One of the reasons we moved to Folkestone was the accessibility of Europe: the 35 min shuttle departs from Folkestone while the 90 min ferry leaves from Dover, a 15-minute drive from our front door.

We visited in August 2024 with Romy only 3 and Maggie not yet 1 so with the girls still very young, we didn’t want to drive for more than three hours. After lots of research, we settled on the unknown (to us anyway) Limburg Region in Belgium. It proved to be a great find with lots to do in close vicinity to our accommodation, which had an on-site lake we could swim in and a great soft play.

The area is home to Belgium’s oldest national park – the Hoge Kempen National Park. There are several walking and cycling trails of varying lengths, many of which are great for little legs and Romy did some awesome riding!!

The visitor centre has a free map with all the trails and there’s also a brilliant playground at the park entrance.

A definite highlight was the wonderful Lieteberg Barefoot path – a 3 km trail through the forest over and through different terrain including rocks, wooden platforms, water and lots of mud.

We enjoyed walking / cycling through Mechelse Heide and on one particularly hot day, cooling down at the Wilhelm tell water park.

We discovered several fantastic playgrounds through the region and of course, daily ice-creams are a must on holiday!