The best family holiday destination in Europe

Planning a family holiday means balancing the needs of everyone at the table — children who want excitement and magic, parents who want ease and good food, and everyone who wants to come home feeling like they actually went somewhere. Finding a destination that delivers on all of those fronts is harder than it sounds. 

Denmark does it better than almost anywhere else in Europe. Here is why Denmark — and Copenhagen in particular — is one of the most family-friendly holiday destinations in the world, and why it deserves a place at the top of every family's travel list.

What is a good destination for a family holiday? 

A good family holiday destination does several things at once. It keeps children genuinely entertained, not just occupied. It gives parents moments of beauty, good food, and rest. It is safe, easy to navigate, and forgiving of the unpredictability that travelling with children always involves. 

Denmark ticks every one of those boxes — and then adds a layer that few destinations can match: a sense of wonder that works equally well for a five-year-old and a fifty-year-old. 

The country is flat, compact, and covered in cycling paths, making it physically easy to explore with children of any age. English is spoken everywhere, so there are no language barriers to manage. The food culture is exceptional even at the informal end — proper bakeries, fresh seafood, and children's menus that don't treat young diners as an afterthought. 

And then there are the stories. Denmark is a country soaked in mythology, fairy tales, and imagination. It is the land of Hans Christian Andersen, of Vikings, of trolls and mermaids and enchanted forests. For families travelling with children, that narrative richness turns every visit into something more than a holiday. It becomes an adventure.

What is a family-friendly destination? 

A truly family-friendly destination is one where children are genuinely welcome — not just tolerated — and where the infrastructure of travel works for families rather than against them. 

Denmark is one of the most child-centred societies in the world. This is a country that takes the wellbeing of children seriously at every level, and that cultural attitude is visible everywhere a family travels. Restaurants welcome children. Public spaces are designed with families in mind. The transport network is clean, reliable, and equipped for prams and pushchairs. There are changing facilities, playgrounds, and green spaces woven into the fabric of every town and city. 

Copenhagen in particular feels like a city that was designed, at least in part, with families in mind. The harbour swimming pools are free and beloved by locals. Tivoli Gardens sits in the heart of the city. The cycling culture means children can ride alongside parents on safe, separated paths. Museums offer dedicated children's programmes. The scale of the city — compact, walkable, and navigable by bike — means that the exhaustion of managing a family in a large, chaotic metropolis simply doesn't apply here.

Tivoli – magic in the heart of Copenhagen

Tivoli Gardens is one of the most remarkable attractions in Europe, and for families it is close to unmissable. 

Opened in 1843, Tivoli is the world's second-oldest amusement park and one of the most beautiful. Its combination of fairground rides, gardens, live music, restaurants, and seasonal spectacle — lanterns, fireworks, Christmas markets — creates an atmosphere that is genuinely enchanting for visitors of all ages. 

For younger children, the gentler rides, the pantomime theatre, and the fairy-tale character of the gardens themselves are endlessly captivating. For older children and teenagers, the more exhilarating rides and the sheer visual spectacle of the place hold their own. For parents, the food and the beauty of the setting — right in the centre of Copenhagen, surrounded by flowers and lights — make Tivoli as much a pleasure for adults as for children. 

Tivoli is not a theme park in the modern sense. It is something older and more magical than that. Walking through its gates at dusk, with the lanterns lit and the music playing, is one of the great family travel experiences in Europe

Legoland – a Danish original

LEGO was invented in Billund, Denmark, in 1932 — and Legoland Billund, the original Legoland that inspired every version that followed, is still there. 

For families with children, particularly those between the ages of three and twelve, Legoland Billund is a landmark destination. The park combines rides, building workshops, water attractions, and the extraordinary Miniland — a scale model of the world's most famous cities and landmarks, built entirely from LEGO bricks — into a full-day (or full-weekend) experience that is difficult to find anywhere else. 

But Legoland is more than just a theme park. The LEGO House in Billund — a stunning building designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and opened in 2017 — is a dedicated creative experience space where children and adults can explore, build, and play in ways that go beyond any conventional attraction. It is as much a design museum as a play space, and it reflects the serious Danish belief that play is a form of learning. 

Billund is a two-hour drive or easy flight from Copenhagen, making it a natural add-on to a Danish family holiday.

Lalandia – Denmark's great family resort

Not every family holiday moment needs to be a cultural landmark. Sometimes what a family needs is a place where children can run free, swim until they're exhausted, and parents can finally exhale. 

Lalandia delivers exactly that. 

Denmark's largest holiday resort complex, Lalandia has locations in Billund and Rødby, and offers an extraordinary combination of tropical waterparks, activities, and self-catering accommodation under one roof. The subtropical swimming paradise — an enormous indoor water complex with slides, pools, and wave machines — means that Lalandia works whatever the weather, which in Denmark can be unpredictable even in summer. 

For families, the appeal is obvious: children have essentially unlimited entertainment within a safe, contained, and beautifully maintained environment, while parents can relax with the knowledge that the hard work of keeping everyone happy has been, for once, handed over to someone else.

Lalandia in Billund sits minutes from Legoland, making the two an outstanding combined family destination for a multi-day stay.

Beaches – not what you expect!

Most families don't think of Denmark when they think of beach holidays — and that is one of the great, well-kept secrets of European family travel. 

Denmark has over 7,000 kilometres of coastline and some of the finest family beaches in northern Europe. The west coast of Jutland offers wide, clean, dune-backed beaches where children can run, build sandcastles, and swim in relatively calm conditions. The waters are cool by Mediterranean standards, but on a warm Danish summer day — and there are many — they are perfect for children. 

Closer to Copenhagen, the beaches of the Danish Riviera along the North Zealand coast are easily reached by train in under an hour. For families staying in the capital, a beach day requires none of the planning or expense of a separate trip — just a train ticket and a towel. 

Bornholm, the Baltic island reachable by a short flight or ferry from Copenhagen, has some of the most beautiful family beaches in the region: white sand, clear water, and a relaxed pace of life that makes it ideal for families looking for a gentler experience alongside their city and activity-based days.

Best kid-friendly holiday spot? Follow the fairytales!

Denmark is the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen — the author of The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, and dozens of other stories that have shaped the imaginations of children around the world for nearly two centuries. 

Travelling through Denmark with children who know these stories is a genuinely special experience. The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen's harbour — small, quiet, and surprisingly moving — is one of the most visited monuments in Denmark. It sits at the start of a walk along the waterfront that tells the story of a city built on the sea, and for children who have grown up with the tale, seeing it in the place where it was imagined carries a charge that no theme park can replicate. 

In Odense, on the island of Funen, the Hans Christian Andersen Museum — housed in a stunning new building designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and opened in 2021 — brings the author's life and stories to life through immersive, beautifully designed spaces that work as well for adults as for children. Odense itself is a charming, compact city that makes an excellent overnight stop on a family road trip through Denmark.

Trolls, mermaids and the magic of Scandinavian mythology 

Denmark's imaginative landscape extends well beyond Hans Christian Andersen. 

The trolls of Scandinavian mythology — ancient forest creatures, both fearsome and comical — have been reimagined in spectacular form by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo, who has placed enormous, beautifully crafted wooden troll sculptures in forests and natural spaces across Denmark and beyond. Finding them is a treasure hunt that works perfectly for families: the trolls are hidden in woodland, accessible by walking paths, and each has its own name and story. 

For children who have grown up with images of mermaids, dragons, and Norse gods — from Disney's The Little Mermaid to Marvel's Thor — Denmark is the place where those imaginary worlds feel genuinely rooted in real landscape and real history. Viking museums, including the outstanding Roskilde Viking Ship Museum just 30 minutes from Copenhagen, allow families to see actual Viking longships and understand the world from which so many of these stories grew.

Why Denmark Is the Answer for Families 

What makes Denmark stand apart as a family holiday destination is not any single attraction but the combination of everything it offers. 

There is Legoland for the builders and the makers. There is Lalandia for the swimmers and the resort experience. There is Tivoli for the dreamers and the lovers of beauty. There are beaches for the sandcastle architects. There are fairy tales for the readers and the imaginers. There are trolls in the forest and a mermaid in the harbour and Viking ships in a museum by a fjord. 

And holding all of it together is a country that is safe, easy, English-speaking, exceptionally well organised, and genuinely welcoming to families with children of every age. 

Denmark doesn't just give families a holiday. It gives them a story to tell when they get home