Copenhagen is compact, and a train or a short drive gets you somewhere new. These are the trips we'd plan a whole day around: castles with moats to walk, theme parks with rides for every age, and Viking history kids can get their hands on. Some are under an hour away, a few take most of the morning to reach, so check the travel time before you pick one.
A visitor center by the Stevns Klint cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that tells how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Kids watch a short film projected onto a real boulder from the cliff and try the Genesis VR film.
Outside, Boesdal Limestone Quarry has BMX bikes for hire, and the 21 km Trampestien trail follows the cliff.
LEGO House is a hands-on LEGO center in Billund. Four colored Experience Zones hold millions of bricks: kids build and race cars, program robots, direct stop-motion movies and watch their creations swim in a digital aquarium. There's also the Tree of Creativity, one of the world's largest LEGO models, a gallery of fan builds and a history collection.
LEGO Square, the store and nine rooftop playground terraces need no ticket.
Frederiksborg Castle sits on three islets in Castle Lake. Christian IV built it in the early 1600s, and it is the largest Renaissance complex in the Nordic region. Inside, the Museum of National History tells 500 years of Danish history through Denmark's largest portrait collection.
Kids follow a family trail of checkpoints through the halls. Outside, a Baroque Garden with royal monograms cut into the hedges sits by the lake.
The museum is built around five original Viking ships, sunk in Roskilde Fjord to block a sea route about a thousand years ago, then raised in one of Denmark's major excavations. A giant window frames the fjord behind them.
Kids can climb aboard two full-size Viking ships as a light-and-sound storm rolls across the walls, play in a Viking children's village, and watch boatbuilders at work on Museum Island.
Kronborg is the castle where Shakespeare set Hamlet, a UNESCO World Heritage fortress of towers, ramparts and moats on the Øresund strait.
Inside, kids can sprint the length of the ballroom (the largest in the Nordic countries), lie on a royal four-poster bed, stir pots in the old kitchen and build a dream castle in LEGO. Down in the dim casemates, they meet Holger the Dane.
Copenhagen is compact, and a train or a short drive gets you somewhere new. These are the trips we'd plan a whole day around: castles with moats to walk, theme parks with rides for every age, and Viking history kids can get their hands on. Some are under an hour away, a few take most of the morning to reach, so check the travel time before you pick one.
A visitor center by the Stevns Klint cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that tells how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Kids watch a short film projected onto a real boulder from the cliff and try the Genesis VR film.
Outside, Boesdal Limestone Quarry has BMX bikes for hire, and the 21 km Trampestien trail follows the cliff.
LEGO House is a hands-on LEGO center in Billund. Four colored Experience Zones hold millions of bricks: kids build and race cars, program robots, direct stop-motion movies and watch their creations swim in a digital aquarium. There's also the Tree of Creativity, one of the world's largest LEGO models, a gallery of fan builds and a history collection.
LEGO Square, the store and nine rooftop playground terraces need no ticket.
Frederiksborg Castle sits on three islets in Castle Lake. Christian IV built it in the early 1600s, and it is the largest Renaissance complex in the Nordic region. Inside, the Museum of National History tells 500 years of Danish history through Denmark's largest portrait collection.
Kids follow a family trail of checkpoints through the halls. Outside, a Baroque Garden with royal monograms cut into the hedges sits by the lake.
The museum is built around five original Viking ships, sunk in Roskilde Fjord to block a sea route about a thousand years ago, then raised in one of Denmark's major excavations. A giant window frames the fjord behind them.
Kids can climb aboard two full-size Viking ships as a light-and-sound storm rolls across the walls, play in a Viking children's village, and watch boatbuilders at work on Museum Island.
Kronborg is the castle where Shakespeare set Hamlet, a UNESCO World Heritage fortress of towers, ramparts and moats on the Øresund strait.
Inside, kids can sprint the length of the ballroom (the largest in the Nordic countries), lie on a royal four-poster bed, stir pots in the old kitchen and build a dream castle in LEGO. Down in the dim casemates, they meet Holger the Dane.
