Germany Family Holidays & Breaks

See our guide to Berlin with kids for what to do in this great city-break destination, especially with teens.

Northern Germany Family Holidays

• Drive the German Fairy Tale Route (Deutsche Märchenstraße), stretching 600km from Bremen in the north to Hanau in central Germany, dotted with attractions linked with the Brothers Grimm. The town of Hamelin, of Pied Piper fame, hosts the Mystica Hamelon each March, with medieval stalls, taverns, music, fire shows and folk dressed as pirates, elves and trolls.

• Explore Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) with its North Sea coasts. Cross the Wadden Sea by horse-drawn carriage from Cuxhaven, or walk the mudflats looking for lugworms. Then head inland for the theme-park delights of Heide Park Resort (with its own hotel and holiday camp), Wolfsburg for its Autostadt car museum and Phaeno Science Center, Universum Bremen science museum in the city of the same name, conservation-leading Vogelpark Walsrode bird park, Dinosauriuer Park Münchehagen and SnowWorld Bispingen. Many attractions are in the Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg heathlands). You can also go hiking, mountain-biking and canoeing in the Harz Mountains National Park.

• Explore Schleswig-Holstein – perfect for action-packed coastal holidays and exploring cities with a fascinating sea-faring history. Just off the North Sea coast, check out the large islands of Sylt, Föhr, Amrum and Pellworm, or the tiny but populated Halligen islets.  

• Stop over in Hamburg, with the largest model railway in the world (the Miniatur Wunderland) and the mighty Planten un Blomen park with its lake light-shows every night in summer, pony rides, summer roller rink, winter ice rink, and free family events including puppet theatre, circus and an annual children's festival. 
 
• Enjoy the Baltic Sea coast in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with white beaches and pleasant water temperatures until September. Active families come here for watersports including windsurfing, water-skiing, parasailing, kitesurfing, diving and sailing. You can pilot your own houseboat on the Mecklenburg lakes, and have a gander at dreamy Schwerin Castle.

Bavaria Family Holidays

• Make a beeline for one of the most popular German family holiday destinations, beloved for its National Parks, Legoland Germany, Bavaria Filmstadt (a working studio with set tours, a stunt show and a 4D motion simulator) and outdoor activities aplenty. Don’t miss glorious Neuschwanstein Castle, said to have inspired Disney in his design for Cinderella’s castle. In Munich, tour the BMW Museum and the Deutsches Museum (the world's biggest museum of science and technology). 

• From the Bavarian city of Nuremberg (Nürnberg), follow the German Toy Route 300km to Erfurt in central Germany. It begins with Nuremberg’s Spielzeugmuseum (Toy Museum). Nuremberg is also famous for its atmospheric Christmas market.

• Discover unspoiled nature in the Bavarian Forest National Park, part of the largest protected wildernesses in Europe, with more than 300km of well-signposted hiking routes, nearly 200km of bicycle routes, cross-country and downhill skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing and winter walking trails. Take part in a huge array of outdoor activities based on and around the forests, rivers and lakes of the region, including treetop adventure parks, swimming, kayaking and archery.

• In Upper Bavaria, enjoy the delights of Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the foot of Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Alpine skiing, snowboarding, river-rafting, mountain-biking, hang-gliding, tennis and golf are all on offer here, and there’s also the award-winning Siegsdorfer Naturkunde- und Mammut-Museum (Natural History & Mammoth Museum), including Europe’s largest, best-preserved mammoth skeleton.

West Germany Family Holidays

• Make a jaunt into Baden-Württemberg, home to the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) with its half-timbered houses, gorgeous hiking paths and first-class ski areas (try the ski resort of Enzklösterle, also home to a long, fast steel toboggan run in summer), and to part of Lake Constance (the Bodensee), shimmering beneath the impressive panorama of the Alps; you can swim or do watersports on the lake or fly over it in a Zeppelin. You, hike, fish, cycle and do archery in Baden-Württemberg, and visit castles galore, vineyards, orchards and forests where you can let your imagination and the children run free.

• If all that fresh air gets too much, turn to Germany’s biggest theme park, Europa-Park, or explore Freiburg, Heidelberg with its extraordinary castle, Tübingen, the Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim and magnificent hilltop Hohenzollern Castle. Baden-Württemberg is a great place for family road trips, with scenic roads including the 'Fantastic Road’ (Fantastische Strasse), 'German Clock Road' (Deutsche Uhrenstraße) and 'Castle Road’ (Burgenstraße). The regional capital, historic, vibrant Stuttgart, is home to Porsche and Mercedes Benz car museums, the Carl-Zeiss Planetarium and Germany’s only zoological-botanical garden, Wilhelma.

• Still in Baden-Württemberg, head for Hockenheim, host to the German Grand Prix, and its Motor Sports Museum, with enough toys to keep big and small car fanatics alike happy. 

• Go off the tourist radar into North Rhine-Westphalia, home to the Sommerrodelbahn Ibbenbüren, a summer toboggan park and fairytale forest in the Teutoberg Forest, to the Phantasialand theme park, and to Cologne with its chocolate museum, the Schokoladenmuseum Lindt. The neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate is best known for its jaw-dropping Burg Eltz castle.