with the misery of 100F (or higher) heat if you could go somewhere else and perhaps visit southern Spain at a different time of year. These folks will either be pushing a stroller or carrying a child in a backpack-carrier.

It would be different if they said this was a family-heritage trip or had expressed a burning desire to see the Alhambra (though I would still have warned them).

My recommdation for London did not mention the Tube; I agree it is not stroller friendly because of the steps. I suggested the bus instead. London buses are fun to ride and easy to board with a stroller. There is a dedicated area near the door for strollers or wheelchairs.

They said they love to walk long distances, and London is a great walking city, with pedestrian paths along the river and through the parks, and two bridges that are either pedestrian-only ( Millennium Bridge), or have dedicated pedestrian lanes totally separated from traffic by a gap (Hungerford Bridge).

I can’t speak to Andalucía’s climate in the summer — we were there in April — but I can say that it was stroller-friendly. We were in Sevilla, with a day trip to Jerez, and Granada.

Yes, there were cobblestones, but they weren’t too difficult to negotiate. We didn’t have any trouble finding places to cross streets/sidewalks, and everywhere was very pedestrian-friendly. Public transport (bus especially) was accessible and waited for us to collapse stroller/move the kid. Trains had enough time to easily board and disembark.

Only part that gave us trouble was the combination of steep hills/cobblestones in the Albaicin of Granada, but there’s a bus that will take you up and/or down. We took it up and walked down.

With respect to other parts of Spain to which we went, Madrid was OK but there was a decent incline from Atocha station up to the Plaza Mayor. Hard work on a hot day.

Toledo was tough with the stroller but we would do it again in a heartbeat because it was awesome.

Regardless of specific destination, consider bringing a jogger instead of a regular stroller, even though joggers are bulkier. The bigger wheels are much easier to push across uneven pavement and terrain.

— Deb

Stockholm. (and almost anywhere in the Nordics).

Sweden is the most child-friendly place I have ever visited. I lived there for two years. You always see people out and about with strollers. The weather in the summer is great and there are tons of beautiful places to walk.

Regarding London tube and stairs - while that is true (the first Underground in the world and back then they didn't consider taking prams on the Underground, and much of that Victorian infrastructure remains to this day) that many stations do not work well for wheelchairs, prams or disabled people, many stations have been retrofitted with lifts and provide step free passage, and all new and newly remodelled stations - especially on the Jubilee Line Extension and the new Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) are fully step free or provide step free routes.

There is a regularly updated map of step free stations and stations with lifts at http://content.tfl.gov.uk/step-free-tube-guide-map.pdf and one to avoid stairs http://content.tfl.gov.uk/avoiding-stairs-tube-guide.pdf

Thank you all for the passionate responses :) We are coming from Virginia, but survived Texas summers for 6 years. We're not overly concerned with avoiding heat, but a respite from it might be nice. We also plan to take a relaxed approach to sightseeing with a toddler- i.e., we'll come up with plans A, B, and C depending on mood and energy levels :)

We have a BOB jogging stroller that we have flown with before and would most likely bring- it's bulkier than our umbrella stroller, but much better on a variety of terrain. Good point about the backpack carrier, too. We have an Ergo we don't use much, but might find something like that more useful when he's older and on a trip like this.

Currently, we are somewhat torn. My husband is very interested in Scotland and Ireland or Greece, and I'm thinking about Amsterdam, Prague, and Switzerland (probably not on the same trip!). Again, we are still very early in our research, but if you have any feedback, favorites, or ideas for these areas, it would be appreciated!

As far as trail-style child carriers go - deuter is the one that worked best for me (I also had a kelty and one other whose brand eludes me at the moment).

We took our 1 year old to the Netherlands - and it worked out very well, with a short stint in Amsterdam and Groningen, a day trip to Delft and three days of organized camping (cabins) in the general vicinity of the Hague. As soon as we got there, we also bought a really nice bicycle seat (Yepp, currently owned by Thule), which worked perfectly for long bike rides.

We traveled when ours daughter was 10 months. We visited Italy and Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland. We went back a year later and visited the Rhine River around Bacharach, Lauterbrunnen Valley and ended up Munich. We skipped a year then visited Vienna, Hallstatt and Salzburg.

We used an Osprey Poco Plus Child carrier. It is very comfortable to carry all day long and enough space to pack everything she needs. It was able to stand up by itself, so if she fell asleep, we opened the kick stand sat down and could eat or rest. We were able to enter just about everywhere but the Vatican and Bourghese gallery. With a backpack, we had no trouble carrying a carry on suitcase while carrying the backpack. Visit your most important sites first thing in the morning. Our daughter did best with an afternoon siesta at our room. Then we would get out and visit some more sites.

It was easier to travel before she started walking. When she started walking she insisted on walking at a snail's pace. We started carrying her in the backpack long before the trip so she and I were used to it.