We’ve ranked and revealed the world’s safest destinations to visit with kids to help you plan the perfect family vacation.
It goes without saying that, when planning a family vacation with kids, parents will carefully consider their destination, whether they’re considering a trip within the USA or anywhere else in the world.
With activities to consider so that your kids don’t get bored, a wide range of child-friendly eateries is desirable for those picky eaters and, of course, general safety levels of the area or country to be sure your family can vacation worry-free, picking a destination can be a headache.
In order to make the decision easier on parents, here at The Family Vacation Guide, we’ve conducted some research of our own to discover and reveal which vacation destinations are perfect for families looking for a safe yet enjoyable spot.
We analyzed a range of variables such as overall safety, family-friendly accommodations, child-friendly restaurants and family activities available across a range of popular destinations.
- The world’s safest family-friendly vacation destinations
- The best vacation destinations for family-friendly accommodation
- The best vacation destinations for family-friendly dining out
- The best vacation destinations for family-friendly activities
- The World’s Safest Destinations to Visit with Kids – Ranked
The world’s safest family-friendly vacation destinations
Zurich, Switzerland
Family Safety Score: 7.81/10
The largest city in the Swiss canton of the same name, Zurich comes out on top as our safest city for families to visit. Zurich often performs well in international rankings for living, business and quality of life. It ranks third on our crime index and with an annual average temperature of 9.3 Celsius, running a little on the cooler side, Zurich is a great place to vacation with your family.
Heraklion, Greece
Family Safety Score: 7.45/10
Heraklion takes second place as our second-best for the family safety score. It ranks fourth on our crime index and with an annual average temperature of 19 degrees Celsius, it’s a safe city that isn’t so hot you don’t want to do anything and of course, there is plenty to do.
Vienna, Austria
Family Safety Score: 7.02/10
Finally, ranking third for our overall family safety score, is the capital city of Austria, Vienna. It’s the sixth most populous city in the European Union and like Zurich has ranked well on an array of quality of life indexes. It has a low crime rate, scoring 26.47 out of 100 on our crime index, coming in tenth place.
The best vacation destinations for family-friendly accommodation
Orlando, FL, United States
Percentage of Family-friendly Hotels: 58.93%
Orlando comes out on top for the highest density of family-friendly accommodations; the city in central Florida is teeming with theme parks too, bound to keep your children entertained.
Las Vegas, NV, United States
Percentage of Family-friendly Hotels: 28.73%
Out in the Mojave Desert lies Las Vegas, the 26th-most populous city in the United States and the most populous in Nevada. It’s our second-highest for most family-friendly hotels with 104 of its 362 hotels listed as family-friendly.
Rome, Italy
Percentage of Family-friendly Hotels: 28.34%
Finally, a city that is soaked in history – largely due to the Roman Empire – it is now the capital of Italy. It’s the third most populous city in the European Union, which should illustrate the vastness of the city. With 28.34% of its 7,928 hotels listed as family-friendly, families have plenty of choice when they visit this city.
The best vacation destinations for family-friendly dining out
Florence, Italy
Percentage of family-friendly restaurants: 48.36%
In first place is Florence, in the Tuscany region in central Italy. It was one of the central cities for medieval trade in Europe. Cuisine traditions in Florence evolved from typically “peasant” eating habits, as opposed to fine dining. These days, you can find a huge array of fantastic restaurants in Florence, with nearly half of them listed as family-friendly.
Venice, Italy
Percentage of family-friendly restaurants: 44.94%
In the Veneto region, in North-east Italy, Venice is third among our cities with the highest density of family-friendly restaurants. The city is built on one-hundred and eighteen islands, which are separated by a series of canals and connected by some four-hundred bridges. With that said, it is no surprise that Venice’s cuisine is heavily seafood-based.
Rome, Italy
Percentage of family-friendly restaurants: 40.7%
Rome’s culinary habits have evolved drastically over the course of many centuries, starting with a backbone in Greek cultural habits. Since then, it has absorbed the habits of countless cultures (symptomatic of having previously been the centre of an empire) and now has its own eclectic modern culinary traditions.
The best vacation destinations for family-friendly activities
Looking at the best family-friendly activities in each city, we took the percentage of child-friendly landmarks, nature activities and fun activities then calculated an average for each of the cities.
Pattaya, Thailand
Percentage of family-friendly activities: 35.5%
Pattaya which is on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand has the most child-friendly activities on average. The city is littered with beaches and resorts and has a multitude of festivals that are sure to be fun for all the family.
Heraklion, Greece
Percentage of family-friendly activities: 34.01%
Next up, is another city that is absolutely soaked in history, Heraklion is the fifth largest city in Greece. There are plenty of historical sites to visit and around three miles south-east of the city is the Bronze Age palace of Knossos, it is widely regarded as the oldest city in Europe.
Orlando, FL, United States
Percentage of family-friendly activities: 33.93%
Featuring in our top three again is the US city of Orlando, Florida, as our third for the most child-friendly activities on average. Orlando has some of the most iconic resorts that every child dreams of going to, including Disney World and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
The World’s Safest Destinations to Visit with Kids – Ranked
Methodology
First, we compiled a list of popular holiday destinations from Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations Index 2021, from there we used Numbeo, to get the crime index numbers, Wikipedia to get annual average temperatures where they weren’t available we took the stats from Numbeo and calculated the average ourselves. To get the peace index number we used Vision of Humanity.
To get the data for hotels, restaurants and activities we took the total for each city from Trip Advisor, then filtered for child-friendly – using those two numbers we calculated what percentage of the results were child-friendly.
Finally, to get the family safety score, we took the numbers from all the factors and calculated an overall ranking for each country, assigning a relative score out of 10 for each factor and taking an average of all of these to give a total score out of 10.
More about our TFVG Author
A seasoned traveller, Dad, and avid sports tourist, James foundered The Family Vacation Guide to share his expert vacation experiences- especially when it comes to being a travelling family man.
Featured in Travel articles such as Travel + Leisure, TripSavvy and SFGate, you know you're reading some of the best vacation tips online.
- James Brockbankhttps://www.thefamilyvacationguide.com/author/james/
- James Brockbankhttps://www.thefamilyvacationguide.com/author/james/
- James Brockbankhttps://www.thefamilyvacationguide.com/author/james/
- James Brockbankhttps://www.thefamilyvacationguide.com/author/james/
