Rebecca Engel
Some trips are once in a lifetime, and some quietly turn into the thing your family does every year. The second kind is worth more. Nobody has to be sold on it, the packing gets easier every time, and the kids start counting down to it in March.
What makes a place work that way is depth rather than novelty. There has to be enough to do that the fourth visit still holds up, and enough range that a four year old and a fourteen year old both get a good day out of it. These are twenty one family trip destinations that tend to turn into a yearly tradition, fourteen in the United States and seven further afield.
1. The Outer Banks, North Carolina
The Outer Banks is a thin string of barrier islands off the North Carolina coast, and it has been the summer week for East Coast families for generations. Rental houses sit right behind the dunes, the beach runs for a hundred miles, and the pace is slow on purpose.
There is more here than sand. Kids can climb the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, watch the wild horses up at Corolla, or stand where the Wright brothers got off the ground at Kill Devil Hills. The sound side is shallow and calm, which is where the paddleboards and the small sailboats go.
It repeats well because the house becomes the tradition as much as the place. Families book the same week and often the same street year after year, and by the third summer the kids have a routine of their own that has nothing to do with what the adults planned.
2. Banff, Alberta
Banff is the postcard version of the Canadian Rockies, and it is far easier to visit with children than the scenery suggests. The town itself is small and walkable, the wildlife shows up beside the road, and the big sights are all short drives apart.
Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are the famous two, and canoe rental on Lake Louise is the thing kids remember. The gondola up Sulphur Mountain does the hard work for shorter legs, and the hot springs at the top of the town are a good answer to a rainy afternoon.
Come back in a different season and it is a different trip. Winter turns the same valley into a ski town with a frozen lake and a skating rink on it, which is why a lot of families end up alternating summer and winter visits rather than choosing.
3. Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Cape Cod is the New England version of the same idea as the Outer Banks, with more towns and more to do on a grey day. The hook of land curls out into the Atlantic, and the water on the bay side is warm and shallow enough for small children.
The Cape Cod Rail Trail runs about twenty five miles on a flat old railway bed, which is the easiest family bike ride in the northeast. Provincetown at the tip has whale watching boats, and the National Seashore protects forty miles of beach from ever being built on.
It rewards return visits because each town has its own character and you cannot do them all in a week. Families tend to settle on one base and then spend years working outward from it.
4. Costa Rica
Costa Rica is the international trip that families take first, and there are good reasons for that. It is small enough to see properly in ten days, the wildlife is genuinely everywhere, and the whole country is set up for visitors who want to be outside.
Sloths and howler monkeys turn up in the trees over the car park. Kids can go on hanging bridges above the cloud forest at Monteverde, watch Arenal steaming at the far end of a lake, and be on a Pacific beach the same week. Our guide to the best places to visit in Costa Rica goes through the regions in more detail.
The return reason is that the country splits neatly into trips. Do the Pacific side one year and the Caribbean side the next and they barely overlap, so nobody feels like they are repeating themselves.
5. Lake Tahoe, California And Nevada
Tahoe is the rare place that is genuinely excellent twice a year. The lake sits high in the Sierra Nevada, it is startlingly clear, and it is ringed by beaches on one side and ski resorts on the other.
Summer means swimming off the sand at Sand Harbor, renting a boat, and riding bikes along the shore path on the west side. Winter means some of the biggest ski terrain in the country, plus sledding hills and tubing parks for the ones too small for lifts.
That double season is exactly what makes it a tradition. Plenty of families go twice a year to the same rental and treat the two visits as different holidays entirely.
6. Gatlinburg And The Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
Gatlinburg sits at the front door of the most visited national park in the country, and it has grown into a full family resort town around that. The mountains do the heavy lifting and the town handles the rest.
Inside the park there are easy waterfall walks, the loop road around Cades Cove where black bears and deer feed in the open fields, and an observation tower at Clingmans Dome. In town there is a chairlift, an aquarium and more pancake houses than seems reasonable. Our full Gatlinburg guide has the specifics.
It comes back around because it is drivable for most of the eastern half of the country and it changes completely with the seasons. The same cabin in October with the leaves turning is a different holiday from the same cabin in July.
7. The Riviera Maya, Mexico
The stretch of coast south of Cancun is where a lot of American families take their first international beach trip, and it holds up better than its reputation. The water is calm and warm most of the year and the flights are short.
Beyond the resort there are cenotes, which are freshwater sinkholes in the jungle that kids swim in. Tulum has Mayan ruins sitting directly above a beach, Xcaret and Xel Ha are built entirely for families, and the reef offshore is the second largest in the world.
Families return because it is the lowest friction long trip available to them. Once you have done the airport, the transfer and the resort once, doing it again takes almost no planning at all.
8. Acadia National Park, Maine
Acadia packs mountains, forest and a rocky coastline into a small enough area that you are never driving long with restless children. Bar Harbor sits right beside it with places to eat and sleep.
The carriage roads are the standout for families, forty five miles of gravel paths with no cars on them at all, built for horses and now perfect for bikes. Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the country to see sunrise for part of the year, and you can drive to the top. Sand Beach and the tide pools at Ship Harbor fill an afternoon on their own.
It is small enough to know well, which is what makes people come back. It also pairs with the rest of the national parks on the East Coast if a family wants to build a longer loop in later years.
9. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone is the trip kids talk about for years afterward, mostly because it does not look like anywhere else. The ground steams, the water is the wrong colour, and there are bison standing in the road.
Old Faithful is the headline and the boardwalks at Grand Prismatic and Mammoth Hot Springs are better. The Lamar Valley at dawn is the closest thing to a safari in North America, with wolves, bears and elk out in the open. The Junior Ranger programme gives children something to work on all week.
The park is enormous, which is the return reason. Most families see one or two loops on a first visit and leave three quarters of it untouched, so a second and a third trip still have new ground in them.
10. The Algarve, Portugal
The southern coast of Portugal is Europe’s most family friendly beach region, and it costs less than the Mediterranean alternatives. The weather is reliable from May to October and the flights from most of Europe are short.
The beaches sit under gold cliffs full of caves and arches, and boat trips out to the sea caves at Ponta da Piedade are the thing children ask to do twice. Lagos and Albufeira have the busier family infrastructure, and the quieter west coast is half an hour away. Our Algarve guide covers the towns one by one.
It becomes a habit because it is cheap enough to repeat and warm enough to be reliable. Families who go once tend to book the same fortnight the following year before they have unpacked.
11. Hilton Head, South Carolina
Hilton Head is a barrier island that has been designed around families more deliberately than almost anywhere else on the American coast. The buildings are low, the signs are small, and the whole island is quiet by design.
There are more than sixty miles of bike paths, and most families ride rather than drive once they arrive. The beach is wide and firm enough to cycle on at low tide, there are dolphin cruises out of Harbour Town, and the marshes are full of birds and crabs for anyone with a net.
It repeats well precisely because it is uneventful in the best sense. The routine is the appeal, and by the second visit the kids know the bike route to the ice cream place without being told.
12. Estes Park And Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Estes Park is a small mountain town that sits at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, and elk walk through it as if they own the place. For a lot of Colorado families this is the standing summer trip.
Trail Ridge Road climbs above twelve thousand feet without anyone having to hike, which is the easiest way to get small children above the tree line. Bear Lake and Sprague Lake are flat, short and full of reflections. The town has a riverwalk, a tramway and an aerial adventure park for the days between.
The elk rut in September brings families back on its own. The animals come down into the valley and bugle through the town, which is a genuinely strange thing to witness and free to watch.
13. Iceland
Iceland works better with children than most people expect. Distances are manageable, the roads are good, and every stop on the south coast is a waterfall, a glacier or a black sand beach within sight of the car.
Seljalandsfoss has a path that goes behind the falling water. The glacier lagoon at Jokulsarlon has icebergs floating out to sea, and the public pools in every town are geothermally heated and full of local families. Our five day Iceland itinerary lays out a route that does not involve long driving days.
The reason to return is that summer and winter are two different countries. Endless daylight and green valleys one year, northern lights and ice caves the next, on the same ring road.
14. Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan
The Lake Michigan shoreline in the northwest corner of the lower peninsula is the Midwest’s answer to a beach holiday, and Sleeping Bear Dunes is the best of it. Sand bluffs rise four hundred feet straight out of freshwater that runs turquoise on a clear day.
The dune climb is the main event and children will do it repeatedly. Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive has overlooks along the top of the bluffs, the Heritage Trail is a paved bike path through the woods, and Glen Arbor and Traverse City sit nearby. We have more on the best beach camping in Michigan along this coast.
It has become a generational habit for families across the Midwest. The cherry orchards, the same rental cottages and the same stretch of water pull people back in the same fortnight every summer.
15. San Diego, California
San Diego is the easiest big city in the United States to visit with children. The weather barely changes, the beaches are in the city rather than outside it, and the major attractions are close together.
The zoo is one of the best in the world and Balboa Park around it holds more than a dozen museums. La Jolla Cove has sea lions on the rocks at close range, Coronado has a wide flat beach, and Legoland is half an hour up the coast. Our San Diego guide has the full run through.
Families come back because it works at every age. The zoo and the beaches carry the toddler years, and surfing lessons and Mexican food in Barrio Logan carry the teenage ones.
16. Ireland
Ireland is the international trip that works when the family includes grandparents. Everyone speaks the language, the driving distances are short, and children are welcome in places that would raise eyebrows elsewhere in Europe.
The Cliffs of Moher are the picture everyone wants, and the Dingle peninsula behind them is quieter and prettier. There are castles you can walk into all over the country, the Giant’s Causeway in the north looks engineered rather than natural, and Dublin has enough for a few days at the start or end. Our three day Dublin itinerary covers that half.
It draws families back because it is small and the weather forces improvisation. Two trips in the same country end up looking nothing alike, and there is usually a relative to visit somewhere in it.
17. The Grand Canyon, Arizona
Some places have to be seen at the right age and the Grand Canyon is one of them. Photographs do nothing for it. Walking a child up to the rim for the first time is the whole trip in a single moment.
The South Rim is the practical choice, open all year with a free shuttle along the rim road so nobody is fighting for parking. The Rim Trail is flat and paved for long stretches. Going even a short way down the Bright Angel Trail gives older kids a proper sense of the scale. If the family takes to canyons, Zion National Park is a natural follow up.
It comes back around as a base rather than a destination. Once a family has done the rim, the wider Southwest opens up and the canyon becomes the anchor for a different loop each time.
18. Door County, Wisconsin
Door County is a narrow peninsula reaching up between Green Bay and Lake Michigan, and it has been the Midwest’s quiet summer place for a century. There are no big resorts and that is the point.
The shoreline at Cave Point drops in limestone ledges into clear water, and the beach at Whitefish Dunes is shallow and warm. Five lighthouses are open to visitors, the cherry orchards let families pick their own in July, and a fish boil is the local dinner theatre for anyone who has not seen one.
It repeats because it barely changes. Families go back to the same cottages and the same roadside stands decade after decade, which is the whole definition of a tradition.
19. Switzerland
Switzerland is expensive and worth it once for most families, and it solves the problem of what to do with children in the mountains better than anywhere else in Europe.
The trains are the attraction as much as the transport, and children spend the whole ride at the window. Lauterbrunnen sits in a valley with seventy two waterfalls coming off the walls, cable cars go up to car free villages like Murren and Wengen, and there are toboggan runs open in summer. Our piece on the best views in Lauterbrunnen covers that valley.
The tradition here is usually every few years rather than annual, and it holds because the same valley supports hiking, skiing and sledging depending on when you turn up.
20. Bend, Oregon
Bend sits on the dry side of the Cascades with the mountains on one horizon and high desert on the other. It is an outdoor town first and a family town by consequence, and it gets sun most of the year.
The Deschutes River runs through the middle and floating it on a tube is what everyone does on a hot afternoon, with a shuttle bus to carry you back upstream. Smith Rock has canyon trails and climbers to watch, the lava caves are walkable with a torch, and Mount Bachelor is a ski hill in winter and a chairlift ride in summer.
Families return because the town rewards getting better at things. The river float becomes paddleboarding, the easy trails become real hikes, and the same trip grows with the children.
21. Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is the trip that manages to be educational without the children noticing. The restored colonial town is staffed by people in period dress doing real work, and it is far livelier than that description makes it sound.
Blacksmiths, printers and coopers work in open shops and let kids ask questions. Jamestown and Yorktown are both a short drive away and complete the story. Busch Gardens sits on the edge of town for the family members who have had enough history by day three.
It becomes a return trip as children get older, because the same streets land completely differently at six and at twelve. Plenty of families come back once the youngest is old enough to follow it.
How To Make A Trip Stick
The places that turn into traditions usually share a shape. They are reachable without a hard travel day, they cost roughly the same every year, and there is a base to come back to rather than a new hotel each time. Booking the same week helps more than anything, because it takes the decision off the table entirely.
Leave room in the plan as well. The parts children remember are almost never the ones that were booked, and a trip with three fixed things and four open afternoons will get asked for again far more often than one that ran to a schedule.
Final Thoughts
None of these are difficult trips. Most of them are drivable for a large part of the country, and the ones that are not are still short flights with easy arrivals at the other end.
Pick one that fits the ages you have now and go twice before deciding whether it stuck. The second visit is the one that tells you, because that is when a place stops being somewhere you went and starts being somewhere you go.
