The Brains of the Family: Learning Holidays

by Abigail Flanagan

'The Brains of the Family:: Learning Holidays' by Abigail Flanagan

UNITED KINGDOM

Getting Hands-on in the Hills of Cumbria
Shepherdess Alison O’Neill’s Cumbrian farm is one big outdoor classroom, and a tailor-made break here makes for an idyllic way to teach kids the ‘field to fork’ message. You can help out with lambing, shearing, haymaking, dry stone walling and more – how involved you get is up to you.

Stunning walking, wild swimming, picnics, campfires and hearty home-made grub (home-produced or locally sourced) are up for grabs too. Accommodation ranges from B&B to Romani wagons, or older kids can sleep in a treehouse overlooking a waterfall in which otters play.

Cost: From £240/wk self-catering in a wagon sleeping 2 adults and 1 child. Full board ‘Experience’ packages are available.

Bedding Down on a Tudor Warship in London
If you’ve no time for a proper break, think about taking an overnight trip back to the 16th century by signing up for a family sleepover on the Golden Hinde www.goldenhinde.com. This is living history at its very best – as part of Sir Francis Drake’s warmongering crew, you’ll learn navigation, gunning and brutal surgery (severed limbs, anyone?) and take on the pesky Spanish Armada before bedding down on the gundeck for the night (bring camping mats). It’s fabulously informative and rollicking good fun.

Cost: £39.95pp, with sleepovers usually held monthly.


Getting Creative on the Coast in Norfolk
For an old-fashioned, seaside holiday with a difference, Artists Cabin is a light and airy chalet that feels more New England than Norfolk. Beautifully restored and sleeping 4 on two single beds and a sofabed, it makes for a great, cheap base for enjoying life’s simple pleasures – Bacton beach is a stone’s throw away, Cromer (bring crabbing nets) a little further afield. But it’s what happens inside that gives it that unique twist. The owner, fine-artist Melanie Gibson, offers tuition in textiles, batique, papier-mâché and more, tailored to all abilities and ages, from toddlers to grandparents.

Cost: from £150/week. Course costs vary but start at around £80 for a day’s family tuition, including materials. Book via holidaylettings.co.uk (home 12481).


SHORT-HAUL/MID-HAUL

For ‘gastronomic adventures’ in the spectacular Garfagnana region of northern Tuscany, see our page on Sapori e Saperi

Becoming Blooming Marvellous in France
Are you constantly shamed by your smug, allotment-owning neighbours and their endless supply of tomatoes? Has the sunflower seed your child planted months ago still not even offered up a shoot? If so, head for pretty little Bouère in the Mayenne countryside, an area famed for its ‘flowered villages’. Each summer, its Village Vacances Nature et Jardin – a small, purposebuilt hamlet – holds family-focused courses designed to turn butterfingers into green fingers.

Workshops range from tending veg and flowers to making windowboxes and even building scarecrows. Accommodation is in Swiss-style, 2-bedroom chalets dotted throughout the gardens, each with a large terrace and BBQ area.

Cost: Seven nights’ self-catering chalet rental (sleeps seven) from €255. Course costs: Available on request.
 
 
Going Where the Wind Blows You in Greece
To windsurf you need wind, and that’s something that Lefkas gets big time.  A world-famous windsurfing destination, it’s home to Club Vassiliki, one of the sport’s foremost centres. The highest qualified team of instructors in the world – including UK freestyle champion Andy Chambers – are on hand to make learning easy and fun, the kit’s top rate, and there’s a tailored program for kids five–15, plus childcare for tots. 

Cost: From £2562 for a family of four for 7 nights, travelling over May half term (book early for a 10% discount), including flights, self-catering accommodation in a one-bedroom apartment, transfers and all-inclusive tuition and kit hire.
 

Learning to Squeak Dolphin in the Azores
Responsible Travel’s ‘Swimming with Wild Dolphins’ trip, suitable for ages seven and up, sees you based on Pico Island, but it’s the Azorean waters – one of the world’s top locations for cetacean spotting – where you’ll spend most of your time. After a day’s instruction in the pool, you’ll hopefully be serenaded by a sonar symphony on at least one of your six or seven trips out. Land-side, you’ll learn more about these fascinating creatures from the experts, visit the sperm whale museum to hear about research projects, and explore what’s essentially one big, old volcano.

Cost: From £850pp for a 9-night trip, including B&B hotel accommodation; from £790pp for a self-catering guesthouse, including hire car. 


Following in Lawrence of Arabia’s footsteps in Jordan
Combining wildlife, culture, history, education and adventure (phew!), Exodus’s family group tour of Jordan’s greatest attractions is guaranteed to broaden – if not altogether blow – young minds. You’ll explore ancient Petra, the ‘rose-red city’ said to be ‘half as old as time’, by foot and horse-back, then adventure across the Wadi Rum like Lawrence of Arabia (albeit by 4X4 as well as camel), dine with Bedouins and camp under a star-encrusted desert sky. Oh, and there’s time to snorkel over Aqaba’s phenomenal coral reef and make a vain attempt to sink in the Dead Sea. The trip is suitable for children aged five up.

Cost: from £1169 (adult) and £1099 (child) for a nine-day family group tour, including flights. Independent family trips available on request.

LONG-HAUL


Walking with Dinosaurs in the USA
If the BBC programme and spin-off stadium show have left your pint-sized paleontologists roaring for more (and you fancy somewhere other than the Isle of Wight), the 150-million-year-old badlands of the Morrison Formation – basically, one big dino-graveyard – are more thrilling than any theme-park ride. Each summer the Museum of Western Colorado holds five-day family Dino Digs in Utah and Colorado, during you learn how to prepare fossils and make casts, search for dino-footprints and dig for allosaurs, apatosaurus and more. 
Digs take place from June to August and get booked up fast. 

Becoming a Warrior in Kenya
A phenomenal chance for kids to experience life through the eyes of the majestic Maasai, Steppes Discovery's ‘Warrior for a Week’ programme sees kids five and over going bush in the wildlife-teeming Mara Reserve. Spending each day with tribal members, you’ll be taught tracking and survival skills, how to use a panga and spear, bush camp building and ways of tending the goats and cattle that are so vital to the tribe’s existence.

Traditional stories, songs and dance all add up to an unforgettable in–depth experience – and the best ‘What I did on my holiday’ diary ever. Pernickety parents shouldn't panic – accommodation is not in a hut built from mud and dung but in a luxury camp or lodge.

Cost: £2495 (adult), £2195 (child) for a 7-day tour including all flights from UK, accommodation, transfers, game drives and most meals.

Banging Out Beachside Beats in Ghana
One for rhythmic teenagers, Responsible Travel’s eight-day Ashanti Drumming tour (drumming is an essential part of Ghana’s heritage) sees you pounding out sounds beside Kokrobite beach. Based at the open-air Academy for African Music and Arts, you’ll be taught by royal musicians who perform for the village chief. Sessions involve dance and song, as it’s felt that they’re inextricably linked – ditch your British reserve at the departure gate.

Cost: from £600pp, excluding flights but including transfers, accommodation, full board and all drumming workshops.
Optional daytrips to waterfalls, mountains and other cultural sites can be arranged at extra cost.

Other feature articles by Abigail