Copenhagen with Kids
We spent three weeks in Europe this past August and started in Copenhagen. It was a last minute addition to the trip and I'm so glad we started there! It's beautiful, manageable, and a very easy city to travel to with kids. European cities fold children into daily life in a way we just don't, and Copenhagen is no exception. The weather helped too - we had cool, breezy days while the rest of Europe was melting.
Getting in
We landed off a redeye with the kids, so I booked VIP airport service on arrival. Someone met us, handled the bags, and walked us past the passport line. Now that the EU's biometric entry system is fully rolled out, first-time fingerprint and photo registration has made summer immigration lines genuinely brutal. It saved us at least an hour, which is an eternity with tired kids. It's become one of the first things I book for clients flying into Europe.
Where we stayed
Hotel Sanders is chic and stylish, and I'd send mostly couples there without hesitation. For families, the move is Sanders Residence, their three bedroom apartment on Kronprinsessegade with windows right over King's Garden. We loved it! Perfect location, a full kitchen, and room for us to spread out. It's about a ten minute walk back to the hotel, where breakfast is very much worth the walk.
A few others I'd recommend depending on what you're after: Hotel d'Angleterre, the classic luxury stay; Villa Copenhagen, newer, bigger and more design-driven, with a heated rooftop pool. And Nimb, which sits inside Tivoli. If your kids fall hard for the park, being able to walk out of it and into bed is hard to beat.
Playgrounds & Gardens
King's Garden was such an easy, beautiful place to spend a couple of hours. The kids ran loose in the gardens and we loved the playground, which has a cafe right next to it where you can get drinks and snacks. Europeans just get it. Rosenborg Castle sits in the middle of the same park, so if you want a little history you can walk over and see the crown jewels.
The other place our kids didn't want to leave was the playground outside BLOX, the Danish Architecture Center down on the harbor. Sand, little bikes, a playhouse, and a big honeycomb structure the kids climbed all over. We stopped for what I thought would be fifteen minutes and stayed much longer. If you're walking the harbor, it's an easy detour, and the museum and its cafe are right there when someone needs a break.
Tivoli Gardens
Tivoli was a major highlight for our family. I'm not a huge Disney person, but who doesn't love a good amusement park, and Tivoli hits the balance perfectly. Rides for little kids and big kids, park games with prizes, restaurants that are actually good, cute cafes and bars, beautiful gardens, and it was surprisingly not super crowded. We waited five to ten minutes at most, so there's no messing around with lightning passes and private guides to navigate an insane line system. It's also right in the middle of the city, which means you can pop in for a few hours instead of committing to a marathon day. We went for a couple hours every day!
Food
I'll be honest, food was not our priority on this trip. Traveling with little kids means you eat where and when they'll cooperate, and Copenhagen has one of the best restaurant scenes in the world that I mostly did not get to. Next time, when we leave the kids at home!
We did have a really nice dinner at Glassalen inside Tivoli, which sits in the old glass theatre building in the park and is a beautiful setting. It's the rare park restaurant that would actually hold its own outside the gates.
The other spot I'd send everyone to is Hart Bageri. It's the bakery Richard Hart opened after Tartine, and it's the one from the Copenhagen episode of The Bear. Definitely worth planning a morning around! Get there early.
A guide and a boat
I worked with one of our local partners, Nordic Luxury, who arranged a walking tour with a lovely, very knowledgeable guide. It was an easy, fun way to see the sights and learn about Danish history and culture without losing the kids' attention.
Nordic Luxury also organized a three hour private canal boat tour for us. Beautiful boat, great captain and crew, and a gorgeous morning on the water. Copenhagen is a city you should see from the water, and doing it privately meant we could go at our own pace instead of being herded onto a packed public boat.
The canals are where you understand how Danes actually live. We went past rows of houseboats people live on full time, and floating saunas and swimming platforms right off the harbor, with locals climbing out of the water mid-morning on a weekday. The harbor here is clean enough to swim in, which seems slightly unbelievable for a working port in a capital city. We also passed Dannebrog, the Danish royal yacht, tied up in the harbor.
What I'd tell you
We stayed for three nights and could have easily stayed another night or two. We missed some other sights since we were jetlagged and wanted a low key start to the trip. It's about as easy as Europe gets logistically. There are direct flights from New York, you land in the morning, and the city itself is super walkable with a metro that's spotless and simple. Everything we did was within twenty minutes of where we slept. It pairs well with the rest of a Europe trip too, whether you're heading south for the summer or north into Norway and Sweden.
If you're planning a family trip to Europe and want somewhere that's genuinely easy with kids, I would definitely consider Copenhagen! And I’d love to help you plan.