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Our detailed travel guides are all the inspiration you need for your next family vacation: from destinations, to accommodation, to activities - we have all the best recommendations for you and your kids.
Choosing your next holiday destination is as stressful as it is exciting. There are so many things to consider when planning your vacation, and so many questions that you will have. When is the best time to book a flight? What is there to do? What is the weather like? You also want the best value for money, and to make sure the destination is safe for you and your family.
We’ve already answered one of these questions, uncovering the best time to book your flight. But for the rest of the questions that you may have before booking your holiday? Well, that’s why here at The Family Vacation Guide, we’ve created this family vacation index to make your choices that little bit easier. We’ve created rankings for weather, safety, pollution, hotel prices, and attractions and created an overall score ranking each holiday city from best to worst.
When deciding on the destination for your family’s next vacation, there are a number of factors that you have to consider. It can be a bit of a headache looking around for cheap hotels, good weather, lots of food options, and lots of things to do. That’s why we created an index considering all of these factors and put them into one place for you. After giving each destination a normalized score out of 10, we were able to determine the top 10 cities to explore for you and your family.
Family-friendly score /10
Topping our list is Abu Dhabi. This city boasts some amazingly warm weather and plenty of attractions to keep you and your family happy and busy. Abu Dhabi has some phenomenal views, and a Formula 1 race track where some of the best drivers in the world have raced. There is also a Ferrari World theme park which is home to the largest indoor theme park, and the fastest roller coaster in the world, which reaches a top speed of 240kmph.
Family-friendly score /10
The UAE takes the top two spots in our index. With very similar weather to its neighboring city, Dubai also has a magnitude of activities for your family. Similar to Abu Dhabi, Dubai is the host of some incredible views and modern architecture, with an 830m tall building called the Burj Khalifa. A great place to visit if you want to see scenery that you and the family will never forget.
Family-friendly score /10
Our hypothetical bronze medal goes to Turkey, which sits comfortably in the third spot. Antalya boasts some lovely weather and has some incredible scenery to wow you and your family. As well as the white beaches and the view of the Mediterranean Sea, Antalya is a historic town that can inject a bit of culture into your family holiday.
Family-friendly score /10
The Spanish capital narrowly misses out on the top three spots. However, Madrid still has plenty to offer. Great weather, a large collection of landmarks boasting some beautiful architecture, and if you like football, it is home to two of Spain's best football teams, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.
Family-friendly score /10
Heraklion is the capital city of the Greek Island Crete, and the fifth-largest city in Greece. With it being right on the coast, Heraklion boasts some amazing views of the sea, as well as some beautiful beaches. It has great weather and some incredible archaeology to explore, making it a great choice for you and your family.
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Sharing your holiday pictures with your followers is a great way to show off your experiences to those close to you. So we discovered the most Instagrammable places to visit, by looking at the number of hashtags for each city on Instagram.
Instagram posts
Topping our list is the capital of England. London can make for some great pictures, with attractions such as Big Ben, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge. The rooftop views of the skyline can also make a great picture, which will have your followers a little bit jealous.
Ensuring you and your family can enjoy your holiday safe and sound is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a destination. As exciting as visiting a new country is, it can be stressful if you are unfamiliar with any of the dangers. That’s why we created a safety index to determine which cities are the safest to visit.
safety index score /100
The city north of Tokyo is considered one of the safest places in the world. A great place to walk with the family full of confidence.
When choosing your destination, another thing to consider is how environmentally friendly the city is. This is why we considered pollution rates to determine which cities across the world are the least polluted.
pollution index score /100
This city, commonly misconceived as the capital of Switzerland, tops our all European top three, having made a substantial effort to reduce its air pollution. And for all you chocolate-loving families, Zurich is the home of Lindt chocolate!
A cheaper hotel room means you can spend more money treating the family when you get there. This gives the perfect opportunity to buy some souvenirs for you and your loved ones to cherish forever. This is why we calculated the cheapest average prices for hotels in each destination per night so you know how much you can expect to pay in each city.
average price per night
Thailand’s capital city has taken the top spot on our list, with an incredibly low average price of just over $42. With some beautiful scenery to explore, Bangkok’s low hotel prices give you the perfect opportunity to spend more money enjoying the city.
That moment when you arrive at your destination, walk off the plane, and instantly feel the heat is one of the most exciting parts of going on holiday. That’s why we looked at the average temperature during the hottest and coldest months, the average amount of rainfall during the wettest month, as well as how long the sun stays out during the warmest months, to create a hot weather score so you can figure out the warmest places to go.
weather index score /10
With the temperature averaging at 96°F, Abu Dhabi tops the list with the sun staying out for 13 hours. If you want to make the most of the hot weather, be sure to go during June and August.
When on holiday, everything feels better when the sun is out. An ice cream and a cold refreshing drink is the second-best combination, after sunglasses and sunscreen of course. That’s why we discovered the average temperature during each country's hottest month, to see which country was the warmest.
average temperature during hottest month
Abu Dhabi takes the top spot again in our list, reaching an average of 96°F or 35.5°F during August, which is their hottest month.
It is a joint first finish with the first two places belonging to the UAE cities. Both cities reach 35.5°F during their hottest months, which for both cities is August.
When you’re on holiday, you want to make the most of your days, and having as much sunlight during the day gives you the best chance of doing so. The more sunlight during the day, the more opportunity to explore and create some unforgettable memories with the family!
of sunlight a day
If those long days in the sun are what you are looking for, then Cairo, with 14 hours of sunlight a day could be perfect for you and the family.
A trip to San Francisco will definitely require some sunscreen, with 14 hours of sunlight a day during July, which is their sunniest month.
Holidays are a great way to bond and connect with your family. A great way to make sure you can do this is through the activities you choose to do on your travels. That’s exactly why we figured out how many family-friendly attractions each city has to offer. We used Tripadvisor to find out the number of family-friendly restaurants, zoos, aquariums, water parks, and theme parks each destination had to offer.
per kilometer squared
The smallest city in our list takes the top spot. Despite its size, Phuket still has almost 1,500 attractions to choose from, including four zoos and 22 family-friendly landmarks. A good choice if you don’t wanna move around too much to keep the little ones entertained. The Green Elephant Sanctuary Park is one of many places you can interact with the wildlife, to give you and the family a memorable experience.
With at least twice as many zoos and aquariums as any other city, New York takes the top spot, with 15 water and amusement parks and a whopping 40 animal-based attractions.
child-friendly restaurants
London takes our top spot with a large variety of cuisines to choose from. Whatever you and the family are craving, you’ll have plenty of options to keep everyone happy and full. If you’re looking to try the national dish of England, then make sure you try a roast dinner!
Social media is a great source of inspiration for your next holiday. Seeing the experiences of others can give you a bit of extra confidence when planning and booking your next vacation. You can also learn some valuable tips from listening to those with experience. So we’ve come up with a list of the best TikTok and Instagram family travel influencers to check out for some holiday inspiration.
TikTok followers
This mother lives with her husband and her son, Aiden, in an RV. Karen documents the positives and negatives of living in an RV. She also travels around the world, most recently traveling to Italy, France, and Saudi Arabia. As well as offering advice for people booking holidays, she posts relatable content about the struggles of booking a holiday.
per post
There’s no surprises that the most followed on our list is also the highest earner. Karen could be making close to $2,000 dollars per video posted on TikTok.
Instagram followers
With over six times the amount of followers than second place, is this family of travel journalists. The Gees are a family of five who live in Hawaii and document their travels all over the world, as well as what it’s like to travel with such a large family. This family has traveled to 86 countries so they definitely know what they’re talking about!
Instagram followers
No surprises that the Gee family top this list of earnings considering their mighty following. Their catalog of 86 countries visited makes them a great account to follow.
You’ve seen our top ten family-friendly places, but what family-friendly vacations are people from all around the world looking for on Google? We looked at the total number of searches over the last 12 months for ‘family hotels in’ and ‘family vacation in’ to reveal the most sought-after vacations across the world.
total searches
The capital of England is the clear winner for most desirable vacation destination, and there’s no surprises why. There are plenty of family-friendly attractions and restaurants to enjoy, as well as lots of amazing scenery!
favorite vacation destination
London has topped both global and US rankings for the most desired destination. Perhaps the unpredictable weather isn’t a significant factor for families choosing where to go on vacation.
We wanted to find out the most desired holiday of each state. So we looked at the number of times each state searched for ‘family hotels in’ during 2022, to expose the vacations that each state is craving.
States favorite vacation destination
Topping our list is the capital of England. London can make for some great pictures, with attractions such as Big Ben, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge. The rooftop views of the skyline can also make a great picture, which will have your followers a little bit jealous.
States favorite vacation destination
On the east coast of Florida is second place on our list. Miami’s palm trees, beautiful beaches, and amazing weather are what the people of Massachusetts, Ohio, and Connecticut, to name a few, are craving for their next vacation.
States favorite vacation destination
14 states are after a Parisian experience for their next vacation, Colorado and Kansas included.
States favorite vacation destination
In fourth place is Orlando, which is a fair choice considering Disneyland is there. A brilliant experience for all the family to enjoy, so much so that even Florida is searching for Orlando vacations, keeping their travels as local as possible.
States favorite vacation destination
Our third of six US places to make our list is California’s Los Angeles. Like Miami, it’s on the coast, which makes it a great place for a beach vacation. Louisiana, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, and Nevada all have Los Angeles as their most searched destination.
States favorite vacation destination
Also in California is San Francisco which takes sixth place on our list. The theme emerging here is that Americans want a beach holiday. Hawaii, Washington, and Tennessee all have San Francisco at the top of their list.
States favorite vacation destination
New York takes seventh place with Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Wyoming wishing for a vacation here.
States favorite vacation destination
This Hawaiian city is sought after by Alaska and Hawaii, with Hawaiians not wanting to travel across the North Pacific Ocean for their vacations.
States favorite vacation destination
Concluding our list is Mexico’s Cancun, with Texas and New Mexico desiring a trip across the border, keeping with the theme of reducing their traveling times as much as possible.
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We began by creating a list of popular tourist destinations, using Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations Index 2021.
To get the most Instagrammable destinations, we looked at Instagram hashtags to find how many posts had been uploaded with the hashtag of a destination.
We used Numbeo to find out the safety index and pollution index of each city in our list, before ranking our findings to discover which city is deemed the safest and least polluting.
Our most affordable destination was uncovered by Kayak which gave the cheapest hotel room price for a weekday and a weekend. We then took an average of these scores before ranking the price of a hotel. We then converted our findings from GBP to USD and EUR on 28.06.2022.
We found out the best weather of each destination by using Holiday Weather. For each destination, we were able to find the hottest month of the year, the average temperature during the hottest month and coldest month, the wettest month’s average rainfall, and the average sunshine hours during the sunniest month. To get our weather index score, we gave each factor a normalized score out of 10, before taking an average of these scores for each destination, with 10 being the best weather.
To discover the destinations with the most family-friendly attractions, we used Tripadvisor. We then found the destination’s area per km2 and divided the total number of family-friendly attractions by the area of the place. We were then able to use Tripadvisor to break down the family attractions into categories; restaurants, sights and landmarks, zoos and aquariums, and water and amusement parks.
Our list of influencers was taken from Adventures and Globetotting. We then used Influencer Marketing Hub to calculate the estimated earnings of our Instagram influencers, and Inbeat to calculate the estimated earnings of our TikTok influencers. Finally, we converted the estimated earnings from USD to GBP and EUR on 22.06.2022.
We used Keyword Planner to find which destinations had the highest number of searches across the world, before narrowing it down per state. For the global searches, we looked at the last 24 months and used the search terms ‘family hotels in [destination]’ and ‘family vacation in [destination]’. For the states’ search results, we used ‘family hotels in [destination]’ only, and used data from the past 12 months.
We used the data for safety, pollution, weather, hotel prices, family-friendly attractions, and Instagram and gave each factor a normalized score out of 10. We then took an average score from all the factors to give each destination an overall score, to determine which destination is the best for families.
Brought to you by
Our detailed travel guides are all the inspiration you need for your next family vacation: from destinations, to accommodation, to activities - we have all the best recommendations for you and your kids.