7 Days in The Hague with Kids

In 2018 the boys were 7 & 5 and we went to Amsterdam, Brussels and Ghent . It was such a fun trip we knew we were going to go back but to explore other parts of the Netherlands. Flash forward to this year (2025) and my oldest was in 8th grade and didn’t want to go on his schools annual trip to Washington DC so we decided to go to the Netherlands during this time instead.

This time we wanted to go to Den Haag (The Hague) which is about 45 minutes from Amsterdam and is a coastal town in the Netherlands. It reminds me of a bigger Brighton, England for reference.

Here is everything we did with our kids who were 3, 11 & 14 at the time when we went.

Where did we stay?

For a family of 5 traveling in Europe it’s very hard to find family or suite style rooms, if you enter 5 people into hotel rooms they always want you to book 2 rooms and 2 rooms for a week is expensive! We love staying in Airbnbs because it gives you a chance to stay in neighborhoods and explore like the people living there, plus we usually do a mix of cooking at home and eating out when we travel. This time we had a certain area in mind we were looking at staying and we found a house that was owned by a really nice German family that was going on holiday for 2 weeks. They rent their house out while they are go on vacations and it was perfect. There were multiple tram and bus stops by, a grocery store, playgrounds and an abundance of cute cafes.

What did we do?

For most trips I have a list of things we’d like to do and I have them pinned on a Google Map so we can see what is by each other. I usually start off by looking at the calendar and putting specific plans on days we already have booked and then based on weather pull from the list and build a day around certain things.

There was a few things that were time specific. When we were there, we knew it was going to be the Kings Day celebration and we wanted to go to that. I also booked bikes to rent out by Keukenhof, we wanted to go to the Pier in Scheveningen one day and we had a house showing one day. Other than that, nothing else was time sensitive.

Day 1

We always try our hardest to arrive in the morning from an overnight flight and push through the jet leg on day 1. Some trips are easier than others to do. This one was harder, I think because we had a small layover in Iceland it threw off all of our sleep schedules. We got to our Airbnb around 3ish and everyone crashed. We got up later and got take out and just slept the rest of the day/night.

Day 2

This was the Kings day celebration so we got up, grabbed a coffee and went to the playground down the street. There was a big flea market going on, so we checked that out. We came back, ate breakfast and got ready to leave. We went to the Statenkwartier area that also had a flea market/celebration going on so we walked around there and grabbed a snack. There was a big carnival at the Malieveld park so we jumped on a tram and headed that way. Spent some time there and then grabbed dinner across the street. We headed home after and relaxed the rest of the night.

Day 3

Another morning where we grabbed a coffee and went to the neighborhood playground to let Jude run a little before we all got ready to leave. We ventured out to Westfield mall which is the biggest mall in the Netherlands and it felt like being at a huge American mall. Spent a few hours there and ventured home, grabbing dinner along the way and relaxing the rest of the night.

Day 4

Today we had plans to go to Keukenhof to see the flowers and ride bikes I had pre-booked. We didn’t look ahead of time on how many different forms of public transit it was going to take to get there otherwise we would of left earlier. We rented bikes from Rent a bike Van Dam and had plans of riding them around to see all the different flower fields. Instead I put Keukenhof into Google maps and it took us there and there was no way we couldn’t go in so we paid to go in. I’m so glad I did because it was beautiful BUT we didn’t get nearly enough time to spend there because we had to get the bikes back by a certain time. This was poor planning on my end, I booked the bikes 10am-5pm and we didn’t get the bikes till about 2pm! We rode back to the city center where we rented them and dropped them off and grabbed dinner. We then went home, watched movies and relaxed the rest of the night.

Day 5

Today we had a showing for a place we were looking at possibly renting so we went to that first. We grabbed some lunch and went to a local park after to relax and let the kids get some energy out. We headed home after to rest before going out for dinner. Tracen and Jerek went to a local soccer field a couple blocks away to mess around before we headed to Scheveningen Pier dinner. We were meeting a friend I had met online in a local expat group that had moved to The Netherlands last year and was helping us a ton on our moving process. It was so great to meet up with someone who had already been through the move to talk through things. We walked the pier, kids played on the beach and then after seeing our friend we grabbed dinner at a restaurant before heading home for the night.

Day 6

We got up and headed to Duinrell, a cute amusement and water park. We spent most of the day here and headed home later and grabbed groceries on the way home and relaxed the rest of the night.

Day 7

Another morning taking a walk to the park and exploring the neighborhood in the morning with Jude while the boys relaxed and we planned out the day. We went to the city center to check it out, grab lunch and just explore. There was a ton of shopping and restaurants and we stumbled upon a nice green space out side the peace palace where we all relaxed before we grabbed dinner and headed back home to pack for the plane ride.

Traveling with kids

We’ve learned over the years that there are two ways that work best for us when we travel. 1. go out in the am, come home and rest for the afternoon and then go out in the evening or 2. go out in the late morning and stay out as long as you can and then be in for the evening and we then cook at home. These are the two different options that work best for us with kids of all ages and abilities. We can’t really stop in and out of the house like you can when it’d just adults, it doesn’t work well for us. Once we get home, the kids want to relax and the constant in and out results in meltdowns. We have always been nap on the go people too even with little babies so you won’t find us going back to a hotel or Airbnb for a nap schedule.

You can also see that some days are more packed than others and some are very slow moving, we like to do a mix of both when we travel. This leaves room to add things in on the slower days instead of being slammed with things to do. We also do a mix of touristy things, mixed with everyday things that everyone enjoys doing.