Planning A City Break For The Whole Family

Planning a city break for the whole family can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. If you’re looking for tips and tricks to make a city break for everybody a success, then you’re in the right place.

We all want our loved ones to enjoy their holidays as much as possible, but what if they have some limitations? Sometimes we might want to take them on a city break, but we worry about how they will cope. The good news is that there are ways in which you can plan your holiday so that everyone enjoys it without any difficulty or stress! There’s absolutely no reason why your three year old can’t have as much fun as their retired grandmother. You’ve just got to plan.

Choosing the right accommodation

If you’re going away with the wider family, then it’s important to put some thought into your accommodation. It’s likely that you’ll want to keep a close eye on younger children, but grandparents will probably won’t some space to unwind of an evening. So whilst booking rooms in the same hotel may make sense, having rooms on separate floors, so that the grandparents can get some rest and downtime, might also be a good idea.

Alternatively, you could look to rent an apartment, or a town house. But make sure it’s suitable for your whole party before booking.

Planning activities

What you do in a city, will obviously depend on the place that you visit. But you will want to visit attractions that the whole family can enjoy.

If you were going to London (for example) then The London Eye, British Museum and Madame Tussauds may be worth a visit, as they have something for everybody. These attractions are all also wheelchair accessible.

If you’re visiting another city, then you should always consider visiting museums, as often they’re amongst the world’s most accessible attractions. They usually cater for different age groups too.

Thinking about transport

If you’re taking the whole family on a city break, then you need to consider little and older legs alike, because navigating a city can be strenuous unless you plan.

Often, within a city, driving isn’t possible and taking taxis everywhere can be expensive. To get around this, you could use public transport. I would also recommend considering a tour bus ticket. Most cities operate open-top buses, which give you a chance to view the city’s top attractions. It might be worth doing one whole loop and earmarking the places you’d like to get off at during the second loop.

What about food?

Everybody has different dietary requirements, but sometimes compromises do need to be made. Grandma might not particularly like pizza, but if everybody else does, she might have to visit the pizza restaurant one night (or dine alone).

As a general rule of thumb, try to find places that are well reviewed, easy for all to access, have a children’s menu and have at least one item on the menu that every member of your party will eat.

Is it worth it?

Having a multi-generational city break does take a fair amount of planning and everybody’s interests, abilities, likes and dislikes need to be considered. However, life is about making memories and these are the experiences that you’ll look back on in years to come. So don’t let logistics and considerations get in your way of these family trips, because they have the potential to bring the whole family a lot of happiness.

In collaboration with Age UK Mobility.