Days out near Canterbury

Canterbury is the destination everyone comes for. The surrounding area is the bit worth staying for. One of Canterbury's more useful qualities as a base is how quickly you can get out of it. Ten minutes north and you're at Whitstable, which has a harbour that children find genuinely interesting and a high street that has decent coffee and doesn't take itself too seriously. Twenty minutes east and you're in Thanet — Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate — which is its own entirely different thing. That range matters on a weekend when you haven't quite decided what kind of day you're having. The Crab Museum in Whitstable is small enough that it sounds like it shouldn't work as a family attraction, and yet it does. It's the kind of slightly odd, genuinely enthusiastic local institution that kids remember long after they've forgotten the bigger, shinier attractions. The Shell Grotto in Margate has the same energy — unexplained, slightly eerie, very good. For soft play and indoor days, Peekaboo Playhouse in Canterbury is the local favourite for under-7s. Under 1 Roof has bowling and soft play combined, which solves the problem of a group where the kids are different ages and nobody can agree on one thing. The coast has enough amusements, arcades and beach-adjacent activities that bad weather doesn't necessarily ruin the day — it just changes it. If you've got teenagers or older kids in the group, Folkestone is 25 minutes south and worth knowing about — it's had its own version of the Margate regeneration, with a good creative quarter and Folkestone 51, which has a skatepark and climbing wall. Canterbury works as a hub. The options stack up quickly once you stop thinking of it as just the cathedral.