Austria Family Holidays & Breaks

Vienna and Around

• Explore the Austrian capital – old-fashioned yet countercultural Vienna with world-class museums, hip hangouts and old-fashioned fairground fun that make it perfect for a family city break. Read more about Vienna with kids.

• Venture into the surrounding province of Lower Austria, particularly the Mostviertel region, where the UNESCO-listed Wachau Valley offers up ruined medieval castles – one of which, Durnstein, was a jail to Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades – vineyards and teetering cliffs. There’s a 40km bike trail between Melk and Krems, along the north bank of the Danube and through pretty villages, and boats to bring both you and your bike back. (You can in fact cycle all the way – nearly 300km – from Vienna to Passau in Germany, via Melk then Linz in Upper Austria, mostly along dedicated cycle paths and tranquil country lanes.)

Salzburg with Kids

• Discover one of the most beautiful cities in all Europe – as wonderful when snow carpets its ancient squares as when wildflowers cover the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Everything is clustered around the River Salzach, with the ornate Old Town on one side, the marginally less old New Town on the other, book-ended by two mini-mountains, the Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerburg

• Take the near-vertical funicular up the rock face to the magnificent medieval Hohensalzburg fortress looming over everything. Kids love climbing the pile of cannonballs, seeing the torture chamber and scaling the tower.

• Walk along the Mönchsberg ridge, clambering over ancient fortifications, looking down on a townscape with clusters of ancient, extravagant buildings.

• Hire bikes for an easy ride along riverbank paths, or walk up the Kapuzinerburg, watching out for chamois.

• Visit Mozart’s Birthplace, with instruments dating from his days as a child prodigy, the cathedral (Dom), St Peter's Abbey and the colourful Getreidegasse shopping street.

• Discover The Sound of Music settings, especially the fountains and steps of the Mirabell Gardens.

• On the city outskirts, visit the Hellbrunn Palace for its 400-year-old trick fountains where children adore getting soaked, large, grassy grounds and chunky adventure playground.

• Spend time in the toy museum (Spielzeug Museum) and Haus der Natur natural history and technology museum.

• Explore the castles, lakes, mountains, waterfalls and caves of the Salzburgerland region. Within an hour of the city you’ll fond the staggering Eisriesenwelt ice caves and close to that the mountain-top Hohenwerfen fortress, Salzwelten salt mines (where kids whoop as they whoosh down the slide that miners once used to get to work), Untersberg mountain with its cable-car and hikes over to Germany, Krimml Falls, Europe’s highest waterfall, plus many other peaks, mountain railways, lakes and walks.

• Go skiing. Ski Amadé (named after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) unites 25 resorts in Salzburgerland and four other regions with 760km of piste on one lift pass, none more than an hour from the city. 

• Stay in Kaprun, a charming lakeside village with a long ski season due to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier. Beginners can learn on the Lechnerberg slopes next to Kaprun, or there are gentle slopes on the glacier ideal for learning. For intermediates and advance skiers there’s a great range on both the glacier and the Schmittenhöhe slopes. Even if you don’t ski, check out the glacier – the gondola ride is spectacular. Kaprun also has  an indoor–outdoor pool, bowling, tobogganing and tennis. In the warmer months, it offers gold-panning, kayaking, hiking, mountain-biking and swimming, making it one of the best summer resorts in Austria. 

• Discover the picture-postcard town of Zell-am-See near Kaprun – great for shopping and/or an evening out. You can also book a family trekking expedition with llamas or alpacas, and overnighters in traditional mountain huts.

Family Holidays in the Salzkammergut

• Discover this former imperial salt-mining territory – now one of the country’s most beautiful regions, with shimmering lakes, quaint towns and impressive mountains, and some of the best family ski resorts in Austria. It spans part of the Salzburgerland, Upper Austria and Styria.

• See The Sound of Music locations including the pink-and-white Mondsee church and the landscapes around St Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang, which you can swim in or ice-skate on according to season.

Tirol Family Holidays

• Discover this other famous skiing area with lots of popular family resorts – some of them part of the mighty Ski Welt Austria area. St Anton (Sankt Anton) is one of the world's best ski resorts, and one of the most challenging, with runs and off-piste to test every ability, along with gorgeous scenery. It's among the best family ski resorts in Austria too, despite its reputation as party central, within great activities including tobogganing, bowling and indoor tennis. Or in summer, St Anton is fantastic for walking. 

• Or try a family ski holiday in Kitzbühel, famed for its Hahnenkamm downhill course. The medieval walled town itself is a delight.

• Alternatively, head for the quaint and cosy ski resort of St Johann between the Kitzbüheler Horn and Wilden Kaiser mountains, with 60km of superb slopes and 17 lifts – perfect with younger kids and beginners or intermediates but not ruling out adventurous skiers, who can branch out. Other winter activities here include cross-country skiing, tobogganing, horse-sleigh rides, ice-skating and indoor tennis. Year-round, there's bowling and swimming. St Johann is also one of the best summer resorts in Austria, with hiking, bike, swimming, paragliding, outdoor tennis and hot-air balloon rides among the activities.

• Check out delightful Mayrhofen for intermediates or advanced skiers, or Ellmau, a gentle family place with placid slopes, plus connections to SkiWelt Austria, the country's largest linked area. In the Otztal Valley, Obergurgl, runner-up in our Best Ever Family Ski Resort Award in the Over-7s category, is a high, pretty resort, with beginner areas at village level, easy blues to move on to, and intermediate runs across three connected areas.

• In summer, stroll atop the mountains with little effort and be rewarded by many wonderful and historic mountain huts for lunch – resorts open their cable-cars. Other places to visit include Ischgl and Galtur, and Sölden in the Otztal Valley, close to a huge spa waterpark with outdoor hot tubs on stilts. Also on offer are whitewater rafting, canyoning, high-ropes courses, canoeing, rock-climbing, swimming and cycling (there are 800km of bike paths).

• Hike The Eagle’s Way (Adlerweg), a mountain trail meandering 280km across the Tirol. Many of its stages can be accomplished by children, although there are also plenty of simpler routes along rivers and through meadows. 

• Have family fun in the Tirol capital Innsbruck with its baroque Imperial Palace and underground-overground funicular (with space-age stations by Zaha Hadid), whisking you to the bottom of Nordpark, a summer mountain paradise/winter ski area where two modern cable-cars complete the half-hour city-to-peak journey.

Vorarlberg with Kids

• Venture to the country’s westernmost province, home to more top ski resorts including family-friendly Lech, runner-up in our Best Ever Family Ski Resort Award in the Ages 7 and Under category. A posh, historic spot, Lech has charming, easy runs, some at Oberlech a short cable-car ride above town.

• Discover Lake Constance (also known as the Bodensee), which Austria shares with Switzerland and Germany – great  for swimming, sailing and other watersports, and for cycling (there are tracks around the shore). A cable-car takes you from here up into the Alps for views over three countries.

• In Dornbirn, tour the inatura museum of Alpine plant and animal life, then visit historic Feldkirch with its imposing castle, Schattenburg, housing a museum and a renowned restaurant.  

Carinthia Family Holidays

• Discover Austria’s belly in the south, Carinthia (Kärnten) – another state known for its skiing and its lakes (around 1,270 – 200 of them suitable for bathing). Bordering Slovenia and Italy, the country's sunniest province is renowned for its hot summers and bright crisp winters, rugged mountains, gentle hills and family-friendly accommodation.

• In summer, think watersports including windsurfing, water-skiing and sailing, and great terrain for hiking, cycling and rock-climbing, in some of Austria's best summer resorts.  

• In winter, ski, skate and enjoy other wintersports and pursuits including snowshoe walks. Carinthia has 800km of pistes to suit all abilities, good nursery slopes and lots of English-speaking instructors.  

• As a respite, head for Minimundus on Wörthersee lake, with scale models of the world’s most famous buildings.

Styria Family Holidays

• Get to know Styria (Steiermark), which contains part of the Salzkammergut (see above) as well as Austria’s second-largest city, Graz with its UNESCO-listed old town. Take the funicular up to Schlossberg castle, lunch on its restaurant terrace and feed the tame red squirrels in its grounds, then amble back down via the wooded paths. The Landeszeughaus displays of weaponry from down the ages. 

• Just north of Graz, at Stübing, tour the Austrian Open Air Museum (Österreichisches Freilichtmuseum) with its traditional farm buildings from all over Austria in a woodland setting, plus an old school, an old fire station, and a historic grocery where you can buy Krachmandeln and other traditional sweets.

• Ride the UNESCO-listed Semmering Railway between Mürzzuschlag and Gloggnitz – the world’s first true mountain railway, built in 18–1854 and comprising 14 tunnels and 16 viaducts, some two-storey.

Burgenland Family Holidays

• Explore this small, incredibly narrow state south of Vienna, including Neusiedl am See, a lakeside city popular for watersports are popular.

• Discover the several castles behind the region’s name, ‘Land of Castles’, especially 12th-century Burg Güssing, built on an extinct volcano, with a small museum, a restaurant and a vinotheque, and an open-air theatre in summer.

• Visit Riegersburg, first built in the 11th century and rated one of Europe’s best-conserved medieval castles.

Upper Austria

• Tour this region little-visited by tourists. Its capital, Linz, hosts one of Europe’s largest street art festivals, the Pflasterspektakel, each July, bringing clowns, mimes and acrobats to its public spaces.

• Take the historic Pöstlingberg tram up the steep hill from Linz to Pöstlingberg and change to the Grottenbahn, a dragon-shaped miniature railway through a world of dwarves and other fairytale creatures. Linz also has some of Europe’s loveliest botanical gardens.