One Last Taste of Summer: Our Three Favourite September Day Trips With Kids
The Lowdown
September gets a bit of an identity crisis in this part of the world — not quite summer, not quite autumn, and yet somehow one of the best-kept secrets of the Dutch calendar. The beach days may be behind us (mercifully, along with the sand in every crevice of the car), but the light is still long, the temperatures are still forgiving and the countryside hasn't yet fully committed to grey. Which makes this exact window prime time to go and enjoy outdoor activities, before the good weather runs out. These are our three favourite September day trips, chosen for exactly this in-between kind of day.
Nederlands Openluchtmuseum
Say ‘outdoor museum’ to a child and watch their face fall. Say nothing at all and just take them to the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum instead — a large park in Arnhem beautifully capturing how life used to look and function in the Dutch countryside, showcasing everything from traditional villages, old farmhouses, factories and vast windmills. Think less history lesson and more history you can actually walk into.
It has every right to feel like a theme-park cliché of Dutch rural life. Somehow, it doesn't. It's the real, considered version — quaint without being naff, nostalgic without trying too hard.
For the youngest crew, the sell writes itself: old-school trams to ride round the park, magnificent windmills to stare at (and climb) in mild disbelief, traditional games that will briefly convince them hoops and sticks are more fun than an iPad and an adventure playground good enough to buy you a solid hour of peace on a bench. Nobody under eight is asking why you're here.
For the slightly older ones, the Openluchtmuseum is a sneaky history lesson dressed up as a proper adventure — the sort where wandering through a cheese factory from 1879 teaches them more than any textbook ever managed and they may even admit that they actually rather enjoyed it.
Oud Valkeveen
Consider this the children’s amusement park for people who hate amusement parks.
Tucked beside a lake in picturesque Naarden, roughly a 30 minute drive from Amsterdam, Oud Valkeveen is small-scale, old-school and about as far from Disneyland as it's possible to get while still technically qualifying as an amusement park — no queues stretching into the horizon, just gentle rides genuinely calibrated for toddlers and younger children rather than thrill-seeking teenagers.
Yes, there are mechanical rides — slow, tame, entirely blood-pressure-neutral ones — but the real charm is in everything around them: interactive dance shows, trampolines, oversized slides, charming picnic spots and a kids train that is basically guaranteed to steal the show for anyone under four.
The whole park is compact enough to manage without a military-grade strategy, which makes Oud Valkeveen a genuinely easy day out rather than an exercise in logistics and maintaining sanity.
Kasteel Groeneveld
About 30 minutes in the car from Amsterdam sits the magnificent country estate Kasteel Groeneveld and the real draw here isn't the country house itself (unless your children are particularly into 18th century rural retreats) but the grounds surrounding it — beautifully curated, immaculately kept, made for wandering, and, as your children will soon discover, hiding rather more than meets the eye.
What starts out as a serene garden stroll for the grown-ups transforms, the moment you tell your children what's hiding in it, into a full-blown gnome hunt: dozens of small, bearded, suspiciously cheerful creatures tucked into tree trunks and along the paths, waiting to be found.
We wouldn't however suggest driving all this way purely for the walking and gnome-spotting. Right beside the grandiose house, sits Grand-café Groeneveld, a delightfully elegant lunch spot serving delicious, organic lead, seasonal food, with a more than acceptable children’s menu. Grab a table under the trees, soak in the beautiful surroundings, with one eye on the children in the accompanying playground, which comes with no shortage of things on wheels.
It's no wonder that Kasteel Groeneveld is a well-loved weekend fixture among local families and increasingly among those willing to drive a little further for it too.
