Ideas for Outdoor Family Activities

If you’re wanting some ideas for activities for your whole family to do together outdoors – this post is for you! If you’re looking to maximise your weekend family time together and trying to spend more time outdoors – then you’ll love these small family adventures that you can fit into a weekend and encourage quality time with your kids. Hopefully you’ve read our 10 step guide to creating a wildhood for your kids which has lots of ideas for how to get kids outside. And we have a bumper post of outdoor activities that kids will love that’s full of ideas too! Every year, we choose 12 mini adventures to do as a family. We have only one rule – everyone in the family must pick an adventure and it must be outdoors! It can be hard to know where to start with getting your kids outdoors but the benefits of less screen time and more green time is unrivalled. Read on for ideas for your own outdoors family bucket list!

How to adventure with your family outdoors

To help get your kids outside for outdoor adventures isn’t always easy but adventures don’t have to be big nor do they have to be every weekend. Adventure isn’t all about exploring places in far away locations, nature connection can happen in your back garden. You can have just as much fun with a microadventure, doing something new, different or challenging in a nearby location. Some of our best mini-adventures have been close to home. Having a new experience in a familiar place is what exploring outdoors is all about!

Ideas for Weekend Micro Adventures

A micro adventure is a great way to introduce adventure into everyday family life. Micro adventures are about helping families to develop a more adventurous lifestyle. Here’s our favourite ideas for family outdoor activities that we’ve tried, tested and can thoroughly recommend and read here if you need some ideas for how to get teens and tweens outside.

Outdoor Activities for Families with Toddlers

If you have a baby or toddlers, these outdoor activity ideas work well, they’re simple enough for small adventures for little legs!

Feed the Ducks

Toddlers and young children will love feeding the ducks at a local park or pond. Just remember bread is not good for ducks – try this duck seed to take instead!

Family Picnic

Check out our picnic ideas for families and combine this with another activity for a fun family day out!

Splash in Puddles

Kids love splashing in puddles and squelching in mud! Kids clothes will always wash but wellies and waterproof trousers will keep some of the mud at bay.

Nature Crafts

Try our ideas for Nature Crafts with nature treasures that you collect from your outdoor adventures – we have a list of over 100 different Nature crafts you can do with older or younger children. Combine this with a walk in the woods or a hike!

Mud Kitchen

This is a great idea for your own backyard or garden. Young kids will love taking some pots and pans in the garden and making mud pies in the garden. Find all our Mud Kitchen Play ideas and Mud Kitchen Recipes for Kids here.

Outdoor Activities for Families with Younger Children

Cooking Outdoors/ Toasting S’mores

Food always tastes better outdoors – try our Easy Outdoor Cooking Ideas for Kids.

Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are a fun and engaging way to get kids excited about spending time outdoors. By turning nature into a game, they encourage children to explore their surroundings, observe details they might otherwise miss, and stay physically active without it feeling like exercise. These activities also help develop problem-solving skills, teamwork, and creativity, especially when kids work together to find items or complete challenges. Overall, scavenger hunts make outdoor play more meaningful and memorable, helping kids build a positive connection with nature. See out best scavenger hunts for kids here.

Pond Dipping

Lakes and ponds make fascinating habitats for all kinds of wildlife that kids will love to explore.

Rock Pooling

Rock Pooling is one of the classic things to do with kids on the beach in cold or warm weather! Who knows what fun things you might find? Find our best beaches with rock pools near London in this post.

Camping

Kids are easier to parent outdoors! A family camping trip can be a great way to unwind, unplug and get kids off screens! Camping can feel overwhelming if you haven’t been before but it needn’t be – check out our Top Tips for Family Camping and Family Camping Essentials List.

Make a Den

Dens in the outdoors are loads of outdoor fun for kids. Find out how to make a den in the woods for kids here!

Hiking

Check out our other ideas for kids to do on a walk.

Family Bike Ride

Going on family bike rides is a brilliant way to all get outside together and explore new places. You don’t have to own bikes, lots of lovely places hire them out to explore local areas.

Gardening

Learning to grow vegetables or planting bulbs is an activity all the kids can join in with! Here’s our top tips for starting a vegetable garden with kids.

Sea Glass Hunting

Fun for the entire family – a treasure hunt of sea glass You can also look for creative ways to make make something out of the sea glass you find!

Back Garden Slip and Slide

Use plastic sheeting and washing up liquid to make the ultimate slip and slide for kids in the garden! You can try our other ideas for water games for the garden.

Fly a Kite

Getting a Kite and flying it for the first time is one of the simple outdoor activities but is exhilarating and a rite of passage for childhood!

Geocaching

Geocaching is an easy, great outdoor family activity that can be completed in locations across the UK.

Fruit Picking

Fruit Picking is an easy outdoor activity for fun outdoor adventures with kids. All kids – young or old can enjoy fruit picking and cooking with the fruit afterwards.

Family Boat Ride

Boat rides can be long or short, gentle or adventurous so make for a perfect day out. If you are inspired to start your own nautical journey, you can find a variety of expert supplies at sailboats.co.uk to get you started on the water. You can also do a boat ride in cities and countryside, making them a perfect outdoor activity for most locations! Find out about our London boat ride here.

Go to the Beach

A quintessential family day out! We have some great beaches in the UK and there are so many different activities you can do on a beach with kids which makes for a fun family day out – whatever the weather!

Go Foraging

In our modern world, it’s easy to forget the connection between food and nature. Foraging is a wonderful way to reconnect with where our food comes from. Start with picking blackberries in Autumn and move onto picking apples, bilberries and nettles!

Go to a Festival

Festivals are perfect mini holidays for families – entertainment and camping combined is a great way to keep younger and older kids entertained! Read here for our favourite UK family festivals.

Fun Outdoor Games for Kids

Classic outdoor games like hide n’ seek are so much better in the great outdoors – find out all our active games to play in the woods here.

Build a Bughouse

Bug Hotels are easy to build for kids, they’re cheap as they only use recycled materials – they can be added to over time so make a good family project to start with and extend as the kids get older. You can find more ideas for fun nature activities for kids to do in a garden here.

Outdoor Family Activities for Older Children

Canoeing/ Kayaking

Self powered explorations on the river is the very stuff of outdoor adventures. Kayaking is slightly easier than canoeing – you can read about our canoeing outdoor adventure here.

Climb a Mountain

A great family adventure can be found in picking a mountain (or hill for younger kids and little legs) and attempting to reach the summit. If you’re near to Wales, you’ll like our list of favourite family friendly mountains to climb in Wales.

Surfing

Surfing and Body Boarding are great ideas for fun for family adventures! Surfing usually requires some tuition but once you have the hang of it, it’s very addictive. Body boarding is just as much fun though and a perfect activity idea for the warmer months.!

Rock Climbing

Rock Climbing is a fun activity for kids of all ages – you can choose indoor or outdoor beginner courses to start with and you can progress easily which makes it a good outdoor activity for kids of all ages.

Go Ape

Go Ape is one of the best outdoor family activities we’ve tried – the best fun in the trees for kids of all ages – there are a number of treetop courses across the country to suit all family members both younger and older kids (I suggest 5 years is the youngest) There are zip wires at the end of all these courses which are perfect for the ultimate thrill. See our full review of Go Ape and see what we thought of the adventure.

Outdoor Family Activities

Wild Swimming

Wild Swimming is a memorable family adventure although it is worth choosing a location that suits the age and swimming level of your family to ensure everyone remains safe. Lakes and rivers can make for a magical swimming experience. This book is brilliant for finding good wild swimming spots in the UK.

Orienteering

In this day in age of sat navs – maps are intriguing and exciting for little kids and make great life skills for older kids to learn. Find out how to set up orienteering with kids in this article.

Fishing

Fishing is a great way for families to get outside and it also teaches kids today there is more to life than technology. Fishing gets kids outside in the fresh air and helps them experience art of patience.

Visit a Historical Attraction

There’s something about castles and historical buildings that can be magical and educational for kids to explore. England has some brilliant historical attractions that have brilliant outdoor play areas too! If you live in the South East we love Leeds Castle and Hever Castle for a brilliant family day out.

Stargazing

Star watching on a clear night – it’s just best if you can get into an area away from light pollution. Check the weather forecast for a clear night and look up the constellations that are available at your time of year in your hemisphere.

Survival Techniques

If you’re interested in encouraging your teens (or pre-teen) to spend more time outside – wilderness survival skills are a great way to engage them in the great outdoors. How to build a shelter and how to light a fire are great wilderness skills to start with.

Explore New Cities

Being outdoors doesn’t have to mean being in the countryside! Try visiting a new city!

Create a Raft

Making a raft is a great activity to do with teens or tweens. You can start with making a nature boat and sailing it down a river but then move onto creating a life size raft to take the weight of a person! This makes a great group activity and one for summer months when it’s fun to actually fall in a river!

See the Sunrise

Seeing a sunrise is a once in the lifetime activity that I believe everyone should try and experience once! You can read about how our sunrise adventure didn’t go quite to plan but it’s still holds fond memories in our family!

Fun Outdoor Activities for Families

12 Family Adventures

If you’d like to be intentional in increasing your family’s outdoor time and boosting their mental health – then 12 Family Adventures is the perfect challenge for you! Choose 12 family adventures and fun activities (we like to do this as a New Year’s Eve Family Activity) one for every month of the year. You can get kids and grown ups to pick adventures so everyone in the family can be involved. Try to pick a mixture of new experiences and smaller adventures. Here are some of our favourite 12 family adventures we’ve tried over the years! (You can buy these 12 family adventure posters here if you’d like to have your most excitingly, adventurous year yet!)

Outdoor Adventure Ideas for Families

• Take Night Hike by Torchlight
• Mud Sliding
• Canoeing
• Horseriding
• Family Camping
• Fossil Hunting
• Outdoor Wild Cooking