Experiences led by knowledgable locals are often the ones that stick in both young and old minds. The authors of a new guide to slow travel family breaks pick their favourites
Community Greenhouses in south London
Brockwell Park is one of London’s essential green lungs and part of the lifeblood of the Brixton/Herne Hill area. After your kids have run around the park, tried out the BMX track and the brilliant lido, head up the hill to Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses, where unsupervised activities include a mud kitchen, a sound trail, an orchard, vegetable and herb gardens and fern gulley. In school holidays there are kids’ workshops on everything from twig weaving to berry ink writing (October half-term sessions include Bonkers about Birds and Luscious Leaves – Why do they fall? for ages six to 10). Or rock up for Story Stompers, where preschoolers are invited to enjoy storytelling sessions and let the garden inspire them to create.
Entry to Community Greenhouses free; other events from £4, brockwellgreenhouses.org.uk
Splitting rocks at the National Slate Museum, Snowdonia
Carwyn Price looks too young to have more than 30 years as a quarryman under his belt, but that’s because he started at the tender age of 15. Today, he works at the National Slate Museum, part of Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales), demonstrating slate splitting by hand and answering questions about life in the quarries of north Wales. The museum sits just below Dinorwic Quarry, where former workshops and cottages tell the story of life during the slate industry from the golden era of the 1860s to the industry’s collapse in the 1970s. The whole site looks as if the engineers and quarrymen have just downed tools for the day, and former workers run every demonstration. This is about as interactive as history gets.
Free, museum.wales
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Fossil hunting in Whitby, North Yorkshire
It would be hard to find a more atmospheric beach to go fossil hunting than Whitby’s: set at the foot of looming cliffs, beneath the mighty ruins of the abbey and infused with the gothic spirit of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Children’s excitement will already be heightened when they meet Will Watts, geologist and founder of Hidden Horizons. He is the perfect mix of education and hands-on fun, asking children to hunt for grey, sedimentary rocks with a telltale fault line that marks an ammonite, tapping it open with his hammer to tell them they are the first living being to see that creature in 185m years! Fossil hunting is far better in the winter, when stormy seas bring in more rocks. And Hidden Horizons also has a fossil shop 20 miles south in Scarborough.
Two-hour fossil hunting session adult £15, child £10, hiddenhorizons.co.uk
Foraging in Braemar, Cairngorms
Forager and medical herbalist Natasha Lloyd and her dog Rosie meet families in the lobby of Braemar’s Fife Arms for a foraging adventure. They begin with first principles: never take more than a third of a patch and never eat anything you’re not 100% certain is edible. Autumn means berries, fruits, and fungi. Lloyd teaches all about the mycelial network – the mind-expanding communication of fungi, trees and plants. At the end of the tour, she brings out her range of homemade wild condiments, including strawberries pickled in apple cider vinegar – a great game of dare for kids’ palates.
Two-hour foraging walk: £90 adult, £45 child, gatheringnature.com
Street art tour, Bristol
Proudly Bristolian and part of its renowned street art movement for decades, John Nation is a great guide to Bristol’s most decorated streets. Two-hour walking tours start at City Hall, opposite Banksy’s Well Hung Lover. The monochrome stencil image of a naked man hanging from a window was sprayed illegally in broad daylight while Banksy was disguised as a decorator. Nudity and illegality are a good hook for those worried about younger ones’ attention spans. But the fun doesn’t stop there: beyond Banksy, the tour meanders past Nelson Street’s sky-high murals, through a centuries-old archway adorned with Andy Council’s fantastical figures, and into Stokes Croft, where colour and creativity burst from every crevice.
From £7.50, wherethewall.com
Egg tempera painting, Peak District
Despite being a world expert in folk art, having almost single-handedly revived the tradition of bonad painting (traditional painting with egg yolk and pigment) in Sweden, and won several awards, Sue Prince is all about accessibility and fun. Her studio and gallery sit in a converted stable on Beechenhill Farm – a patch of unspoilt Peak District a few miles from Ilam that she has lived on and farmed for most of her adult life. A natural with kids, both no-nonsense and kind, Prince runs egg-tempera-painting workshops which focus as much on making paint and telling a story through an image as on the painting itself.
Family workshops on request, sueprinceartist.co.uk
Birding safari at Elmley nature reserve, Kent
Elmley nature reserve is one of only three family-owned nature reserves in the UK, occupying a beguiling, wildlife-filled slice of the Isle of Sheppey. Abbie Burrows has been birding there since she was a child, and now, thanks to Elmley’s mission to make nature accessible to all, she passes her passion on to visitors. Wildlife tours are either on foot or in the reserve’s Land Rover, and whether you’re admiring marsh frogs, lapwings, or long-eared owls, Abbie’s enthusiasm will get all ages hooked. Although there’s something to see all year, it’s a particularly good spot to admire wintering birds: between October and February, wildfowl and wading birds will reach the tens of thousands on the adjacent Swale estuary.
From £6 elmleynaturereserve.co.uk
Pottery in the Malverns
Jon Williams and his partner Sarah Monk combine 50 years of potting experience at their bucolic studio on the Eastnor Castle Estate, at the foot of the Malvern Hills. Despite their impressive credentials, there’s not a whiff of creative intimidation: on a half-day pottery course for families, mess and imagination are welcomed. Sessions are usually on a seasonal theme, but the weird and wonderful are very much encouraged, from worm-invested fruit at harvest to spooky aliens at Halloween. After the tactile pleasure of shaping creations, everyone gets painting before the masterpieces are put in a kiln and eagerly awaited in the post.
From £25, eastnorpottery.co.uk
Going back in time with the History Whisperer, Liverpool
The voice and a projected image of 12-year-old Livie, a fictional character based on archive snippets, invites visitors to follow her through Liverpool’sfamous Saint George’s Hall as it would have looked in the late 19th century. The result is a wonderfully thought-provoking and, at times, eerily immersive journey into the darker side of the building’s neoclassical grandeur – prison cells and the law courts that sent many desperate Liverpudlians to penal colonies in Australia for stealing food for their families. Although some of the content, including death and disease, is heavy for younger kids, the interactive nature of the experience means visitors can choose what to linger on.
From £4, stgeorgeshallliverpool.co.uk
Stargazing in the valleys, Brecon Beacons
According to Dark Sky Wales founder Allan Trow, kids are always quickest to come out with his favourite question: “Are we looking at aliens right now?”. This is why he loves welcoming families to his stargazing tours at the Brecon Beacons national park visitor centre. Now a qualified astronomer, Trow fell into the hobby while waiting for his uncle’s racing pigeons to return home as a kid, just a couple of miles down the road. A passionate advocate for the importance of dark skies, not only for astronomy’s sake but for nature and our mental health, his tours are full of intrigue, from constellation myths and legends to tales of epic stargazing experiences.
From £25, two-hour sessions, darkskywalestrainingservices.co.uk
This feature was originally appeared in The Guardian.
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