The 66 Best Family-Friendly Experiences in The World

Established in 1885, Banff is Canada's oldest national park and one of the world's most spectacular.

Turquoise lakes, ancient glaciers, hot springs, abundant wildlife, and the postcard town of Banff itself make this an unmissable destination in the Canadian Rockies.

Yellowstone is the world's first national park and still its strangest, sitting atop a supervolcano that surfaces as thousands of geysers, hot springs, and mudpots.

Old Faithful erupts on a near-hourly schedule, while the Grand Prismatic Spring's rainbow colours come from heat-loving bacteria.

Beyond the geothermal basins, the park holds free-roaming bison, elk, wolves, and grizzly bears across nearly 9,000 square kilometres of forest and canyon.

Pink-granite boulders sculpted by centuries of erosion line this powder-white beach on La Digue, shaded by takamaka trees and broken into a series of small coves and rock pools.

Some of the boulders are the size of houses.

The water is calm and shallow enough to wade a long way out, which makes it better for drifting about than for swimming properly.

Getting in means paying to cross a private plantation.

Lake Louise is the Canadian Rockies at their most theatrical: a milky turquoise lake framed by pine-clad ridges, with Victoria Glacier hanging at the far end and the famous red canoes gliding out from the boathouse dock.

The colour is real, glacial rock flour in the meltwater, and it shifts with every hour of light.

Easy lakeshore paths and grand teahouse hikes ring the water.

Plitvice Lakes National Park contains sixteen turquoise lakes connected by a series of waterfalls, cascades, and travertine barriers, all within an ancient beech forest.

The network of wooden boardwalks allows visitors to walk over and around the water in one of Europe's most enchanting natural landscapes.

The Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls trades Argentina's up-close catwalks for one long panoramic circuit, sweeping across nearly the entire 2.

7km curtain of over 250 individual falls at once.

A short walkway leads out to a platform inside the spray of the Devil's Throat, with boat trips for those who want to get soaked.

It's compact enough to see in half a day, unlike the sprawling park across the border.

Lake Bled is Slovenia's most famous sight — a glacial lake of impossibly vivid turquoise water, a tiny island crowned with a baroque church, and a medieval castle perched on a sheer cliff above.

The surrounding Julian Alps complete a scene that seems almost too perfect to be real.

A traditional pletna boat is the only way out to the island's 99 steps.

Perched high above the Bavarian Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle is the fairy-tale fortress that inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Commissioned by King Ludwig II in 1869, it took 17 years to build and remains one of Germany's most visited attractions.

Three connected towers topped by a ship-shaped rooftop pool anchor this city-state's skyline, reflected in Marina Bay alongside a garden of illuminated Supertrees.

The city's obsessive approach to greenery and cleanliness has made it one of the most striking modern skylines anywhere.

Hawker centres serving Michelin-recognised street food sit near some of the world's most expensive real estate.

Elafonisi, on Crete's southwestern tip, is known for sand that turns pale pink where crushed coral mixes with white quartz, and a shallow lagoon warm and calm enough to wade across to a small offshore islet.

The water is startlingly clear and turquoise even by Greek island standards, and the beach's gentle slope makes it one of the easier stretches of coast for families with young children.

Golden limestone cliffs riddled with sea caves and arches line this stretch of southern Portuguese coast, best known for the Benagil Cave's near-perfect circular skylight.

Small boats and kayaks squeeze through narrow rock archways to reach hidden beaches accessible no other way.

The cliffs shift from ochre to deep orange depending on the light.

The Giant's Causeway is an area of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland, formed by an ancient volcanic fissure eruption.

The hexagonal columns, which fit together with extraordinary geometric precision, were created around 50-60 million years ago and have inspired countless legends.

China's northernmost major city turns into a full-scale ice city each winter, with entire illuminated castles, pagodas, and slides built from blocks cut straight from the frozen Songhua River.

The Harbin Ice and Snow World park alone uses over a hundred thousand cubic metres of ice, lit from within after dark to become the festival's signature spectacle, while a separate snow-sculpture park nearby carves monumental figures from packed snow.

The Habsburgs 1,441-room summer residence in Vienna, its ochre facade facing formal parterres that climb to the Gloriette on the ridge behind.

Forty rooms are open, among them the Hall of Mirrors where a six-year-old Mozart is said to have played for Maria Theresa.

The grounds also hold the oldest surviving zoo in the world.

On the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, the old mining town of Pingxi in Taiwan's mountains fills with thousands of paper sky lanterns, hand-painted with wishes and released to drift over the narrow valley and its disused rail line.

The tradition began as an all-clear signal after bandits had passed, and is now one of Asia's most spectacular festival sights.

Al Soudah sits near Jabal Sawda, Saudi Arabia's highest point, in the green, cool Asir highlands near Abha — a striking contrast to the desert most visitors expect.

Juniper forests cling to terraced mountainsides, mist regularly rolls through the valleys, and a cable car descends from the plateau edge down toward the valley floor thousands of metres below.

This 95-mile stretch of Dorset and Devon coastline exposes 185 million years of rock layers in its cliffs, with fossils regularly still washing out after storms.

Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch stepping directly into the sea, is the coast's single most famous landmark.

Lulworth Cove's near-perfectly circular bay sits just a short walk away.

Voted one of the world's great rail journeys repeatedly by travel publications, the West Highland Line runs from Glasgow to Mallaig across Rannoch Moor's wild bog and past Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak, before crossing the curved, 21-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct made globally famous by the Harry Potter films' Hogwarts Express.

Four kilometres of powder-fine white sand lined with resorts, beach bars, and sunset boat cruises, split into three "stations" by how developed each stretch is.

It's the Philippines' most famous beach and one of Southeast Asia's busiest, powdery enough that the sand squeaks underfoot.

A government-mandated cleanup and visitor cap in recent years has kept water quality noticeably better than its reputation from a decade ago.

Each October, the skies above New Mexico's high desert fill with hundreds of hot air balloons at once, launched in a mass dawn ascension that's become the most photographed hot air balloon event on Earth.

The valley's unique wind pattern, known locally as the Albuquerque Box, lets balloons rise, drift, and return to nearly the same spot, making the display more predictable and repeatable than almost anywhere else.

A three-tier Roman aqueduct thrown across the Gardon gorge in the first century, and the tallest the Romans ever built at just under 49 metres.

The honey-coloured limestone was cut so precisely that it needed no mortar.

You can swim and kayak in the river below, which is also the best place to take in its full height.

Erawan Falls drops through seven tiers down a forested hillside in Kanchanaburi province, each level pooling into a turquoise swimming hole ringed by limestone and jungle.

The lower tiers are an easy walk from the park entrance, while reaching the seventh requires a scramble over rocks and tree roots that takes a couple of hours round trip.

Small fish in the pools nibble at swimmers' feet, a natural pedicure most visitors don't expect.

Rotorua is a North Island city built on an active geothermal field, where steaming vents, mud pools and geysers push up through public parks and backyards alike.

It is also the centre of Maori cultural tourism in New Zealand, with performances, carved meeting houses and hangi feasts at Te Puia and Whakarewarewa.

Beyond the thermal activity there is mountain biking, lake swimming and forest walks, worth more than a single day's stop.

A former limestone quarry on Vancouver Island transformed over a century into 22 hectares of themed display gardens, from a sunken formal garden to Japanese and Italian sections.

The National Historic Site draws more than a million visitors a year and stays in bloom nearly year-round, with fireworks and illuminated evening walks through the summer season.

Nara Park is a large public park in the ancient city of Nara that is home to over 1,200 wild sika deer who roam freely among the park's temples, shrines, and wooded paths.

The deer are considered sacred messengers of the gods in the Shinto tradition and have been protected for 1,300 years.

A limestone hill north of Kuala Lumpur where 272 rainbow-painted steps climb past a 43-metre gold statue of Murugan into a cathedral-sized cavern holding Hindu shrines.

Macaques patrol the staircase and will help themselves to anything loose.

During Thaipusam in January or February the site draws well over a million pilgrims.

A 150-metre gold walkway in the hills above Da Nang, apparently held aloft by two giant weathered stone hands.

It sits at 1,400 metres inside the Ba Na Hills resort, reached by one of the longest cable cars in the world, and on clear mornings the whole walkway floats above a sea of cloud.

The Krimml Waterfalls drop 380 metres in three tiers down a forested mountainside in the Hohe Tauern National Park, among the highest waterfalls in Europe.

A well-graded path climbs alongside the falls through spray-cooled air, with viewing platforms at each tier and a small waterfall-themed nature trail for families lower down.

On sunny mornings, rainbows form regularly in the mist at the base of the lower tier.

San Carlos de Bariloche sits on the shore of Nahuel Huapi Lake in Argentine Patagonia, a Swiss-styled town backed by the Andes and a gateway to a national park of forested peaks and turquoise lakes.

Chocolate shops line the Centro Cívico, while the Circuito Chico drive and the Cerro Campanario cable car reach panoramic viewpoints over the lake district.

It doubles as a ski base in winter and a hiking and mountain-biking hub in summer.

A canal-laced old town at the northern tip of one of Europe's cleanest lakes has earned Annecy the nickname "Venice of the Alps," its Thiou River canals lined with flower-draped, pastel houses and the small stone Palais de l'Île moored mid-stream.

Snow-capped peaks rise directly behind the water, and a lakeside path leads out to swimming spots and quieter viewpoints beyond the old town.

One of Africa's largest and most accessible game reserves, Kruger offers a realistic chance at all of the Big Five without a bush plane or a multi-thousand-dollar package.

Self-drive routes on paved and gravel roads reach the watering holes and riverbeds where lions, elephants and giraffe gather, particularly through the dry season.

Rest camps inside the park range from basic campsites to air-conditioned bungalows.

Lake Tahoe straddles the border between California and Nevada in the Sierra Nevada mountains, its remarkable clarity allowing visibility to a depth of over 20 metres.

Surrounded by ski resorts, pine forests, and granite peaks, it offers spectacular hiking and water sports in summer and world-class skiing in winter.

A limestone system under the New Mexico desert whose Big Room is among the largest cave chambers on earth, roofed by a ceiling of stalactites.

You can descend 230 metres on foot through the Natural Entrance or drop straight down by lift.

On summer evenings, hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats spiral out of the mouth at dusk.

Isla Holbox is a car-free sandbar island off Mexico's Yucatán coast, reached only by boat, with sandy streets, pastel-painted guesthouses, and a slower pace than the resorts of Cancún.

Whale sharks gather in the surrounding waters from roughly June to September, drawing snorkel trips out to swim alongside them, and the island's shallow lagoon glows with bioluminescent plankton on dark nights.

Europe's largest waterfall by volume thunders over a 150-metre-wide limestone ledge near Schaffhausen, where the Rhine drops about 23 metres in a broad, permanent roar rather than a single dramatic drop.

Viewing platforms reach out over the spray from both banks, boats motor right up to the central rock, and the free riverside paths make it an easy stop rather than a planned expedition.

A narrow alpine lake in Austria's Salzkammergut lake district is ringed by forested peaks and postcard villages, the best-known of which, St.

Wolfgang, grew up around the lakeside White Horse Inn made famous by a 20th-century operetta.

Passenger ferries still cross the lake between villages, a rack railway climbs the Schafberg for panoramic views, and swimming spots line much of the shore in summer.

A textbook-perfect conical volcano rising above the rainforest near La Fortuna, dormant since 2010 but still ringed by the geothermal hot springs its decades of activity created.

Hiking trails through the surrounding national park pass old lava fields from the 1968 eruption, while dozens of resorts built around natural hot spring rivers make soaking with a volcano view the region's signature activity.

It's become one of Costa Rica's most popular honeymoon and romantic-getaway destinations for exactly that reason.

A limestone cave system with an underground river, reachable only by boat across Lake Te Anau.

Deep inside, a grotto ceiling is studded with thousands of glowworms, their bioluminescent threads creating a silent, star-like constellation in total darkness.

Sri Lanka marks the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and death on a single full-moon day each May, when towns are strung with illuminated pandals depicting Buddhist Jataka tales and paper lanterns line every street.

Free food stalls called dansal appear on street corners run by volunteers, temples fill for all-night prayer and chanting, and Colombo's streets glow entirely on donated light rather than commercial decoration.

The Black Forest is a stretch of dense, dark pine hills in southwestern Germany, dotted with storybook villages, cuckoo-clock workshops, and thermal spa towns like Baden-Baden.

Waterfalls, half-timbered farmhouses, and a network of well-marked hiking trails run through the region, and Triberg's falls — among Germany's highest — draw day-trippers from across the area.

Jabal AlFil, or Elephant Rock, is a sandstone formation carved by wind erosion into the unmistakable shape of an elephant with its trunk lowered to the desert floor.

It's one of the most recognisable landmarks of the AlUla region, set in an open desert valley that turns gold and red as the sun drops, with a small amphitheatre of seating built facing the rock for evening visitors.

Niagara Falls sits on the border between Ontario and New York State and comprises three waterfalls: the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls, and the Bridal Veil Falls.

The Canadian side offers the most dramatic panoramic view of the Horseshoe Falls, which at 57 metres tall and 670 metres wide is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

Twenty-four kilometres of galleries under the Slovenian karst, entered aboard an electric train that runs two kilometres into the rock before you continue on foot.

The formations range from delicate straws to a five-metre white column called the Brilliant.

An aquarium inside holds olms, the pale blind salamanders locals call baby dragons.

A long, wide stretch of soft white sand on Oahu's windward coast, with the Ko'olau mountain range rising green and jagged directly behind it.

It's popular with locals rather than tour buses, so it stays uncrowded even close to Honolulu, and the water is generally calmer than the island's surf-famous North Shore.

Bellows Beach next door adds a second, quieter option within the same bay.

A tiny medieval town entirely enclosed by 14th-century walls an hour north of Lisbon, Óbidos was once a traditional wedding gift from Portuguese kings to their queens.

A single cobbled main street runs between whitewashed, bougainvillea-draped houses to a hilltop castle, and the full circuit of the ramparts can be walked in under an hour for views over the surrounding countryside.

A small, pine-fringed cove inside a protected natural park on Mallorca's southeast coast, with shallow, startlingly clear turquoise water that stays calm most of the year.

Because it sits within Mondrago Natural Park, development around the cove is deliberately limited, which keeps it looking much like the rest of the island did before mass tourism.

It's a short walk from the car park through scrub pine, which filters out casual visitors.

Cuba's premier beach resort stretch runs for roughly 20 kilometers along a narrow peninsula east of Havana, its powder-white sand and calm, clear turquoise water backed by a dense strip of all-inclusive resorts.

It's a more polished, tourist-oriented side of Cuba than Havana or Trinidad, built primarily around sun, sand and watersports rather than culture or history.

Suzdal is a Golden Ring town that never industrialised, leaving a skyline of onion domes and log houses largely unchanged since the 18th century.

Its walled kremlin, the Nativity Cathedral's blue star-studded domes and a wooden Church of St Nicholas moved here from another village sit alongside a working monastery and open-air museum.

No building rises above two storeys, so the whole town reads as one continuous historic scene.

At the northern tip of Zanzibar, Nungwi combines the island's whitest sand with water clear enough to see reef fish from the shore.

Unlike beaches further south, it isn't affected by the tide pulling far out twice a day, so the swimming stays good all day.

Traditional dhow-building still happens on the sand alongside the resorts, and sunset dhow cruises out over the reef are a nightly ritual.

A working salt mine for centuries, Turda has been converted into one of the world's strangest amusement parks — a vast underground chamber 120 meters below ground with a Ferris wheel, mini-golf course, bowling alley and an underground lake with rowboats, all carved from salt.

The cool, still air and echoing acoustics make it feel like an opera house hollowed from rock, unlike any other mine attraction in Europe.

England's largest gorge cuts through the Mendip Hills with limestone cliffs rising 137 metres above the road, a scale that surprises most visitors to this part of the country.

Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, was found in the show caves beneath the cliffs and dates back over 10,000 years.

A clifftop walking trail loops the gorge's rim for views down over the valley and out toward the Somerset Levels.

Land's End is the most westerly point of mainland England, where the granite cliffs of the Penwith Peninsula plunge into the Atlantic Ocean.

On a clear day the Longships Lighthouse is visible offshore and the Isles of Scilly can be seen 28 miles distant; on stormy days the crashing waves are genuinely dramatic.

The Kelpies are two enormous horse-head sculptures rising 30 metres above the Forth and Clyde Canal in Falkirk, the largest equine sculptures in the world.

Designed by Andy Scott and completed in 2013, they celebrate the working horses that were central to Scotland's industrial and agricultural heritage.

The first Disney park built outside the United States and consistently rated among the most immaculately maintained and detail-obsessed in the world, famous for cast members who treat every corner of the park as on-stage.

Its Cinderella Castle sits at the heart of a layout close to the original Anaheim design, while the adjoining DisneySea park (a separate ticket) offers a wholly original, more adult-oriented nautical theme found nowhere else on Earth.

Efficiency and cleanliness here are practically a tourist attraction in themselves.

The world's largest indoor theme park, entirely enclosed beneath a vast red roof shaped like a stylised Ferrari GT racing silhouette, visible for miles across Yas Island.

Formula Rossa, the world's fastest roller coaster, launches riders to over 240 km/h in under five seconds, while dozens of gentler Ferrari-branded rides and simulators fill out the rest of the building.

Being fully indoor and air-conditioned makes it one of the few major theme parks unaffected by desert heat or rain.

A string of sandy beaches just 20 minutes east of Havana, Playas del Este is where the capital's own residents go to swim, making it a far more local scene than Cuba's resort-heavy north coast.

Santa María del Mar is the best-known stretch, with warm shallow water, beach shacks selling grilled fish, and none of the all-inclusive walls found at Varadero or Cayo Coco.

It's an easy half-day escape without leaving the Havana area.

Český ráj (Bohemian Paradise) is the Czech Republic's oldest protected landscape, a UNESCO Global Geopark of sandstone rock towers, castle ruins and pine forest ninety minutes from Prague.

Its best-known corner, Prachovské skály, threads narrow rock corridors and wooden stairways past viewpoints over layered stone pinnacles, while the twin-peaked ruin of Trosky Castle marks the skyline for miles around.

Europe's most visited theme park, built around a fairy-tale castle modelled on illustrations from Sleeping Beauty rather than any single real building, set inside two parks and a shopping village outside Paris.

Its scale and polish match the American originals, with parades, fireworks over the castle, and rides themed to European fairy tales as well as the usual Disney and Pixar franchises.

Queues are notoriously long even outside peak season, and pricing has climbed steeply since it opened in 1992.

One of the world's oldest and most atmospheric theme parks, built around the Fairytale Forest, a walk-through wood filled with animated scenes from Grimm and Andersen tales that has barely changed in spirit since it opened in 1952.

Unlike most modern parks, its rides and buildings are original artistic creations rather than licensed franchise characters, giving it a distinctly European, almost storybook aesthetic found nowhere else.

Symbolica, a fantasy palace dark ride, and the wooden Joris en de Draak coaster are standout attractions beyond the forest itself.

Home to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, split across two immersive lands connected by a genuine steam-hauled Hogwarts Express, alongside Jurassic Park, Minions, and Nintendo-themed areas across two parks and a water park.

The Harry Potter areas are widely regarded as the most detailed, book-accurate theme park recreation ever built, right down to shop window displays on Diagon Alley.

It sits directly across from Orlando's other major parks, making a multi-day theme-park-only trip easy to plan.

Continental Europe's largest theme park, its 18 areas each themed to a different European country in miniaturised, highly detailed architecture, from a scaled Eiffel Tower to a Russian onion-domed pavilion.

It packs in some of Europe's most intense roller coasters - including one of the world's longest, Silver Star - alongside gentler rides suited to families, making it a genuine rival to the bigger American-style parks despite less international name recognition.

An adjoining resort of themed hotels lets visitors easily stretch a visit over two days.

South Korea's largest theme park, split into themed zones from a European-style village to the Zootopia-esque Lost Valley safari, with a rose garden and four-seasons floral displays that draw as many domestic visitors as the rides themselves.

T Express, one of Asia's steepest wooden roller coasters, anchors the thrill-ride side, while the safari section lets visitors drive through enclosures with lions and tigers from the safety of a vehicle.

Its rotating seasonal festivals, especially spring tulips and autumn illuminations, are as much a draw as any single ride.

Walt Disney World's Orlando resort spans four theme parks, two water parks and dozens of hotels across an area the size of a small city.

Magic Kingdom's castle, the parades and the character meets are the classic draw for younger families, while Epcot and Animal Kingdom skew older.

Ride queues, the distances between parks and the cost of a multi-day ticket all reward planning rather than improvisation.

The original Legoland, built in 1968 in the same town as Lego's headquarters and factory, centred on Miniland - scaled cityscapes of famous landmarks built entirely from millions of Lego bricks.

Rides skew toward families with younger children rather than thrill-seekers, but the sheer craftsmanship of the brick models, some requiring years to build, is the park's real draw for visitors of any age.

A dedicated Lego-brick hotel and nearby Lego House museum make Billund a full theme-park pilgrimage for fans.

Spain's largest theme park, split into six themed lands from Polynesia to the Wild West, best known for Shambhala, one of Europe's tallest and fastest hyper-coasters.

An adjoining water park (Costa Caribe) and a Ferrari-branded park under the same resort umbrella make it easy to stretch a visit across several days on the Costa Dorada coast.

It draws heavily from both Spanish domestic tourists and the broader European package-holiday market along this stretch of coastline.

Italy's largest and most visited theme park, set on the shore of Lake Garda with rides ranging from the classic wooden coaster Fuga da Atlantide to the wolf-themed Fuga di Fantozzi and a dedicated SEA LIFE aquarium.

It pairs naturally with a broader Lake Garda holiday, sitting a short drive from Peschiera del Garda's old town and the lake's beaches.

Newer additions, including a Jurassic Park-themed area, have kept it competitive with the bigger international parks despite a smaller footprint.