Starting To Plan Family Travel

I can’t suggest an itinerary with those places specifically but I can give a few tips on family travel. My kids are 10 and 13 and we’ve gone to Europe every year at least once since they were 4 and 1. I can say it’s easier as they get older (not sure about teens!) and 6 and 9 is great!

A few general tips:
-avoid 1 and even 2 night stops. Kids just take more time to pack up/move and also you will spend more time playing meaning less time at sights. So would need more to see the same things.

-don’t be afraid to split up. You are a family but you don’t need to be together 24/7. You and one kid are adventurous eaters? Go on a food tour while the others go to the park. One adult wants to go to a museum that no one else cares about and will bore kids? Go, other adult watches kids. Trade at another time for the other adult to do something.

-look early for rooms for 4 - they are more rare but do exist. Also strongly consider apartments. You can get 2 bedrooms and plenty of other space which is great for kids. You can store snacks and have privacy. I’ve stayed at some AMAZING places (3 bedrooms, roof decks with sea or cathedral views, washing machines, multiple balconies) for under $300. Obviously some locations are cheaper than others but I’m not talking about “budget” locations.
Regardless $400 is more than realistic, unless you require luxury. Even more so if you average - London will be expensive, Berlin less etc. Some cities have “aparthotels” - just what it sounds like, a hotel in which the rooms are apartments.

-prioritize sights, and find out where parks are beforehand. So after an hour at the church you can head straight to the park, get ice cream, and run around.

-sleep is tough. Adults often want to go out early and stay out late but that doesn’t always work for kids. Sometimes midday naps help, sometimes plan around it. If you are going to a late dinner or theater, allow kids to sleep in the next day. This is a good place for the separate strategy. Earlybird adult goes our for coffee/enjoys sunrise/takes a walk, others sleep.

-don’t overpack and make sure each kid can mostly manage their stuff (maybe a small rolling suitcase and a backpack for books and toys?). Obviously you will have to help occasionally but if the kids carry most of their own stuff it’s easier on everyone.

Yes, 12 destinations in 18-21 days is, well, madness. Even for well-traveled high-energy adults. Hopefully the kids' first trip to Europe won't be their last. But if they have to rush around this way you may have trouble interesting them in another, at least until they're old enough to go on their own.

I'd suggest cutting out the outliers, like Edinburgh, Berlin, Bergen, Prague, so you have a more compact plan with less time spent between places. Or better still, stick to London, Paris (including Disney), Butzbach, and maybe Munich or Amsterdam. Fly into one city and home from another, as you probably already know.

Apartments make a lot of sense for the reasons other posters gave. But you don't necessarily need to cook a lot of dinners, just be content with pizza or Asian takeout or other alternatives to those three-hour multi-course restaurant meals (which drive me crazy too). And doing things separately now and then can enrich everyone's experience. Like, say, the brewery. Also, as often suggested, involve the kids in the planning, including giving each a day here and there to plan herself for the family. And by all means let each kid manage as much of her own luggage as possible most of the time, including packing.

Lucky kids to have parents ready to take them to Europe next year! I hope it's possible to do so.

We’ve taken our granddaughters to Europe several times in the past 16 years most recently last year. We did switch to apartment rentals for the majority of our stays when it was the 4 of us traveling together. When we did stay in a hotel we got adjoining rooms, both in London and Paris.

Since you’ve mentioned 4-5 must do places I think I’d plan an itinerary something like this, staying about 5 days in the larger cities.

Fly into London—they’ll LOVE it! Parks galore, theater, museums, street performers, great restaurants, etc.

Eurostar to Paris and Disney if that’s high on their wish list.

Train to Amsterdam or a charming city nearby (Leiden, Delft, Haarlem).

Train to Butzbach. Don’t shortchange this smaller city, it looks like an interesting place for wandering and soaking up a place without as many tourists.

Fly home from Frankfurt.

Have fun planning!

Just some quick ideas for activities I think the girls would love:

London - The Tower of London [especially the jewels ], boat rides on the Thames, the Big Red double-decker bus, Harrod's food court, and the London Eye. The Churchill War Rooms are very interesting, and I think a tour of Parliament would hold interest, esp for the nine year old.
Edinburg - evening tour of the caverns under the city, [the "haunted tours",] Museum of Scotland, and visit Bobby and the related Greyfriars cemetery .
Strasbough is magical, and you can climb the steps up to the Cathedral tower; biking in the area.
Rothenburg - Night Watchmen Tour, walking on the Town Wall, climbing the tower steps of City Hall, and just being there!

I hope your trip happens, and is safe and healthy.

With Butzbach being a must, ( and as I understand it Disney Paris) I think London, Edinburgh, Bergen and Prague are the first to be scratched. Trying to add London, in my view, becomes a 'we have been there' check the box kind of thing.

With careful planning and an 'open jaw' flight plan, the rest could work for the time you have.

Happy travels

Our family needs a minimum of 3 nights in any given place so that we have 2 full days of sight seeing. We tend to start late like 11:00am and end around 8pm and we never go back for naps. $400 is plenty.

We do Airbnb to get the most bang for our buck. Depending on the city I have rented Lovely 1-2 bedroom apartments in great locations for $130-$150. I start early 9 months and spend a lot of time researching. The good places get booked early for summer travel. It’s near impossible to find a reasonably priced single room hotel for a family of 4 in the city center. But sometimes we use hotel points and stay just outside the city center. A 25 minute ride on the metro works for us.

When my daughters were younger they shared a carry on and one small backpack. This worked great with all the train travel in Europe.

My daughters loved Bruges, Belgium. An easy stop between Amsterdam and Paris. The only place we stayed 2 nights. Is your family Harry Potter fans. We absolutely loved Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Sta.

Kids get so many discounts in Europe. Be sure to always look for kid and family prices for the metro, trains, museum, etc.

I love Berlin and look forward to going back to see the things I didn't have time for in 2015, despite spending six full days in the city. It wouldn't be near the top of my list with 6- and 9-year-olds. To me, it's mostly a place one goes to wallow in museums and historical sites, (unless one is looking for nightlife). Because of wartime damage Berlin mostly lacks the Olde German architecture that I assume would appeal to, and be remembered by, children.

Bergen carries with it a significant weather risk--being possibly the rainiest city in Europe, so it's not the sort of place I'd want to squeeze into an over-stuffed itinerary. You might easily spend the better part of 3 days getting there and back south and end up with dreadful weather that severely affected your plans.

Near Strasbourg you have Haut-Koenigsbourg castle and Monkey Mountain--both mentioned several times in earlier threads about traveling with children. (I haven't been to either one.)

With 18-21 days and with two kids under 10, you pick 4 places. You stay in apartments or Air BnB's so that you can cook some meals (at least breakfast). You will never find a room in a hotel with two double beds. Don't try too hard to adjust your kids to the time change. Let them sleep late and stay up late. Trust me.

As Paris, London and Butzbach are all required, then I would add something rural and Alpine, and stay on a farm in Bavaria just to give yourselves a break from cities.

It is so easy to travel between London and Paris by train so start with those two. Our grandkids loved London!

Thanks @Mira and everyone for all your tips. This is why I love RS peeps the most, helpful and encouraging. Yes I know I have way to many places and will eliminate most. I am super organized and plan everything out so hopefully that will happen this time too. Good info about splitting up, oldest and I love Egyptian artifacts and hope to find some museums that have this (primary reason Berlin was in the list).

I am fine with AirBnb/VRBO places as we’ve stayed at some before. I tend to splurge on a really nice hotel the first night wherever I go and then typically moderate the rest of the time. I don’t mind cooking or making a few meals, in fact i generally prefer it. Luckily my kids are moderately adventurous eaters (Indian/Thai type mainly).

Not crazy about driving since I will need at least one car seat but I may change my mind once I see the price of train tickets.

Good tip about bed size, I remember staying in a few hotels with 2 good size (double/full??) beds but that was several years ago (and mainly in German, Belgium, and Austria) so perhaps I was mistaken.

@acraven thanks for the advice to eliminate Berlin. It pains me to do so as it is my favorite city but other than a few museums and parks I doubt The kids will like it. I like the suggestion about Strasbourg.

Luckily I have about a year to plan. Thank you again.

Not crazy about driving since I will need at least one car seat but I may change my mind once I see the price of train tickets.

Buy your backless booster seat here in the US. It will easily fit in the overhead bin on the plane. Turn it upside down and attach / rather let it rest on the top of a carryon, and attach it with a bungee cord. This allowed us to easily tote our booster seat. When we were finished with rental cars we ditched it.

I looked into buying a booster seat in the UK and Italy (the two places where we needed a car) and I didn’t like the selection. And I never trust a car rental to have the correct size car seat much less a clean one.

The Pergamon Museum is probably the home of most of the Egyptian antiquities currently residing in Berlin. The last I heard, a major chunk of that museum was closed for significant building work that has been going on for years. The museum website will have info on the current status, I'm sure.

The British Museum in London may fill the bill for you; it has major Middle Eastern collections. Be prepared, though, for extremely crowded conditions unless the aftermath of COVID-19 leads to substantial reductions in the number of people allowed to enter. It was a madhouse on my 2019 visits. I was told that it's worst on rainy days when folks are looking for indoor activities.

French archaeologists were also active in the field; I'm sure there are good things to be seen in Paris as well.

Bring an old car seat and drop it at the end of the trip. Leave it next to the car rental place, it will be used by someone.

I wonder about that one. If you rocked up at a car place and saw an old car seat outside would you want to use it? Or are you leaving your trash behind for somebody else to deal with?

With the girls both under 10 there will be plenty of child fares (or free fares) available or family tickets on train tickets.

As for driving, you can rent a car seat with most car rental agencies. It's expensive (a per day fee), but if you just drive for a couple days to see some off-the-beaten-path places, it is worth it. If you are doing a longer rental, a driving trip, then brining your own seat is much more cost-effective There's also a highly portable inflatable booster car seat we used for a few years. Carseat link on amazon

When our kids were 8 and 10, we did a 3 week trip to London, Paris, Normandy, Edinburgh and Aberdeenshire and for us, it was perfect. So just a thought on how you can do the bigger cities, but add on some smaller areas.

We always traveled with our kids, and opted for hotels instead of apartments. In Paris we stayed at the the Best Western Bretagne Montparnasse in Paris. They have family rooms with plenty of room for 4. Just 3 years ago we stayed at The Hotel Spitzweg in Rothenburg with our adult kids. Huge room, worked great. Earlier this year in Prague, we stayed at the Hotel Leon D'Oro. We did not have a family room there as it was just the 2 of us, but there was some youth sports event going on and there were tons of families staying there, so that might be one to check out. In Bergen we stayed at the Thon Hotel Orien. At this hotel we just had 3 of us traveling, but I know they had rooms for 4.

if you bring a car seat the cars in Europe will expect it to have ISO-fittings so they are compatible with the ISO-fittings in the car.

Is that a requirement for seats sold in the US? Or do they have some sort of different US fittings?

I accidentally left out the hotel we stayed at in London. The Park International Hotel. It was a great location for us and they have rooms for 4.

I first moved overseas when my children were 5 and 11. We traveled extensively and returned to the USA after five years when the kids were 10 and 16.

My Son doesn't remember much of most of the travels that we took during that period. My Daughter, who was older took it all in and loved it.

When traveling, we didn't stop going to museums, even when my Son would be ready to leave after 30 minutes. Still, I think they did absorb some of what they saw, especially my Daughter.

My Son at age 7 was in awe of the Sistine Chapel and does remember that. He wanted me to explain who all the figures on the walls and ceiling were. The kids loved going up the Eiffel Tower, taking a cruise on the Seine. They loved the gondola ride in Venice and going up the Youngfrau Mountain in Switzerland where you could see snow in the Summer.

Rothenburg is a great place for kids, they get to see what a medieval village looks like.

I know you are probably planning the Disney Paris visit for the kids. Sorry, but I disagree, you can do that in the USA. Don't waste your time in Europe doing that.

You mention Bergen. Are you talking about Bergen, Norway? That is a bid out of the way.

Scotland and Edinburg are great, but that is a lot of time just for a short visit. There is so much to see in England that you can do on a day trip from London. Windsor Castle is a must. Stonehenge and Bath are good options. Stratford Upon Avon is great if you love Shakespeare.

If you rent a car bring a Garmin GPS with international maps from home. Practice using it before you leave.

Douglas, your post is very well-written with practical advice. It should serve many families with traveling children.

I might suggest the kids be given a small /weekly daily allowances for personal purchases. Since most kids have smart phones, they can use the currency calculators to figure out the exchange rates and figure budgets. They can then learn to identify and appreciate the foreign currency coins.
[When my daughter was five years old, she became a math quiz when it involved spending and budgeting her own money.]

Sending great wishes for a safe and memorable family trip!

Douglas - Thanks so much for the detailed information and kid perspective. I think leaving London for last is a great idea, As is having daily spending money.

Thankfully my kids don’t have phones (yet) well, the oldest has an ancient iPhone for photos and videos but it isn’t connected.
I do agree about living in the moment and not on devices. Sometimes hard to do but worth it.

How exciting!! Your kids will remember this trip forever I am sure. I would do something like the following:

London - 4 or 5 nights
Amsterdam -2 nights
Paris (and Disney) - 5 or 6 nights
Germany - for remainder
(Salzburg would be a great place to stay with kids - the sound of music tour, day trip to Neuschweinstein, smaller city would be a nice break)

Look into the Taj (51 Buckingham gate- rooms are more apartment style). So much to do in London but some kid favorites might be traditional tea (there are some great kid theme ones likes Alice in wonderland), the theatre, London eye, British museum (look into their gallery activities for kids), changing of the guard (depending on when you are there you might make the trooping of the coulour), Beefeaters tour at the tower, double decker hop on hop off tour, exploring all the different cuisines!!

As a former child traveler - I would suggest that you mix in a few things that us adults would maybe find a little cheesy! I vividly remember madam Tussauds wax museum and an evening ghost tour on my first trip to London at 11 years old. I loved every second! My favorite memory of that trip was probably the Trooping of the Color though - I was fascinated to see the Royal family from afar!

Oh and packing light will be a game changer! Can make or break the ease I’d traveling between destinations.

Once again, thank you Douglas for great advice and perspectives. I like the idea of letting them have a say in what we do and where we go, for at least a portion of the trip. They have a few kid friendly books on London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Mainly pictures but describing the city and what it is known for.
Just to clarify, the oldest uses my old iPhone (a 3 or 4 I think) for pictures and videos. There are a few games on it but ithe phone isn’t part of the data plan. We do have it on our home WiFi at home. I do agree that pictures super important, especially when children grow up or when family is no longer around.
Looking back I only have a small handful of picture of my dad and I because he was the family photographer.
I am considering buying a cheap digital camera for the youngest so she is involved without her oldest sister always being in control.

Although a lot of the museums are free/donation requested, a lot of the other sights are very expensive. Some of them have 2-for-1 deals that might work for you. Those need to be used judiciously, because you must stand in the ticket line to qualify for them; no ordering the tickets in advance on the Internet (and that does sometimes save you a modest amount anyway).

The participating sites can change from time to time, but you can do some preliminary checking now at this website: https://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/search-results?r=8026&o=0. You should research the regular entry fees for both children and adults to determine the potential savings, in order to be sure it's worth the ticket-line hassle. (On the other hand, a lot of folks don't like to buy a London Eye ticket in advance anyway because they want to experience that during a period of good weather.)

What makes it tricky is that to qualify for those offers you must have a ticket sold at a train station. For those spending close to a week in London, a one-week tube pass (bought at a rail station rather than a tube station) is perhaps the easiest solution. Even with a shorter stay, the 2-for-1 savings might justify buying the weekly tube pass.