The Hague gets treated like Amsterdam’s quieter sibling, which is exactly why it’s worth the train ride. It’s a direct 50 minutes from Amsterdam Centraal on the intercity, no changes, and you land in a city that has a proper beach, a science museum kids actually ask to go back to, and a miniature version of the whole country to stomp around in. We’ve taken our kids on more than one of these trips, usually planned around the weather rather than the calendar.
What follows is a real list of things to do with kids in The Hague, split between what works when the sun’s out and what saves the day when it isn’t. October in this city means one thing above all: the beach is still there, it’s just yours now instead of shared with half of Europe.
Scheveningen Beach and Pier, Minus the Summer Crowds
Scheveningen is the obvious starting point and it’s genuinely better with kids once the summer season winds down. Wrap everyone up, let them run, look for shells, fly a kite if you’ve got one in the car. The wide flat sand makes it one of the easiest beaches in the country to manage with a toddler who wants to sprint in every direction at once.
The pier itself stays open through autumn and has a small indoor play area called Play & Bounce tucked into it, with trampolines, a ball pit and soft climbing blocks, useful if the wind gets too sharp for little ones. There’s also a ferris wheel with enclosed, heated cabins that runs a proper loop out over the sea, and a zipline for anyone with older kids who want a bigger thrill, though that one’s mainly a warm-weather operation so check what’s running before you build a whole afternoon around it. Pier Pancakes at the end has a kids’ play corner and a menu built for fussy eaters, which makes it an easy lunch stop after a cold walk.
SEA LIFE Scheveningen sits right on the boulevard and is open daily 10:00 to 18:00, last entry at 17:00, according to their own site. It’s an easy hour to ninety minutes indoors, with a touch pool and an underwater tunnel, and it’s the kind of thing that rescues a day when the weather turns on you mid-visit.
If Scheveningen feels too busy even in the off season, Kijkduin is the calmer alternative a short drive or bus ride south. It’s quieter, the promenade has a play boat called Atlantis for younger kids, and parking there is free, which is more than you can say for most beach car parks in this country.
Things to Do with Kids in The Hague When the Weather Turns
This is where The Hague quietly out-performs Amsterdam for a family day out, it has more genuinely kid-built indoor attractions packed into one part of town.
Madurodam is the headline one, a miniature version of the Netherlands with tiny working canals, trains and landmarks scaled down to walk around. It’s open all year and has indoor sections too, so it’s not fully weather-dependent the way it looks in photos. Kids under about ten tend to love spotting real places they recognise shrunk down to knee height, older ones get more out of the interactive bits scattered through the park. Check their site directly for the day’s hours and current ticket prices before you go, both shift through the year.
Museon-Omniversum, a science museum combined with a giant-screen theatre, is built for exactly this kind of day. Expect hands-on exhibits about the planet and how things work, plus a big-format film that’s worth the extra ticket if your kids are old enough to sit through one.
Kunstmuseum Den Haag (most people still call it the Gemeentemuseum out of habit) runs a family programme called Wonderkamers, where kids play a museum-wide game or explore the collection with an activity sheet handed out at the desk. There’s a free Children’s Studio on Sundays between 12:00 and 16:00 for kids from five, and an audio tour aimed at ages eight and up if yours are past the running-around stage.
Panorama Mesdag is smaller and easy to underestimate, a single enormous 360-degree painting of old Scheveningen that somehow holds a five-year-old’s attention longer than you’d expect. It’s open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00, closed Mondays except on public holidays, and children up to 18 get in free, both confirmed on the museum’s own site. Budget an hour, there are extra exhibition rooms most visitors miss because they only came for the panorama itself.
Parks, Playgrounds and Somewhere to Burn Off the Museum Energy
Zuiderpark, south of the centre, is the one to pick if your kids need actual space rather than another indoor exhibit. It has three themed playgrounds, including a six-metre play castle and a Wild West-themed one, plus a separate nature playground called Zuiderpret where kids play in a stream, build with loose branches and climb a lookout tower. There’s a petting zoo on site too, and swan boats if you want to make an afternoon of it rather than a quick stop.
Clingendael is the other big green option, a wooded estate on the edge of the city with a large playground behind the old house that works well for a proper walk followed by a play break. The famous Japanese Garden inside the park only opens for a few weeks each spring, so don’t plan an October trip around that part specifically, but the rest of the estate is open year-round and makes for a good quiet afternoon away from the coast.
If You Want to Go Bigger
Monkey Town The Hague, over by Westvlietweg, is a large indoor playground for ages one to twelve with a toddler zone, trampolines, a football arena and a laser game area for the older kids, a solid rainy-day fallback that isn’t a museum.
Drievliet, the amusement park just outside the city, is worth knowing about even though it isn’t a full-season operation. Through October it only opens on weekends, then runs a full week during the herfstvakantie (the Dutch autumn school break), so it’s one to plan around rather than turn up to on a random Tuesday. With over 40 rides across age ranges it’s a proper day out if you catch it on an open day.
Getting There and Practical Bits
The train is genuinely the easiest way in from Amsterdam, about 50 minutes direct on the intercity from Centraal to Den Haag Centraal, no transfers needed, and from there trams reach Scheveningen and most of the museums without a car. If you are driving, note that a lot of city-centre parking is metered and beach-side parking fills up fast even out of season, Kijkduin’s free lot is the exception worth remembering.
Pack for wind more than rain here, Scheveningen in October is bracing even on a dry day, and bring a change of socks if the beach or Zuiderpark’s nature playground is on the plan. Most of the museums above are an easy hour to two hours each, so pairing a beach walk with one indoor stop makes a realistic full day without overloading anyone under six.
If The Hague works for your family, it’s worth comparing it against our guides to Utrecht and Rotterdam, both similarly easy train trips from Amsterdam, or browse our wider list of kid-friendly cities outside of Amsterdam if you’re planning a few weekends out. For more train-based options, our day trips from Amsterdam by train guide covers several other routes, and our broader weekend getaways guide is worth keeping bookmarked. You can also browse more family spots nationwide in our places directory.
