Travel Guide
Family Summer
The hotels and hideaways that turn summer holidays into lifelong memories
The hotels and hideaways that turn summer holidays into lifelong memories
Summer with children is a beautiful contradiction. You want adventure and downtime. Culture and pool days. Togetherness and — let's be honest — the occasional hour to yourself with a book and a glass of something cold. The hotels in this guide understand that balance instinctively. They're the places where the children's programme is so good your kids don't want to leave, and the adult spaces are so well-designed you don't feel guilty when they don't. These are the summer holidays our own families keep coming back to.
Every summer, roughly half our families ask the same question: "Should we go to Greece?" And every summer, the answer is the same: yes, absolutely, but not where you think. The Cycladic islands — Mykonos, Santorini — are beautiful but increasingly overrun in July and August. The magic of Greece with children is in the quieter places: the Peloponnese, the Ionian islands, the lesser-known Sporades. Warm Aegean water, tavernas where the fish was caught that morning, villages where children play in the square at 10pm because that's just what happens in Greece in summer.
The key to a great Greek family holiday is building in variety. Don't spend two weeks at one resort — combine a few nights at a luxury base with island days, boat trips and taverna crawls. The children get stimulation, the parents get beauty, and everybody sleeps well because they've been in the sea all day.
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Aman's Hellenic masterpiece — hilltop pavilions, private pools, olive groves running down to the sea
Amanzoe is the hotel that made the Peloponnese a luxury destination. Set on a hilltop above Porto Heli, each pavilion has a private pool with views across olive groves to the Aegean. The children's programme is exceptional — not the usual craft table, but proper excursions: snorkelling trips to hidden coves, Greek mythology workshops in the amphitheatre, farm visits where they learn about olive oil production and come home smelling of oregano. The Beach Club is a 15-minute drive down to the coast, and the hotel runs a shuttle every 30 minutes. It's the kind of place where your children develop independence — running between the pool, the kids' club and the garden — while you read on the terrace without worry. That freedom is rare, and families notice it immediately.
From Amanzoe, we always arrange private boat transfers to Spetses and Hydra — two car-free islands that are perfect for families. No traffic, no mopeds, no worry. Spetses has horse-drawn carriages and pine-fringed beaches. Hydra has donkeys carrying groceries up cobblestoned lanes and some of the best swimming in the Saronic Gulf. Children are fascinated by both. We usually suggest one night on Hydra at Bratsera Hotel — a converted sponge factory — and a day trip to Spetses, with lunch at a waterfront taverna where the octopus is grilled over charcoal right in front of you.
For families wanting to stay closer to Athens, One&Only Aesthesis on the Athenian Riviera is a superb first or last stop. It's minutes from the airport, set within a former 1960s film studio complex reimagined as a luxury resort. Bungalows and villas are scattered through pine groves, the beach is private, and the restaurants draw on the best of Greek coastal cuisine. Spend two nights here to acclimatise before heading south to the islands.
Greece in school holidays is busy, but the Peloponnese is always quieter than the islands. If you can travel in the last two weeks of June or the first week of September, you'll find the same weather, warmer water, and half the crowds. We always recommend these shoulder weeks to families with flexibility.
Tuscany is the family summer destination that works at every age. Toddlers splash in villa pools while parents read under olive trees. Teenagers learn to make pasta and grudgingly admit it was the best morning of the trip. And grandparents — Tuscany is perhaps the best multi-generational destination in Europe, because the pace is gentle, the food is extraordinary, and nobody needs to do anything they don't want to.
The secret to Tuscany in summer is the evenings. The days can be hot — 35 degrees in July and August — so you follow the Italian rhythm: mornings at the pool or exploring a hilltop town, long lunches in the shade, a siesta, and then everything comes alive again around 6pm. The light turns golden, the temperature drops to something perfect, and you sit outside with a glass of Brunello while fireflies flicker in the garden. Those evenings are what families remember twenty years later.
5,000 acres of Val d'Orcia UNESCO landscape — farmhouse suites, Brunello vineyards, and a cooking school the children will talk about for months
This is the Tuscany of your imagination, except it's real and you can actually stay there. Rosewood has taken a vast estate in the Val d'Orcia — the landscape you've seen in every Tuscan photograph, all cypress-lined ridges and golden light — and turned it into something extraordinary. Restored farmhouse suites have private gardens and pools. Children join the Rosewood Explorers programme, which is genuinely excellent: truffle hunting with a local and his dog, pottery in the medieval borgo, grape-stomping in the estate's own Brunello vineyard. While they're occupied, you're in the wine cellar tasting vintages you can't buy anywhere else, or at the infinity pool that seems to pour into the valley below. The restaurant uses produce from the kitchen garden, and the pasta is made fresh every morning. I could live here permanently and not get bored.
Belmond Castello di Casole is the other Tuscan estate worth knowing about. A 10th-century Sienese castle on 4,200 acres, reimagined by Belmond with their trademark attention to detail. The suites occupy the original castle and restored farmhouses across the property. What sets it apart is the experience programme: horse riding through the estate, e-bike vineyard tours, olive oil masterclasses, and — this is the detail that wins families over — an open-air cinema on summer evenings, with Chianti under the stars and the Val d'Elsa valley stretched out below. That moment, a film flickering in the warm night air while the children fall asleep on blankets, is the kind of thing families photograph and frame.
For families wanting a private villa rather than a hotel, we have access to several exceptional properties in the Val d'Orcia and Chianti regions — restored farmhouses with pools, olive groves and their own vineyards. We pair these with a private chef for three or four nights of the stay, and arrange day trips to Siena, San Gimignano and the thermal baths at Bagno Vignoni. It's the most relaxed way to do Tuscany, and families with teenagers particularly love the freedom.
The Riviera has a reputation for being a couples' destination — all champagne lunches and designer boutiques. And yes, it's that. But it's also, quietly, one of the best family destinations in Europe. The beaches are safe and swimmable, the markets are fascinating for children, the ice cream is spectacular, and the hotels along the coast have invested heavily in family facilities over the last decade. The trick is knowing which ones genuinely welcome children and which merely tolerate them. Here are the ones that get it right.
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A Four Seasons palace on its own pine-clad peninsula — the cliff-edge pool, the private beach, 17 acres of gardens to explore
This is the French Riviera at its finest, and it's one of the few places that genuinely earns the word "legendary." The Grand-Hôtel sits on 17 acres at the tip of Cap-Ferrat, with a cliff-edge infinity pool that ranks among the most photographed in the world. But photographs don't capture what it's actually like to stay here with children. The gardens are vast enough that they can explore independently — climbing trees, finding hidden fountains, racing along the coastal paths. The private beach is small and sheltered. The family suites in the Résidence du Cap are essentially private apartments with their own concierge. And the Club Dauphin, the legendary pool club on the rocks, has been welcoming families since 1908. One family we sent last year told me their daughter cried when they left because she "wasn't finished swimming yet." That's the highest compliment I know.
Further along the coast, Cheval Blanc St-Tropez is the Riviera at its most relaxed. LVMH's flagship occupies the legendary Résidence de la Pinède on a private beach in the Baie des Canoubiers. The style is barefoot luxury — linen and driftwood rather than marble and gilt. Children are treated like VIPs, with a dedicated kids' club and sailing lessons on the bay. The Dior Spa is the perfect afternoon escape for parents while the children are occupied. What I love about Cheval Blanc is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's luxurious, yes, but there's a warmth and ease to it that makes families feel genuinely welcome rather than merely accommodated.
Book July rather than August if you can — the weather is identical, but availability is better and the crowds thinner along the whole coast. We always recommend arriving a day or two before school holidays begin for the smoothest start. And if you want the Riviera without any crowds at all, the last two weeks of June are perfection — warm enough for the beach, quiet enough to get a table at Club 55 in St-Tropez without booking three months ahead.
Mallorca gets dismissed as a mass-tourism destination, which is exactly why the northwest coast remains one of Europe's best-kept secrets. The Serra de Tramuntana is a UNESCO World Heritage mountain range that drops dramatically into the sea. The villages along it — Deià, Valldemossa, Sóller — are among the most beautiful in the Mediterranean. The flight from London is just over two hours. The temperature in summer is consistently 30 degrees. And the hotels in this part of the island are world-class.
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Two 16th-century manor houses in the artists' village of Deià — sculpture gardens, donkey rides, and mountain views that Robert Graves fell in love with
Deià has been drawing artists, writers and musicians since Robert Graves moved here in the 1930s. La Residencia sits at the top of the village, spread across two restored manor houses, with grounds that tumble down the mountainside in a cascade of terraces, olive groves and sculpture gardens. The children's programme includes donkey rides, an art studio, and nature walks through the Tramuntana. The mountain pool has views to the sea that stop you mid-sentence. And Deià itself — narrow stone streets, a tiny church, a cove at the bottom of a cliff path — is the kind of place that makes children want to come back every year. Several of our families do exactly that. The restaurant, El Olivo, serves in a former olive press and is outstanding.
We often pair La Residencia with a few nights in Palma — the island's capital, which has reinvented itself as a serious food and design destination. The old town is stunning, with a Gothic cathedral that rivals Barcelona's, tapas bars in converted palaces, and galleries in every courtyard. Hotel Sant Francesc in the old town is our favourite — a converted convent with a rooftop pool overlooking the rooftops and the sea. From Palma, day trips to the Cuevas del Drach (underground caves with a boat concert on a subterranean lake) and the Saturday market at Sineu keep children entertained.
If your children care about one thing — and at certain ages, they really only care about one thing — it's the quality of the beach. On this metric, Sardinia wins. The Costa Smeralda's beaches have water so clear and sand so white that first-time visitors genuinely don't believe they're in Europe. The Aga Khan founded the resort area in the 1960s, and it's been quietly catering to families who value discretion and beauty ever since.
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The Aga Khan's original vision — a faux-fishing village with the most beautiful pool in the world and a private beach that rivals the Caribbean
Cala di Volpe was designed in the 1960s to look like a Sardinian fishing village, and the illusion still works. Terracotta walls, arched walkways, bougainvillea cascading from every balcony. The saltwater pool is frequently named the most beautiful in the world — it's an irregular, lagoon-shaped thing surrounded by rocks and greenery that makes you forget it's man-made. The private beach is pristine, the watersports programme runs all summer (sailing, kayaking, paddleboarding for the whole family), and the waterfront suites feel like your own Mediterranean villa. The children run wild between pool, beach and kids' club while you have lunch at the Barbecue restaurant overlooking the bay. It's the most effortlessly enjoyable luxury beach holiday in Europe.
For families wanting complete seclusion, we can arrange private villa stays along the Costa Smeralda and in the quieter northeast corner of the island. These come with a dedicated chef, daily housekeeping, and — for families with younger children — a vetted local nanny. The best villas have their own beach access, boat moorings and gardens that feel like private parks. They book out by March for summer, so early planning is essential.
The single best piece of advice I can give for summer family travel: book early and don't wait for a deal. The properties in this guide are all booked out for peak summer by Easter. We hold allocations at several of them, but even those have limits. Get in touch in January or February, tell us your dates and your family's priorities, and we'll build something perfect while the best rooms are still available.
The best luxury family summer destinations include Greece for island life and villa stays, Tuscany for countryside estates with children's programmes, the French Riviera for Mediterranean glamour, Mallorca for shorter flights with world-class hotels, and Sardinia's Costa Smeralda for pristine beaches.
The best properties book out early. We recommend enquiring by February for July and August, especially for villa-style accommodations in popular destinations like Greece, the Amalfi Coast and the South of France.
Hotels with outstanding children's facilities include Amanzoe in Greece, Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany, Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat on the Riviera, and Belmond La Residencia in Mallorca. Each offers age-appropriate activities from cooking classes to sailing and nature exploration.
The best summer properties book months in advance. Tell us your dates and we'll secure the perfect spot for your family.
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