Whale watching in the Hebrides

There’s no escaping sea and sky on Tiree, as the Inner Hebridean island is only 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. Shallow seas provide rich feeding grounds for marine life, and it is one of the UK’s best spots for whale watching. Tiree Sea Tours – a member of the WiSe national training scheme for minimising disturbance to marine wildlife – offers half-day and full-day sea-faris (from £75). Visitors can also try to spot basking sharks circling the island in the plankton-rich waters at viewing spots in Hynish Bay or Caoles, or from the deck of the CalMac ferry over to nearby Coll. Sunset Pods’ two cabins (from £700 a week, one week minimum stay in July-August) sleep four and offer views over Balevullin beach, a Dark Sky discovery site and home to Blackhouse Watersports.

Birdwatching in Kent

Dipping its toes in the Thames Estuary, the Isle of Sheppey is visited by thousands of migrating shore birds every year. Visitors of all ages can get twitching by staying at Elmley nature reserve in pop-up summer bell tents for four (from £170 a night, two nights minimum), and joining a Wildlife Wander Walk (£25) to spot species such as egrets, lapwings, avocets and marsh harriers. You can also jump in a Land Rover for an off-road adventure with an ecologist (from £20). To view it all from the water, Jet Stream Tours offers a four-hour around-the-island trip (£90 per family) that passes by Elmley and the cliffs of Eastchurch.

Waterside camping in Gwynedd

On the Llŷn Peninsula, Bert’s Kitchen Garden campsite (from £44 a pitch) always has something new to offer. Last year, the husband-and-wife team who run it opened Beachside, a cafe on wheels offering local produce, including Heartland Coffee Roasters, and supper clubs with chefs from the area. A new sauna provides warmth after bracing sea swims. The site’s private beach is ideal for families who love to be on the water, with paddleboards and kayaks for hire.

Further inland, in the heart of Eryri national park, Llyn Gwynant campsite (from £16pp; day visitors welcome from £5pp plus £5 per car) offers access to a river, mountain and lake, with boat hire on the doorstep. Glanllyn Lakeside caravan and camping park (from £27 a pitch) has a pebbled beach, ideal for launching kayaks and paddleboards, on the shore of Bala lake.

Rewilding in action in Devon

Coombeshead is a 162-hectare (400-acre) rewilding site just north of the Tamar Valley, owned and run by Derek Gow, an author and campaigner specialising in species reintroduction and nature recovery. This summer, families who book a stay in a shepherd’s hut will receive a complimentary animal encounter to learn more about the reintroduction of white storks, water voles, wild cats, and Coombeshead’s newest arrival, the European lynx. The off-grid shepherd’s hut and campsite (from £12 a night) share the kitchen, shower and toilet block, and a rewilding garden. You can also book a two-hour wild walk or dusk beaver-watching experience (from £28 a person).

Wildlife in Cheshire

Once derelict, Northwich Woodlands is now home to more than 2,000 plant and animal species, offering families ample opportunity for nature immersion. Across more than 323 hectares, nine distinct habitats include wildflower meadows, wetlands and two canals: the Weaver Navigation and the Trent and Mersey. This summer, kids can get stuck in on guided pond-dipping and bug-hunting days throughout July and August.

Two- to five-berth canal boats are available to hire from nearby Anderton Marina through ABC Boat Hire (from £431 a night, two nights minimum) and feature several overnight itineraries, including along the recently refurbished Huddersfield Narrow canal across the Pennines.

Woodland trails in Epping Forest

Outdoor specialist Millets recently ranked Epping Forest as the third most family-friendly forest in the UK, after the New Forest and the Forest of Dean. Maps of more than 30 child-friendly trails, including the Willow and Holly trails, are available at the Epping Forest visitor centre at High Beach. You can also find 20 walks for all abilities on the Epping Forest Walks app. Events over the summer include crafting at the Toot Hill Country Show, as well as a 90-minute obstacle course for kids of all ages at Wild Forest (from £22). The Lee Valley Almost Wild campsite (from £30 a pitch), a short walk from Broxbourne station, has 20 basic pitches for those aged over 12.

Conservation in North Yorkshire

Heggs Farm, a 55-hectare rewilding project just north of the Yorkshire Dales national park, prides itself on being wild. Members of the CampWild platform, which helps landowners and farmers open sections of land to campers, can book a stay at Heggs in two camping spots (from £15), or a camping bothy (from £45) for up to four people. Families are invited to participate in several conservation activities during their stay, including caring for newly planted trees, plugging dams to create new wetland areas, and recording wildlife sightings.

Near Skipton, on the southern edge of the Dales, Broughton Sanctuary also offers conservation activities for families. Weekly tree-planting events with ranger Joel Batchelor are free to attend, and kids can enjoy its Wild Explorers forest school (£35 a day).

Explore marine life, Isle of Arran

Scotland’s first marine protected area visitor centre, the Coast discovery centre in Lamlash, has been thrown into the spotlight after appearing in David Attenborough’s hard-hitting new documentary, Ocean. With a summer of events lined up, there’s no better place for kids to learn about our fragile marine environments. Activities include gentle shore scrambles with wildlife experts; snorkel taster sessions (from £40); and a two-hour boat ride on Coast’s research vessel involving everything from habitat mapping to plankton sampling (from £30).

Surfing in the south-west

Some of the UK’s best surfing spots, including Rest Bay and Woolacombe, are less than three hours’ drive from Bristol, so it’s no surprise that many campervan hire companies are setting up shop in the city. Roadsurfer’s vans include the Surfer Suite, which sleeps four with an outdoor shower and pop-up roof (from £65). Alternatively, Shaka, from Camplify is a thoughtfully converted baker’s van kitted out with luxuries including a composting toilet and hot shower, as well as quirkier additions such as stained-glass windows and a record collection. It’s available to rent for up to five people (from £110) and can be delivered within a 100-mile radius of Bristol.

When it comes to pitching up, Porthcawl Surf School, between Swansea and Cardiff, recommends Sandy Bay campsite near Rest Bay, while back in north Devon, Little Roadway Farm offers electric hook‑ups for campervans (from £30) and pitches (from £15pp) just moments from Woolacombe’s sweeping sands.

Rock climbing, Gower Peninsula

Three Cliffs Bay’s constantly shifting landscape – the tide sweeps in and out across soft sand to dunes, a salt marsh and the Pennard Pill stream – provides never-ending fun for kids of all ages. Rising out of the bay are the famous three limestone cliffs, one of Wales’s most accessible climbing spots. Gower Adventures offers the best way to give it a try; families can join full-day climbing adventures with expert tuition from local guides (£210 for a family of four). Spend the night pitched up at Nicholaston Farm (from £29 a pitch) – a sheltered campsite with big sea views, good washrooms, and a farm shop.

Stargazing in the Cairngorms

Aberdeenshire has more hours of sunshine a year than a lot of places in Scotland, which also means more clear nights for stargazing. On the eastern edge of the Cairngorms national park in an area with particularly low light pollution, Cairngorm Bothies is an ideal base to view celestial events such as the Perseid meteor shower in August. Its 12 self-catering bothies sleep either two or four (from £125 a night, two nights minimum), and several are fully accessible. Thanks to a partnership with hiking guides Hillgoers, families staying here can book stargazing excursions with a certified “star ranger” this summer. Alternatively, head to the Glen Tanar visitor centre, a designated Dark Sky discovery site some 15 minutes down the road by car.

Gravel biking, North York Moors

The North York Moors national park’s Sutton Bank centre, which sits on an escarpment over the Vale of York, has launched three new gravel biking routes this summer. Part-created by cycling journalist Guy Kesteven, the routes are accessible from the Sutton Bank Bikes hire station (from £40 a day). The 15-mile (25km) Moorland Meander has an “easy” rating, taking in the open plateaus of the moors with only 200 metres of climbing. Also new this year is an Edge of Empire accessible trail at archaeological site Cawthorn Roman Camps. On a working farm, a shepherd’s hut on Stonebeck Gate Farm (from £110 a night) sleeps four.

Kayaking in East Sussex

The River Ouse has become the first river in the UK to gain legal rights — a big step forward in the campaign for cleaner waterways. The Kayak Coach runs trips here to suit all abilities and ages, including a two and a half hour adventure for beginners, which paddles along the Ouse from the middle of Lewes (£60).

Further east, the River Rother meanders through The Original Hut Company’s campsite (shepherd’s hut for five, from £150) near Bodiam Castle. The company’s partnership with adventure provider Epic Life makes it easy to rent kayaks or paddleboards (from £6) directly from the campsite, or you can join a session on giant paddleboards for up to eight people (from £95.40). Nearby, the Pop-Up campsite on regenerative Hop and Hare farm (from £15 a night per person, two nights minimum) will keep kids busy with egg collecting, a nature trail, den building and paddleboards.

Wildlife spotting in Norfolk

Follow in the footsteps of Chris Packham and Anita Rani to spot wildlife on the former site of BBC Springwatch, Pensthorpe nature reserve. Activities include a Poo Trail for younger children and evening activities such as badger watching (£20.95) and a Creatures of the Night (£16.95) bat and owl-watching adventure. There’s a pop-up campsite now too, with grass pitches from £30 a night, or bell tents for four from £130 a night (both two nights minimum).

If you’d rather do it yourself, pick up a four-mile section of the Norfolk coast path from Morston Quay through Blakeney national nature reserve to pretty Cley-next-the-Sea and catch the Coasthopper bus service back. If you can time the tides right, a ferry service from Morston Quay heads out to Blakeney Point, which is home to England’s largest grey seal colony.

Mountain biking, Gloucestershire

Families looking to try mountain biking will love Old Bob’s, the newest trail at the Forest of Dean Cycle Centre, named after a pumping engine from a nearby former coal mine. Weaving just over a mile through the forest, the trail features three areas designed for practising off-road riding skills. It’s also one of the UK’s most accessible mountain bike trails, suitable for bikes with up to four wheels as well as adaptive bikes.

More gentle activities nearby include woodland fun in Puzzlewood’s rare temperate rainforest, where you can stay in a cottage sleeping four plus an infant (from £240 a night, minimum three nights), and the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail just across the road from the cycle centre.

Cave snorkel in County Antrim

In the middle of the Causeway Coast, Portrush’s sheltered harbour and sweeping beach is an excellent spot to try paddleboarding and surfing. Portrush Surf School, run by pro surfer Martin “TK” Kelly, has availability on a four-day VIP Surf Camp for nine- to 16-year-olds (£140) throughout the summer holidays, or you can book a three-hour family surf or paddleboard lesson (£160 for four; over-nines only).

Visitors can get a little further off-the-beaten-track with Free Dive Northern Ireland, which takes groups from Portrush to coastal locations on half-day paddleboard and cave-snorkelling adventures (from £50pp) throughout July and August.

Dive into a quarry in Surrey

As water temperatures creep above 20C, it’s a great time to take older kids to try more serious wild swimming. In Godstone, Surrey, a sand-extraction site has been converted into a natural swimming lake known as Divers Cove. Circuits of up to 650 metres are marked out around the lake, and all sessions are overseen by lifeguards (£10.99; over-sevens only).

Younger kids might prefer the nearby green flag-awarded Frensham Great Pond, which has a roped-off swimming area and gentle shelving beach. And at Box Hill, visitors can experience one of Nature Calling’s six new art projects. Dawn After Night, Spring After Winter is a free digital adventure game designed to help more people connect with their local landscapes.

Wild camping on Dartmoor

The Supreme Court recently upheld the legal right to wild camp on Dartmoor, providing an excellent opportunity to educate the next generation about the joys and responsibilities of wild camping. Before embarking on an adventure, read up on the code of conduct – which includes rules on travelling light, leaving no trace and staying out of sight – and find out where you’re allowed to camp using the national park’s backpack camping map. The Dartmoor Preservation Association has also created a handy guide to the 3Ps (pees, poos and periods) when wild camping. If the idea of pitching up alone is too much, try booking a spot at Beardown Farm, which has two wild campsites on a 450-hectare working farm on the high moor. Pitches (from £5 per adult; £2.50 per child) include communal tap and fire pits, plus a composting toilet in summer.

‘Farmtivities’ in Somerset

In just two years, brothers Giacomo and Matteo have transformed Higher Farm near Castle Cary from a traditional dairy farm into a biodynamic hub. In May this year, the 20-hectare site – with 2,000 newly planted trees, a swimming lake, orchards, and two friendly pigs named Clover and Pumpkin – opened for the summer season. Day visitors can join in “farmtivities” throughout the summer, including self-guided farm tours, pick-your-own and feeding the animals. A pizza van is open on Saturdays, and there’s a play area for kids. Guests can also spend the night in a secluded spot, tucked into two heated yurt cabins, each sleeping three people (£130 a night, two nights minimum).

Own a pony for a day in Lancashire

The Horse and Pony Protection Association (Happa) is offering children the chance to own a pony for a day (£35) at its site overlooking Thursden Valley near Burnley this summer, helping six to 16-year-olds understand what it takes to look after a horse, including mucking out, grooming, walking with the ponies and riding. There’s also a cafe, education trail and outdoor park.

Meanwhile, near Preston, Alpaca Fold is running an alpaca walking experience (£20 per adult; £15 for 16s and under) on its 14-hectare site close to Samlesbury village, this summer. Sandwiched between the two on the edge of the Forest of Bowland, Little Oakhurst Boutique Glamping has shepherd’s huts and yurts (from £130 a night for four).

Prices are correct at the time of going to press, based on July stays and per person unless otherwise specified

Every week, 9Travel shares a top travel tip from our readers or our writers. Have something to share? Email us at travel@nine.com.au for a chance to be featured in an upcoming story.

I can still recall the anticipation of dropping it off, waiting around a week, and returning to the shop, clutching my paper ticket.

It was something I did after every holiday, whether I’d been to the Costa Del Sol, Tenerife or Corfu (all popular beach spots for Brits in the 1990s).

I am, of course, talking about getting my photos developed.

For those born after 2000, let me explain. Before mobile phones were invented, you’d take a camera on holiday. One of those old ones you might have seen on the Antiques Roadshow, which used film.

Sometimes you’d buy a “disposable” one, which could only be used once so you didn’t ruin your real camera by spilling cocktails on it, or the like.

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And you’d gleefully spend your week snapping photos…. but only 24, because that’s how many one reel of film allowed.

The camera had a tiny viewfinder you had to squint through. And after you got home, you took that film to a shop to be developed.

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About a week later (getting the 24-hour turnaround was always too expensive) you’d be handed a thick wallet of photos.

You’d also get the negatives, which you’d need to carefully go through, holding only the edges, to find any shots you wanted to ‘blow up’ for your bedroom wall.

Then, you’d get to relive your holiday all over again via the glossy prints.

Sometimes though, they would come back with stickers slapped on them saying they were “overexposed”, which I always found pretty rude.

I recently dug some of those old photos out. My favourite was one of my mum and I with a pelican (I’d never seen one, okay) in front of a random old car in Cyprus circa 1993.

I even recall taking my holiday pics in to show my school teachers (geek!).

But taking photos on holiday and actually getting them printed out has gone the way of the postcard. Hardly anybody does it anymore (except, perhaps, 9Travel editor Kristine).

We just snap, upload some on social media to show off where we are, and forget the rest.

What to do instead

A few years ago I decided to pull my holiday pics off the internet and into real life – so, after every trip, I now make a photo book.

I create it online and it’s mailed to me, so I don’t even need to leave the house. And I now have a hardback book filled with photos from each of our trips over the past five or so years.

Every so often I’ll look at them.

They take me back to that time we saw the six toed cats at Ernest Hemingway’s house, or decided to stop outside Barry Manilow’s house in Palm Springs.

I just received my latest, and flicking through it takes me right back to the South African plains, for a brief moment.

They’re also great if you want to force people to look at your holiday photos, and I don’t think you can get that scrolling on Instagram.

Drop us an email with all your wisdom to travel@nine.com.au, and your tip could be featured in an upcoming story on 9Travel.

Last week, I travelled around Turkey (after they finally issued me that eVisa) in the company of three English people. We were all doing a small group tour, and as it turned out, we were all solo travellers, thrown together in the back of a minibus.

One was a retired dentist from London who had already taken 46 trips with this particular tour company and has been to just about everywhere you can think of. His wife is not as keen on travelling, so stays home while he gallivants around. It works for them.

Another was an almost retired accountant from London who was also very well-travelled. He had a plethora of stories about tropical parasites (don’t google botfly larvae, whatever you do), and has planned a trip a month for the next year.

And then there was the nurse from the south of England who was on her first ever solo trip at the ripe old age of 48.

As a first-time solo traveller, she was a bit nervous about how she would go. Her main concerns seemed to be about whether she would get along with her fellow travellers (she did), and whether she would miss having a buddy to have a sneaky gin and tonic with in the evening or dinner with if there were no organised meals on a given night (she didn’t).

It turns out her fears were thoroughly unfounded. The four of us — unlikely friends on paper — got along famously. We laughed our way around Turkey, sipped G&T’s in the long evenings, went shopping together, signed up for hot air ballooning together and helped one another when someone fell over (the retired dentist, not me for once).

My new nursing friend is not the first person to be spooked by travelling on their own. Whenever I post about my trips on Instagram, I get private messages from people telling me how brave I am to go on solo adventures and suggesting that they can’t imagine feeling confident enough to do it themselves.

So, I’m here to dispel the myth that you have to be brave to do this. You absolutely do not. You just have to have a plan. And you have to be prepared to enjoy it more than you could imagine.

The joys of travelling on your own are that you can do exactly what you want to do at any given time.

If you want to sleep in one day, you can, without upsetting someone who wants to get up and about at sunrise. If you want to sit in a cafe watching the world go by for half the day, rather than traipse around a motorcycle museum, you absolutely can. If you want to eat baklava in bed instead of going out to dinner, oh boy, can you. You are utterly free to do whatever you want which is a very liberating feeling.

But similarly, if you are the sort of person who likes the company of other people, there are so many ways to achieve it, even when travelling solo. Small group tours have been an amazing way for me to connect with fellow like-minded people and have the safety of a tour leader with some inside knowledge, especially when I’m going to a place I’ve never been to before, or where there’s a significant language barrier.

When I’m not with a tour group, though, I like to seek out activities to keep me busy and to have the opportunity to meet and chat to other people. In Istanbul, I did a food tour where it turned out I was the only person on the tour, so I got a private experience where my guide took me to a bunch of her favourite spots and by the end of it, we felt like old friends. I also signed up for a perfume making workshop because, why not?

In Vietnam, I did a leatherwork class where I made my own coin purse, and a lantern making workshop. In a small town in Italy, I went on an ebike tour of the surrounding countryside.

In Florence, I learned how to appreciate aperitivo hour and in LA, I toured the Farmers Market with an enthusiastic woman named Jodie who loudly proclaimed to every vendor that “NATALIE’S ON THE RADIO” which was both mortifying and hilarious.

The reality is that if I was travelling with a group of friends, I never would have done any of these things because there’s no way we could have all agreed on any given activity.

Travelling solo forces you to try new things, to smile at strangers, to ask for directions, and to do whatever the hell you want. And I really, really like it.

Now excuse me, but I’m off to a Turkish bath house, because I can.