Palma de Mallorca, Alicante, and Faro are the best family beach weekends for short transfers and calm, shallow water, while Kos, Malta, and Tenerife add gently shelving sandy bays and resort infrastructure built specifically around traveling with children.
| Destination | Country | Sunny days/yr | Winter / summer | Best months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palma de Mallorca | Spain | 300+ | 15°C / 29°C | May, June, September |
| Alicante | Spain | 290+ | 17°C / 30°C | April, May, June |
| Faro | Portugal | 300+ | 16°C / 29°C | April, May, June |
| Kos | Greece | 300+ | 15°C / 31°C | May, June, September |
| Malta | Malta | 300+ | 16°C / 31°C | April, May, June |
| Tenerife | Spain | 320+ | 21°C / 28°C | January, February, November |
With kids, logistics outrank scenery. Palma's Playa de Palma is 10 minutes from the airport, Alicante's Postiguet and San Juan beaches have lifeguards, shallow entries, and promenade playgrounds, and Faro opens onto the lagoon-calm Ria Formosa. Kos is famously flat and stroller-friendly with warm, gradual beaches like Tigaki, and Tenerife's sheltered south coast works even in winter.
Short flights protect everyone's patience: all of these are under four hours from most of Europe except the Canaries, and none involve a time change of more than an hour. SunnyFlight's weekly scan pairs weekend fares with 7-day weather forecasts, useful when school-calendar constraints mean you can only travel on specific weekends.
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Get free weekly alerts →Palma de Mallorca is hard to beat: Playa de Palma is about 10 minutes from the airport by taxi. Faro and Alicante follow at 10-20 minutes to their nearest beaches, meaning children can be in the water within an hour of landing.
Tigaki beach on Kos and the Ria Formosa lagoon beaches near Faro shelve very gradually, with knee-deep water extending dozens of meters from shore. Alicante's San Juan beach and Malta's Mellieha Bay are similarly gentle and have lifeguards through the summer season.
Yes, in two places especially: Tenerife's south coast stays at 20-22°C (68-72°F) all winter with swimmable sheltered bays like Playa de las Vistas, and Malta remains mild into November. Spanish and Portuguese mainland beaches work from May through October.