Family & Multigenerational Travel

The hardest part of travelling as a family is rarely the destination. It is finding somewhere that works for a nine-year-old and a seventy-nine-year-old on the same afternoon, without either of them feeling the trip was designed for the other.

That is usually solved by the shape of the journey rather than the place. Take a boat, a villa or a lodge for yourselves and the problem largely disappears: everyone keeps their own hours, meals happen when your family wants them, and the group can split and reconvene without anybody negotiating.

What follows is how we build these journeys, and some of the places we have built them. It is a fraction of what we arrange.

Is it worth using a travel designer for a family journey?

This is the trip type where the difference is largest, because the failure points are specific and mostly invisible until you arrive.

Which rooms actually adjoin, and which are merely on the same corridor. Which safari camps accept children at all, and at what age, and whether that applies to game drives as well as to the property. Whether the villa's fourth bedroom is genuinely a bedroom. Whether there is anything a teenager will willingly do. Whether the grandparents' room is up three flights of stairs.

We check all of it in advance, by asking people we know rather than reading a website. And on exclusive-use bookings, which is how most of these journeys work best, we are negotiating a whole property rather than booking rooms, which is a different conversation entirely.

How families travel best

Private Nile cruises. A dahabiya is a traditional twin-masted sailing boat carrying between six and fourteen cabins, and chartering one whole is the single best way we know to travel through Egypt as a family. The boat becomes a floating house: the chef cooks to your menu, the daily programme is yours, and because dahabiyas sail rather than motor they moor at islands and Nubian villages where the large ships cannot dock. Most sail between Esna and Aswan over five to seven nights. For larger groups, the Oberoi Philae and Oberoi Zahra can both be chartered outright, and Oberoi is introducing two new seven-suite dahabiyas, Melouk and Malekat, in late 2026.

Exclusive-use lodges and hotels. More properties than people realise will take a single booking for the whole place, and at the size we work with, twenty to thirty guests is often the entire capacity. It transforms the trip. There are no other guests to consider, the kitchen cooks around your family, and the staff learn everybody's name on the first evening. It is also frequently better value than the equivalent number of rooms, particularly out of peak season.

Villas and chalets with staff. A staffed villa with a chef, a housekeeper and a driver usually costs less than the same number of hotel rooms and works considerably better. Everyone has their own space, breakfast is not an event, and the children can be fed at six while the adults eat at eight. In the Alps, the same applies to chalets, with the addition of a boot room and a driver who takes everyone to the lifts.

Private guiding throughout. A guide who is genuinely good with children changes a family holiday more than any hotel does. We choose them individually rather than accepting whoever is assigned, and we match them to the ages travelling.

Where we have taken families

Egypt is the destination we recommend most often for families with children old enough to remember it, and it has never been better timed. The Grand Egyptian Museum opened fully in November 2025 beside the pyramids at Giza, displaying the complete Tutankhamun collection together for the first time and including a dedicated children's museum. Pair Cairo with a chartered dahabiya between Luxor and Aswan and you have a journey that genuinely holds every age in the group. The season runs from October to April.

Safari works far better for families than its reputation suggests, provided the camps are chosen carefully. Minimum ages vary considerably and some camps restrict children on game drives, so this is a case where the property list has to be built around your children rather than the other way round. Royal Malewane, in the malaria-free Thornybush reserve, removes the prophylaxis question entirely, which matters a great deal with younger children. Our African Safaris page covers the regions in full.

Sri Lanka may be the best single country in Asia for a family journey. The distances are short, the contrasts are large, and in ten days you can move from a walled fort to the hill country to leopard tracking to a beach. Ceylon Tea Trails is particularly well suited, because each of its restored planters' bungalows can be taken whole, giving you a staffed house on a working tea estate.

Venice and Italy reward families more than people expect, provided you slow down. Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel on Giudecca has the garden, the pool and a private launch across to St Mark's, which solves the two problems Venice usually presents to children. In Tuscany, Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco offers villas within a restored estate, and Four Seasons Firenze sits in a walled Renaissance garden that is unusually forgiving of small children.

The Alps in winter, where Les Airelles in Courchevel 1850 runs the most enchanting children's programme in the Alps and has two adjacent chalets and Chalet Ormello for families who want a house alongside the hotel's service.

And a great deal more, including Japan, South Africa, Costa Rica, Borneo, Greece and the Indian Ocean. If the place you have in mind is not here, it simply means we have not written it down yet.

When to travel

Most families are tied to school holidays, which are the most expensive and most heavily booked weeks of the year in every destination that matters. There is no clever way around that, but there are two things worth knowing.

The first is that lead time is the whole game. Christmas, Easter and the summer half-terms are booked twelve to eighteen months ahead at the properties and villas worth having, and exclusive-use bookings need longer still. Families who plan a year out get what they want. Families who plan three months out get what is left.

The second is that a few destinations peak in the school holidays rather than in spite of them. Southern and eastern Africa are at their best in July and August. Egypt and the Indian Ocean suit the Christmas and Easter breaks. The Alps work at Christmas and February half-term by definition. These are the trips to prioritise when your dates are fixed.

The details we settle before you go

Which rooms adjoin, which interconnect, and which are simply near each other.

Minimum ages at every camp, lodge and property, checked against your children's ages at the time of travel rather than at the time of booking.

Cots, high chairs, bed guards, adapters, and whether the villa pool is fenced.

Food that children will actually eat, arranged with the kitchen in advance rather than negotiated at the table.

Activities that give the teenagers something they would have chosen, and afternoons where the grandparents are not expected anywhere.

A pace that assumes somebody will be tired, and a plan that survives it.

Your journey starts with a conversation

Tell us who is travelling, their ages, and what you are hoping the week feels like. We will tell you honestly which destinations suit that group, which do not, and where taking a boat or a house for yourselves would make the difference.

FAQ

How far ahead should we book? Twelve to eighteen months for school holidays, and longer for exclusive-use bookings or a chartered boat. This is the single biggest determinant of what is available to you.

Is a private Nile cruise really better than a ship? For a family, yes, in almost every case. A chartered dahabiya carries only your group, sails rather than motors, moors where the large vessels cannot, and runs entirely to your schedule. It costs more per night than a standard cruise and is a fundamentally different trip.

Can we take a whole property? More often than you would think. Many of the lodges and villas we use hold between eight and thirty guests in total, which means a large family can take the lot. We negotiate these directly, and out of peak season it is frequently better value than booking the rooms individually.

Are safaris suitable for children? Yes, with the right camps. Minimum ages vary from camp to camp and some restrict children on shared game drives, so the itinerary has to be built around the children's ages. Malaria-free reserves such as Thornybush are worth considering for younger families.

What about very different ages in one group? This is what exclusive use solves. When the property is yours, the eight-year-old and the eighty-year-old are not competing for the same day. We build in activities that split the group and meals that bring it back together.

Can you arrange childcare? Yes, at most properties and in villas, using staff the property knows rather than an agency. We arrange it in advance and confirm languages spoken.