Wayanad with Kids: What Works and What Does Not

Wayanad is one of the easier hill destinations in south India to bring children to. The weather is mild, there is space, and a lot of what there is to do outdoors does not need anyone to be particularly fit or particularly patient.

But a family trip to Wayanad planned off a generic list of attractions will go wrong, because a good half of that list assumes an adult with an hour of climbing in them. Here is the split.

Start with the roads, because that is what gets you first

Everything about visiting Wayanad with kids begins with the fact that you get here up a ghat road, and ghat roads make children sick. Hairpins, one after another, for the better part of an hour, at the end of a long day in a car.

Take it seriously. Sit whoever is worst affected in the front, keep a window cracked, stop when asked, do not hand out a large meal an hour before the climb, and have the bag and the wipes where you can reach them without stopping. Do the ghat in daylight if you have the option — it is much better when you can see out.

The same applies to the sightseeing days. The roads inside the district wind too. Two big outings with a slow day between them beats three days of driving.

What works with children

• Kuruva Island. Crossing to a river island on a raft is a genuinely exciting thing to do when you are seven. Shallow water, bamboo, space to run. Check it is open first — it shuts through the monsoon when the river is high.
• Banasura Sagar. Boating on the reservoir, big open views, and enough going on to hold attention without a walk attached.
• A wildlife safari, with one caveat below. Deer, langur, gaur and, if you are lucky, elephants — from a jeep, with no walking required.
• Plantation and estate walks. Short, flat, shaded, and there is always something to look at. This is the one that surprises parents.

What does not

• Chembra Peak. A real trek with a real climb. Fine for teenagers who want it. Not a family outing with small children.
• Pakshipathalam. Permit, guide, proper terrain. No.
• Edakkal Caves. This one catches families out, because it reads like a museum visit and is not. There is a steep climb and a lot of steps to get up to the carvings. Wonderful if everyone can manage it. Miserable if you have a four-year-old halfway up and no way round.
• The dawn safari, with young children. The morning slot is the better one for animals and it means waking a child in the dark. The afternoon slot exists and is a much easier trade.

Monsoon with children

If you are coming between June and September, read the monsoon guide first, and know that the leeches are not optional. Children either find them fascinating or find them appalling, and you will discover which within about ten minutes of the first walk. Socks over trouser legs, and a calm face when one turns up, because they take the cue from you.

The unglamorous advice

Do not fill the days. This is the single thing that separates a family trip to Wayanad that works from one that does not.

Two outings across three days is plenty. Everything else should be somewhere with space to be outside, a pool, and no schedule. Children get more out of an afternoon of nothing in a green place than out of a fourth viewpoint, and so, it turns out, do their parents. The bit everyone remembers afterwards is almost never the attraction.

Which is the argument for staying somewhere you are happy to sit still in. We keep a kids' park, a pool, indoor games for a wet afternoon and a campfire most evenings, on a quiet property on the northern side of the district — the details are on the family stays page and in the amenities.