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The Best Family Holiday Destinations in Australia
These are the best family holiday destinations in Australia for guaranteed fun.
Family holidays are an exercise in competing agendas. One person wants a pool, another wants wildlife, somebody is already asking for a snack and the adults would quite like to drink a coffee while it is still hot. The best family holiday destinations in Australia manage to keep everyone interested without requiring a colour-coded itinerary.
From theme parks and reef days to country bakeries, wildlife encounters and beaches with room to disappear for an afternoon, these are the Australian escapes that make travelling with kids feel genuinely worth the packing.
For the Thrill Seekers: The Gold Coast
The Gold Coast has never been interested in doing one thing at a time. There are rollercoasters roaring a few kilometres from long, warm beaches; rainforest behind the skyline; lorikeets arriving for breakfast; and enough pools, slides and surf breaks to send children home pleasantly wrecked. For families, that range is the real appeal. You can spend one day surrendering completely to theme-park excess and the next barefoot beside Tallebudgera Creek with nowhere else on the agenda.
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Start at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, where 27 hectares hold more than 1,000 animals, miniature trains, keeper talks and the twice-daily lorikeet feeding generations of Gold Coast childhoods have been built around. The new Quokka Nook opened in 2026, while younger wildlife obsessives can join half-day Junior Sanctuary Rangers programs during school holidays.
Then there are the theme parks. Sea World, Dreamworld, Warner Bros. Movie World and Wet’n’Wild can swallow several days between them, especially when siblings are several years apart and nobody agrees on what constitutes fun.
Palm Beach Pirate Playground at Palm Beach Parklands is the free ace: a huge timber pirate ship, seven-metre crow’s nest, tunnel slide, flying fox and climbing nets beside Currumbin Creek. The lagoon is unpatrolled, but picnic tables, barbecues and sand underfoot can easily absorb half a day.
Broadbeach runs school-holiday surf lessons for kids aged eight to 14, with private classes for younger children and families. When everyone has had enough salt and screaming, head inland for the short rainforest walks of Lamington and Springbrook.
Eat
Custard Canteen sits a few sandy steps from Tallebudgera Creek and opens from 5:30am for coffee, pastries and all-day brunch. The custard tarts justify the detour, particularly with a swim waiting afterwards.
Later, Miami Marketta lets everyone graze their own way through dinner. Its open-air laneway is lined with street-food stalls and live music, so the table can keep choosing, sharing and doubling back for whatever vanished first. Families are welcome, though there are no high chairs in the main laneway.
And sometimes everyone simply wants a burger. Betty’s Burgers in Broadbeach is there for exactly that moment.
Stay
JW Marriott Gold Coast Resort & Spa understands that with children, the hotel pool can become the holiday. Its saltwater lagoon has a white-sand edge, waterfalls and tropical fish, while the freshwater pool adds a children’s slide. There are daily fish feedings, lagoon snorkelling and family cooking and garden activities too.
The rooms are generous, but an afternoon here can stay wonderfully simple: swim, dry off, eat something, repeat.
For the Beach Adventure: Byron Bay
Byron Bay with kids works best when nobody tries too hard. Breakfast can happen with sand still on everyone’s ankles, lunch can swallow half the afternoon at The Farm, and by late afternoon somebody is wet, somebody wants gelato and everybody has forgotten the original plan. The grown-up Byron of excellent food and beautiful places is still here; children simply find their own route through it.
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Begin by the water. Main Beach and Wategos cover the swimming-and-sandcastle brief, while Cape Byron Kayaks takes families through the surf in search of bottlenose dolphins, turtles and, during migration season, humpbacks. Children from five can join, with under-16s accompanied by an adult.
Then head inland to The Farm, where 80 acres of fields, animals and gardens make a persuasive case for abandoning the rest of the day. Entry is free, there’s a daily 10am animal feeding, and school-holiday Farm Kids sessions cover everything from bees and chickens to goats, flowers and veggie growing. Miniature goat cuddles occasionally enter proceedings too, at which point parental negotiating power is essentially over.
Back by the coast, the best plan is often barely a plan at all: another swim, a wander through town, then gelato from Frankies Gelato Naturale before everybody heads home sandy and slightly sun-drunk.
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The Farm can easily carry you through lunch. The Bread Social handles pastries, pies and excellent things in paper bags, while Three Blue Ducks is there when the family is ready to sit down. Picnic hampers can also be taken out onto the property, which has obvious advantages when younger diners have reached the end of their relationship with chairs.
Later, North Byron Hotel has a broad garden, a playground within sight of the outdoor tables and enough room for dinner to stretch without requiring children to behave like miniature adults.
Stay
Elements of Byron understands that the greatest family-holiday luxury can be not getting back in the car. Across 50 acres of beachfront and rainforest are a heated lagoon pool, timber adventure playground, giant lawn games and a pram-friendly fairy trail winding through the grounds. During school holidays, Kids Klub takes children aged five to 12 for supervised art, games and sport.
There is also an adults-only pool with a swim-up bar. Oh, snap.
For the Road Trip: Great Ocean Road
Every half-hour on the Great Ocean Road, the back seat gets a new distraction. A koala in a gum tree, a waterfall through the forest, fish and chips by the harbour, then a cliff edge so dramatic even the loudest child looks up. With kids, the stop-start rhythm is the point. The road keeps resetting the day before anyone gets restless.
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Around Apollo Bay, Maits Rest is a short wander through towering myrtles, tree ferns and mossy trunks, with a boardwalk that keeps things easy for prams and smaller children.
Nearby, Wildlife Wonders takes families through protected Otways bushland in search of koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and birdlife. The animals are wild, the route is short, and binoculars are handed out at the start, which adds a pleasingly serious air to the expedition.
The Twelve Apostles still earns the stop, especially when the weather is doing something dramatic. Keep going west and Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground in Warrnambool rewards anyone who has spent too long clipped into a car seat with flying foxes, giant slides, paddle boats and acres of room to run.
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The roadside sugar hit arrives early at Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery, where the counters are stacked with chocolate, gelato and enough temptation to derail lunch. School holidays also bring hands-on chocolate-making sessions for children.
Further along, Apollo Bay Fishermen’s Co-op is the stop for local fish and chips before the road swings west again. Its harbour building is under redevelopment, so the cooked seafood operation is temporarily trading from Pascoe Street, but the fish still comes in from the local fleet.
For dinner, Great Ocean Road Brewhouse keeps things relaxed with pub classics, a kids’ menu and local beer for whoever has spent the day driving.
Stay
BIG4 Apollo Bay Pisces Holiday Park is made for the night when nobody wants to get back in the car. There’s a heated pool, water play, pump track, games room, flying fox and a pirate-ship playground that lights up after dark, with the beach just across the road.
Great Ocean Road Resort is the more polished Anglesea stop, sitting opposite the river with an indoor heated pool, tennis court, onsite restaurant and day spa. Jumpz, its outdoor trampoline park, is the unexpected extra: children can bounce themselves silly as the grown-ups claim a table on the deck.
Anglesea itself does plenty of the heavy lifting, with the river, beach and town all close enough that the car can stay put for a while.
For Curious Kids: Canberra
One minute your child is launching something at Questacon; the next they are climbing through a giant acorn or asking seventeen questions about Antarctica. Canberra is very good at sneaking learning into a holiday before anyone notices. Distances are short, the institutions take children seriously and there is always a patch of grass nearby when concentration gives out.
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Questacon remains the obvious first move, and deservedly so. Its galleries are built around touching, testing and trying rather than standing politely behind a line, with live science shows woven through the day. Allow a few hours rather than treating it as a quick museum stop; Questacon itself recommends at least two hours for the exhibitions and closer to four if you want to explore properly. Timed entry can sell out on weekends and school holidays, so book ahead.
At the National Museum of Australia, the Tim and Gina Fairfax Discovery Centre is designed for birth to six, with immersive play-and-learn spaces inside the free museum. Older kids can roam the wider collections before everybody spills out towards Lake Burley Griffin.
Then give their brains a rest at the National Arboretum Canberra, where the POD Playground scatters giant acorn cubbies, banksia pods, nest swings and climbing structures across the hillside. The surrounding 250 hectares contain 94 forests, gardens and some enormous Canberra views, so this is one playground stop adults are unlikely to resent.
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Canberra does the cafe-near-somewhere-to-run formula exceptionally well. Two Before Ten in Aranda sits beside its own urban farm, where fruit trees, herbs and vegetables supply the kitchen and give wandering children something more interesting to inspect than the underside of the table.
Breakfast comes with its own side quest at Little Oink in Cook, which has spent more than a decade accumulating pig figurines donated by regulars. The menu stays firmly in brunch territory, from bacon-and-egg rolls to burgers and lighter plates; increasingly improbable pigs appear in every direction.
Stay
East Hotel is a family stay with actual personality. The apartment-style rooms come with kitchens, laundries and room for everyone to spread out, while family upgrades add bean bags, games, drawing gear and toys. Larger apartments sleep up to seven, and when dinner out feels ambitious, Agostinis downstairs takes care of handmade pizza and pasta. There’s even a Nintendo Switch 2 available to hire.
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For Wild Things & Curious Minds: Hobart & Bruny Island
Start with Tasmanian devils, provocative art and a mountain rising directly behind the city. Then put the car on the ferry and Bruny changes the register: white wallabies, oyster leases, little penguins, enormous cliffs and roads where the next stop might be a cheesemaker or an honesty fridge full of sourdough. It is a rare family trip that gets stranger, wilder and tastier as it goes.
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In Hobart, Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary is the wildlife encounter worth making time for. Entry includes keeper talks and a bag of food for its mob of Forester kangaroos, while the sanctuary’s wildlife hospital and 24-hour rescue work add something deeper than simply ticking off Tasmanian devils and wombats.
Then go up. Kunanyi / Mount Wellington rises 1,271 metres above Hobart, with lookouts at the summit and shorter walks from The Springs lower down. Pack far more clothing than the waterfront weather suggests; conditions can shift abruptly and Pinnacle Road regularly closes for snow and ice.
Mona is the wildcard. Children aged four to 11 enter free, there’s a children’s library and play area, and the ferry across the Derwent is half the theatre. Some works are confronting, so use The O app to check content warnings and follow the children towards the things that fascinate them.
On Bruny, climb the nearly 300 steps to Truganini Lookout at The Neck, where the island narrows dramatically between two bodies of water. Return around dusk from September to February and little penguins and shearwaters begin making their way back to burrows in the dunes.
Then take to the water. Bruny Island Cruises leaves Adventure Bay for three hours beneath towering sea cliffs and into caves, with seals, dolphins, seabirds and migrating whales all possible along the way.
Eat
In Hobart, Urban Greek is a dinner for passing plates around until nobody remembers what they ordered. Cretan family recipes arrive as saganaki with fig jam, warm pita and dips, lamb and chicken from the grill, Greek salad and lemony roast potatoes, with a kids’ menu for smaller appetites.
Bruny is better eaten on the move. Stop at Get Shucked for oysters straight from the leases, then detour to Bruny Island Cheese Company for cheese and bread, the Bruny Baker Bread Fridge for honour-system sourdough and Bruny Island Honey for something sweet. By evening, Hotel Bruny has seafood, pub classics, a children’s menu and water views worth sitting still for.
If berry season is underway, Bruny Island Raspberry Farm in Adventure Bay has raspberries picked that morning worked into crepes, preserves, cakes, ice cream and thickshakes. White wallabies have also been known to turn up around the property, which is an extremely Tasmanian way to eat dessert.
Stay
In Hobart, MACq 01 puts families directly on the waterfront, with interconnecting room configurations available and Salamanca, Brooke Street Pier and the city centre within walking distance. The hotel is built around Tasmanian storytelling, so even going back to your room carries a little narrative intrigue.
For the Water-Loving Family: Cairns
In Cairns, the water keeps changing shape. One day you’re floating above coral on the outer Great Barrier Reef; the next, swimming beneath palms on the Esplanade while somebody plots a rainforest train for tomorrow. It’s a holiday built around bathers that never quite dry, with enough crocodiles, tropical fruit and reef fish thrown in to ensure nobody spends much time asking for the Wi-Fi password.
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The Great Barrier Reef gets first billing. Great Adventures leaves directly from Cairns for its outer-reef pontoon, where families can snorkel, descend into an underwater observatory or stay completely dry aboard the semi-submersible. Children under four travel free, child-sized snorkelling gear is available and the semi-sub is especially good for younger reef-goers who are not ready to put their faces in the Coral Sea.
Back on land, Kuranda Scenic Railway climbs from Cairns into the Wet Tropics, curling past waterfalls and through Din Din (Barron Gorge) on its way to Kuranda. The classic pairing is train one way and Skyrail the other, though both have had service changes during 2026, so check the current timetable before booking.
And keep one afternoon gloriously free. Muddy’s Playground has water play, slides, rope bridges and a flying fox, while the nearby Cairns Esplanade Lagoon is free, lifeguard-patrolled and built for long tropical afternoons. Muddy’s is open daily from 9am to 7pm.
Eat
Wharf One Cafe sits right on Trinity Inlet and understands the mathematics of breakfast with children: proper coffee, local produce, plenty of outdoor air and a dedicated kids’ menu that includes fruit with every meal. Barramundi fish and chips, mango smoothies and a fancy babycino should keep most factions happy.
For dinner, Ollie’s Italian has handmade pasta, pizza, marina views and a 2026 Chef Hat, making it a good answer when the adults still want dinner to feel like dinner.
Stay
Novotel Cairns Oasis Resort knows its audience. The lagoon-style pool has a sandy beach edge and Cairns’ only swim-up bar, Family Suites give everyone 54 square metres to spread out, and the VIK program runs games and activities on weekends and during school holidays.
The nicest detail is the division of labour: children disappear towards the sand and pool; adults discover that a swim-up bar was an exceptionally sound invention.
For Kid-Friendly Wineries: The Hunter Valley
The Hunter Valley has worked out that a wine weekend does not have to end the second children enter the group chat. Cellar doors have lawn games, junior tastings and sculpture walks, the gardens turn into a full carnival at certain times of year, and there are enough animals, pools and snacks around to stop the whole thing feeling suspiciously adult.
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At Tulloch Wines, adults can work through Semillon and Shiraz while kids get their own Junior Tasting: four soft drinks matched with four snacks, plus activities and lawn games. Teens even get a kombucha tasting, which is a surprisingly elegant solution to being dragged around wine country.
Hunter Valley Gardens is the other big family card. Ten themed gardens spread across 14 hectares, with Ferris wheels, tea cups, a carousel and giant slide appearing during special events. Spring 2026 also brings baby lambs, butterflies, bees, face painting and kids’ garden activities.
Animal obsessives can hand-feed kangaroos and wallabies at Hunter Valley Wildlife Park, meet farmyard animals and book encounters with giraffes, meerkats and more.
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For lunch, Margan Restaurant is one of the nicest ways to prove family dining and good food can coexist. There’s a children’s menu, a big lawn, a kitchen garden and orchard, plus chickens to feed before or after lunch.
And because this is still a family holiday, Hunter Valley Chocolate Company can handle the inevitable sweet stop. Teeming with sweet treats, ice cream and drool-worthy fudge, it’s a welcome break from the vineyards. Plus, the open grassy area is perfect for running off the sugar high.
Stay
Rydges Resort Hunter Valley is basically a children’s resort wearing wine-country clothes. There’s a two-storey water park, kids’ club for ages three to 12, games room, carousel, pedal coaster and daily kangaroo train tours during school holidays.
The parents, meanwhile, remain in the Hunter Valley. Which is rather the point.
430 Wine Country Drive, Lovedale
For Bikes, Quokkas & Barefoot Days: Rottnest Island
By 9am on Rottnest, somebody has already spotted a quokka and the family car is a distant memory. Bikes take over from there, carrying you between absurdly clear bays, sandy tracks and stretches of coast that seem to appear every few kilometres. Older kids get their first taste of independence; younger ones have beaches, snorkels and marsupials with excellent PR. Shoes become increasingly optional.
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Hire bikes and let the island set the pace. The Basin is close enough for smaller riders, while Little Salmon Bay rewards a longer pedal with clear water and an underwater snorkel trail. In warmer weather, the sheltered bays are brilliant for swimming and snorkelling with kids.
Quokka encounters will happen whether you schedule them or not, but give the island’s story some time too at Wadjemup Museum, where its Aboriginal, colonial, maritime and natural histories add far more context than another selfie ever could. For families wanting to go deeper, current cultural programming also includes interactive Noongar activities for children through Koorda’s Crew.
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For lunch, Frankie’s on Rotto does the job beautifully with sourdough pizzas, pasta, fish and chips and room nearby for kids to move around while everyone recovers from the morning’s cycling.
Later, Pinky’s Rottnest Island sits beside Pinky Beach with a kids’ menu, local seafood and one of the island’s better sunset positions. In cooler months, they even hand out marshmallows for the firepits, which is rather hard to argue with.
Stay
For families who want the fun version, Discovery – Rottnest Island has glamping tents with bunk-bed annexes, private ensuites, a 30-metre pool designed with a shallow beach-entry end for little kids, and Pinky Beach just beyond the dunes. Family tents sleep up to five, while duplex versions can take two families together.
For more space and a proper kitchen, Stay Rottnest is the practical winner. The self-contained units at Longreach and Geordie bays sleep four to eight, with balconies, kitchens and the water only steps away.
For Country Days & Cake Stops: Southern Highlands
Take children to the Southern Highlands and the bakery stops start multiplying almost immediately. There are hedge mazes to disappear into, waterfalls a short walk from the car, honey straight from the hive and country towns made for wandering between gardens, shops and something still warm from the oven. Best of all, it’s close enough to Sydney for an easy escape, but by the time you’re moving between Bowral, Berrima and Sutton Forest, the city already feels pleasingly far away.
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At Bowral Honey Farm, kids can pull on a beekeeper’s veil, get close to the hives and taste up to six different honeys afterwards with morning tea. Tours run through 2026 and children aged three to five can join with an adult.
In Berrima, Harper’s Mansion has one of the largest hedge mazes in Australia, set among two acres of cool-climate gardens. It is very easy to lose half an hour here pretending not to be competitive with your own children.
For something bigger, Fitzroy Falls has timber boardwalks, picnic areas and short walks to the escarpment lookouts, while school-holiday Junior Ranger sessions send kids off with maps, compasses and scavenger-hunt clues.
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Gumnut Patisserie is the stop everyone already knows about for good reason. Its Bowral, Mittagong and Berrima shops are stacked with pastries, pies, cakes and the sort of sweet things that disappear before anyone has technically agreed to share.
Then find a picnic table and let the rest of lunch be whatever survived the bakery box.
Stay
Peppers Manor House has interconnecting family rooms, an outdoor pool, tennis courts, croquet, boules, board games and even beekeeping experiences, all set within a 1920s country estate in Sutton Forest. Open fires, high tea and long lawns give the grown-ups plenty to love, while kids have the gardens, games and space to roam without the weekend feeling built entirely around them.
For Big Views & Bigger Adventures: The Blue Mountains
Cliffs, cable cars and waterfalls do most of the persuading in the Blue Mountains. Scenic World sends the day downhill at a ridiculous angle, Devonshire tea brings it back to earth, and a resort with its own ice rink takes care of any remaining sceptics. It feels satisfyingly old-school without ever leaving much room for boredom.
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Start at Scenic World, where the Scenic Railway descends at a 52-degree incline into the rainforest before the Cableway and Skyway put everyone back above the Jamison Valley. Kids under three go free, and the elevated Scenic Walkway through the rainforest gives the day a slower stretch between rides.
Then head to Echo Point for the Three Sisters. Yes, it’s the obvious stop. Yes, you should still do it. The scale lands differently in person, especially with children who have spent the morning flying over valleys in a glass-bottomed cable car.
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Megalong Valley Tea Rooms is exactly the sort of place a mountain day should end up: scones, tea, big breakfasts and a garden with enough space for kids to roam while the adults stay put a little longer.
For something casual in Katoomba, Katoomba Family Hotel keeps things simple with classic pub food, a beer garden and free kids’ meals on Mondays for children 16 and under.
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Fairmont Resort Blue Mountains is basically cheating when it comes to family holidays. There’s KidsZone with a merry-go-round, jungle gym, mirror maze, arcade games and the Fairmont Express Train, plus indoor and outdoor pools and a 600-square-metre ice-skating rink open seven days a week. During school holidays, the program gets even busier with cookie decorating, pizza making, reptiles, magic shows and craft sessions.
The adults, meanwhile, have a day spa and whiskey bar. Everybody wins.
1 Sublime Point Road, Leura
For Penguins, Chocolate & Beach Days: Phillip Island
Phillip Island is ridiculously easy with kids. There are penguins waddling home at sunset, koalas snoozing above boardwalks, sheep to watch, mazes to get lost in, chocolate to eat and beaches everywhere in between. You can pack a lot into a couple of days without ever making it feel over-scheduled.
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The Penguin Parade is the big one. Every evening, little penguins come ashore and make their way back to their burrows, and honestly, it never gets old. Book ahead in school holidays, and remember phones go away once the penguins start arriving.
Earlier in the day, Churchill Island Heritage Farm is all sheep shearing, working dogs, cow milking and wagon rides, while the Koala Conservation Reserve has treetop boardwalks that get you surprisingly close to the action.
Then there’s A Maze’N Things, where kids can disappear into mazes, optical illusions, mini golf and Magic Manor for a few gloriously weird hours. And yes, Phillip Island Chocolate Factory is touristy. That is exactly why children love it.
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Breakfast starts at Mon Dieu, with pastries, coffee and brunch before you head off chasing penguins, koalas or whichever animal has been promised that day. Pino’s Trattoria in Cowes is an easy family dinner: pizza, pasta, a full kids’ menu and enough buzz in the room that nobody needs to keep it to a whisper.
Stay
NRMA Phillip Island Beachfront Holiday Park is hard to beat with kids. The cabins sit right by the beach, there’s plenty of room to run around, and Cowes is close enough that dinner or ice cream does not become a whole expedition. There are bigger resorts on the island, but waking up with the beach right there is a pretty excellent family-holiday flex.
Finished brushing up on the best family holiday destinations in Australia and after more inspo? Take a look at our family-friendly guide to the Hunter Valley. Then, check out our family-friendly guide to Canberra.
