Historic

Annaberg is where the history of these islands becomes concrete. The ruins of a Danish sugar plantation - windmill tower, boiling bench, slave quarters, factory - stand on a hillside above Leinster Bay with an interpretive trail through them, and the National Park Service does not soften what happened here. The windmill tower is climbable and the view runs across to Tortola and the British Virgin Islands. Cultural demonstrations of baking, weaving and cooking run on some days. It takes under an hour, is mostly shaded, and gives context to a trip that is otherwise all beaches.

San Cristóbal is bigger than El Morro and less visited, which makes it the better of the two if your children want space to roam. It covers twenty-seven acres of layered defences built to protect San Juan from land attack, connected by tunnels that are open to walk. The detail that lands with most visitors is in a small dungeon room, where someone imprisoned here centuries ago drew ships on the wall in charcoal - they are still there. Rangers give talks through the day. The same ticket covers El Morro, so most families do both, though not usually on the same day with young kids.

El Morro guards the entrance to San Juan Bay and has done since the sixteenth century. Six levels of ramps, tunnels, gun positions and the round garitas that appear on every Puerto Rico souvenir make it genuinely fun to explore rather than merely educational - children treat it as a castle, which it is. The enormous green esplanade in front of it is where San Juan families come to fly kites on windy afternoons, and vendors sell them at the gate. Your ticket also covers Castillo San Cristóbal a mile away, the larger of the two. Shade is limited on the upper levels.

Fort Christiansvaern is the bright yellow Danish fort on the Christiansted waterfront, and it is small enough to see properly with children in under an hour - ramparts, cannon, the powder magazine, and the punishment cells below. The surrounding historic site includes the old Danish customs house, scale house and West India Company warehouse, where enslaved people were sold, and the interpretation does not avoid that. Around it Christiansted itself is compact and walkable with arcaded streets and a boardwalk. Boats to Buck Island leave from the harbour here, which makes it easy to combine.

Cinnamon Bay is a long stretch of sand inside the national park with more room to spread out than Trunk or Maho, and enough wave action to be fun for children without being rough. A small cay sits offshore within easy snorkelling range for stronger swimmers. Behind the beach a short self-guided trail loops through the ruins of a Danish sugar plantation, with the mill and estate house walls standing in the bush - a genuinely interesting half hour that puts the island’s colonial history somewhere children will actually encounter it. Watersports rentals and a campground operate on site.

De Leon Springs pairs a circular walled swimming basin with something no other Florida spring has: a restaurant in the 1830s sugar mill where every table has its own griddle and you pour and flip your own pancakes from a jug of batter. Kids find this considerably more exciting than the spring. The wait for a table routinely exceeds an hour on weekends, so the usual order is to put your name down, swim while you wait, and eat after. The spring itself is a consistent 72 degrees with a dock and ladder entry rather than a beach.

Getting to the Dry Tortugas is most of the experience - two and a quarter hours by ferry across open water, or a seaplane if the budget allows. What you arrive at is Fort Jefferson, an enormous unfinished nineteenth-century fort covering almost an entire small island, surrounded by water clear enough to see the coral heads from the walls. Snorkelling straight off the beach is the best in the state because there is no run-off and almost no boat traffic. Bring everything you need; there is no shop, and the ferry leaves on schedule with or without you. Rough seas make the crossing genuinely unpleasant, so watch the forecast.

Wakulla is on a different scale from the other Florida springs - the vent is over 180 feet down and the flow is enormous. The riverboat tour is the reason most families come: a flat-bottomed boat runs downriver past alligators, anhingas, turtles and often manatees, with a guide who has usually been doing it for decades. Swimming is from a dock and diving platform into genuinely deep water, so it suits confident swimmers rather than toddlers. The 1937 lodge above the spring still has its marble floors and a soda fountain, and is worth walking through even if you are not staying.

Fort Clinch is one of the best preserved nineteenth-century masonry forts in the country, and unusually you can walk almost all of it - the ramparts, the galleries, the kitchen, the bunk rooms. Rangers in period uniform staff it daily and stay in character, which children find either fascinating or unnerving. The beach below the fort is a well-known spot for finding fossilised shark teeth, especially at low tide near the jetty. Two campgrounds sit in the park, one on the Atlantic and one under a canopy of live oak and Spanish moss. The road in through the maritime forest is worth the drive on its own.

Fort De Soto regularly turns up on best-beach-in-America lists, but the reason it belongs on a family list is North Beach’s lagoon - a shallow protected pool separated from the Gulf by a sandbar, where the water is warm, still and waist-deep a long way out. There is a genuine fort to climb over with its original mortars, seven miles of paved trail, a two-mile canoe trail through mangroves, and a large dog park with its own dog beach. The campground sits on the water. It is a county park, so entry is cheap.

Key West is short on good beaches and this is the one locals use. The water drops off quickly compared to Bahia Honda, which makes it less suited to toddlers but much better for snorkelling - the rocky edges hold parrotfish, sergeant majors and the occasional small barracuda within a short swim of the sand. Behind the beach sits the Civil War fort itself, with the largest collection of seacoast cannon in the country and cool brick casemates that make a good hour out of the sun. Water shoes matter here; the entry is rocky.

Salt River Bay carries two distinct things at once. It is a national historic park because this is the single confirmed place where a Columbus landing party came ashore on territory that is now the United States, and it holds significant Taíno archaeology. It is also a bioluminescent bay, and guided night kayak tours run out into it around the new moon, when the dinoflagellates light up under the paddle. The mangrove estuary is protected and calm. Like every bio bay the experience is entirely moon and weather dependent, so book early in a trip to leave room to try again.

Torreya sits on high bluffs above the Apalachicola, and the trails climb and drop through ravines that hold plant communities more typical of the Appalachians than the Gulf coast, including the endangered Torreya tree the park is named for. The loop trail has genuine elevation gain, which makes it the closest thing to real hiking in the state and a good choice for older children who find flat Florida trails dull. The Gregory House, an 1849 plantation house moved across the river piece by piece, sits on the bluff edge and is open for guided tours on a fixed schedule - once a day midweek, twice at weekends - so check the times before building a day around it. The trails reopened after Hurricane Michael flattened much of the canopy in 2018, and the regrowth is visible along them. It is remote; bring what you need.

A 47-foot gaff-rigged Hudson River ferry sloop commissioned by Pete Seeger in 1978, crewed entirely by volunteers, running free evening sails on the Hudson out of the park beside Beacon’s Metro-North station. There is never a charge to sail aboard the Woody Guthrie, though donations are invited, and no sailing experience is needed. A different volunteer captain takes her out each weeknight, and reservations are made by phone. The club also puts on three free festivals a year with music and kids activities on the same waterfront.

A 1926 John Alden designed wooden schooner, the same boat used in the 1956 film High Society, running two-hour public sails off the southern tip of Seneca Lake. She carries up to 22 passengers, with cushioned seating for sixteen on the cabin top if the weather turns. Water and juices are included. Soft-soled shoes are required on deck, which is worth knowing before you get to the pier with a kid in sandals. Up to four departures a day makes this easy to slot into a Watkins Glen trip alongside the gorge.

Stone and timber cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, set among the recovering loblolly pines of the Lost Pines east of Austin. They are small and simple with a kitchen and a fireplace, and staying in one is the rare chance to sleep in a piece of Texas park history rather than a modern rental. The park also has a swimming pool, easy trails and a campground for families who prefer tents. Only a handful of cabins exist, so they are among the hardest reservations in the Texas park system.

Known as the Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks, this 500-million-year-old sandstone gorge is one of the oldest tourist attractions in the United States. Walkways and bridges take you along the rim and down into the gorge where the Ausable River has carved dramatic formations in the rock. Kids are amazed by the towering walls and the optional raft ride through the rapids at the end is a thrilling finish. Rock climbing, rappelling, and river tubing are available for older kids who want more adrenaline.

A 9.8-mile round trip hike (or bike ride) on a wide old carriage road through beautiful forest to a sprawling Great Camp on the shore of Newcomb Lake. The flat terrain makes it easier than the distance suggests and many families bring bikes to cut the time in half. At the end, the historic camp buildings sit on a stunning lakeside setting that feels like a secret Adirondack world. Kids can explore the old buildings and swim in the lake before heading back. This is a genuinely unique family adventure.

A lookout point at the top of the world’s highest sea cliffs (nearly 3,000 feet) looking down onto the isolated Kalaupapa Peninsula far below. The view is staggering and gives kids a sense of scale that is hard to find elsewhere. The peninsula was the site of the famous Hansen disease (leprosy) settlement led by Father Damien. The lookout is accessible from Palaau State Park and requires just a short walk from the parking lot. The mule ride and hiking trail down to the peninsula are for those 16 and older.

A 4.6-mile round trip hike up an old road to a fire tower with views over the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and on clear days all the way to the Berkshires. Along the way, kids pass the ruins of the Overlook Mountain House hotel, a crumbling stone building that feels like discovering a castle in the woods. The fire tower at the summit is restored and climbable. The trail is wide and straightforward but climbs steadily. This hike combines history, mystery, and mountain views in a way kids love.