There are, to my way of thinking, two types of family-friendly travel. There is travel with children and there is travel for children. We have always favored the former; a few lodging tweaks and a few playgrounds and we can go anywhere. I don’t have a problem in theory with child-centered vacation destinations, they just never appealed to me as much as say, Paris or Rome.

Then the Kinderhotel brochure arrived in the mail.

Kinderhotels are a chain of family-oriented hotels in Austria. From the multi-bedroom suites to the tasteful diaper genies, these places take family friendly to a whole new level. Supervised children’s activities. Bikes equipped with training wheels and child seats. Potty rings discreetly hanging beside every single toilet. You name it, these places have it all for the under-10 set.

I don’t know what it was about that glossy Kinderhotel brochure, but those pictures of gleeful children and their relaxed parents sucked me right in. Smiling children at play. Serene adults dining in peace. Invigorated families cycling along Alpine paths. The people in the pretty Kinderhotel photos? They were on vacation. Vacation. It was a pretty irresistible concept for this travel-weary mama.

Less than two months later, we checked into the Hagleitner Family Balance Hotel in Zell Am See, Austria to live my brochure dream. Our kids embraced the Kinderhotel concept immediately. They made macrame necklaces. They bounced endlessly on the bouncy castle. They left the dinner table early to ride the zip line. They slept soundly under their own “kid themed” duvets.

And through it all, my husband and I wandered aimlessly, books in hand, trying to figure out how to attain this relaxation we had so keenly sought.

Oh, sure, there were highlights. We all loved hiking in the Alps and biking beneath them. I had a great massage. We stumbled upon some sort of town festival which seemed to center entirely around beer drinking before noon. My husband and I even dined in peace. And yet… dare I admit it? We were a teensy bit bored.

The Kinderhotel was everything that it promised to be. It was us who couldn’t live up to the promise of a relaxing vacation. After years of sightseeing-packed city breaks, sitting still on vacation just felt wrong, sacrilegious even.

If you are in search of a true family vacation, the Kinderhotels have the concept nailed. I highly recommend giving one a try. But we won’t be back. I can gaze into my husband’s eyes any old time. When we’re on vacation, I want to gaze at the world.

November 11th, 2008 | by Rebecca Tompkins 8 comments