My kids might be a little crazy but if one thing can keep there attention and keep them chilled its LEGO. so when I seen a brand new Lego cafe opened up here in the North East I was absolutely thrilled. Bricks and Brews is exactly what you think it is, a cafe dedicated to all things lego where you actually build and the kids can get creative with free play or pick from hundreds of sets and build a full design. If like me your lego structures end up breaking, collecting dust o

Visit Rexys Dino Store Rexys Reviews, better known locally as The Dino Den, bills itself as the UK's largest independent specialist dinosaur shop. Having relocated from South Shields to a new home in Dunston, it's part shop, part free exhibition, stacked with dinosaur toys, collectibles and Jurassic Park memorabilia for fans of every age. The lowdown: Where: Rear Unit, Forge Road, Dunston, Gateshead, NE8 2RB When: Daily, 10am–6pm. It's worth checking the shop's Facebook page

Visit Top Gear Karting Top Gear Karting is the North East's premier indoor karting venue, a fully enclosed 200 metre circuit on the outskirts of Durham city centre. Established in 1999, it's been a fixture of the region's motorsport scene for over two decades, offering everything from casual arrive-and-drive sessions to endurance races and junior birthday parties. The lowdown: Where: Unit 13, Rennys Lane Industrial Estate, Gilesgate Moor, Durham, DH1 2RS When: Term time: Mond

Visit Whitley Bay Whitley Bay's seafront has been home to classic amusement arcades for generations, clustered along the promenade near the landmark Spanish City Dome. It's the sort of unpretentious, pay-as-you-go fun that's been a staple of the British seaside for decades, 2p pushers, prize grabbers and the odd round of mini bowling. They've decided to take it up a notch by now having prizes that range from Stanley Cups, Labubu's and Squishies. The lowdown: Where: Several ar

NOW CLOSED! Peppa Pig: Surprise Party is a first-of-its-kind immersive experience for preschoolers, bringing Peppa's world to life across a 19,000 sq ft space inside Gateshead's Metrocentre. Designed for children aged 1 to 6, the 1 hour 45 minute adventure blends live puppetry, theatrical performance and hands-on activities as families help plan Peppa's biggest surprise party yet. The lowdown: Where: Metrocentre, Upper Green Mall (first floor, opposite Boots), St. Michael's W

Visit Air Trail Air Trail is the UK's biggest Sky Trail high ropes adventure course, standing 17 metres above the River Tees at Tees Barrage in Stockton-on-Tees. Spread across four levels, it offers 60 unique challenges including wobbly rope bridges, cargo nets, tightropes and swinging stepping stones, plus two full-length zip wires that span the entire length of the course, the only course outside the US to do so. The lowdown: Where: Tees Barrage International White Water Ce

Picnic Spots A good picnic spot needs a few things: somewhere lovely to sit, somewhere for a wild child to disappear for twenty minutes and burn off the sandwich, and ideally a decent view to enjoy while you're waiting for them to come back. The North East has this covered in every direction, from grand parkland estates to a genuinely wild gorge walk. Gibside, near Rowlands Gill A 600 acre Georgian landscape garden with sweeping views across the Derwent Valley, Gibside is one

Beach Days The North East coastline punches well above its weight, from Blue Flag beaches with lifeguards and cafés right on the doorstep to vast, wild stretches of sand where you can walk for an hour and barely see another soul. Here's a spread to suit every kind of day out. Tynemouth Longsands and Whitley Bay These two neighbouring beaches, along with King Edward's Bay next door, have held Blue Flag status every year since 1994, among a small handful of beaches nationally t

Best Splash Pads There is no finer way to occupy a wild child on a properly hot day than a splash pad, and the North East has a decent scattering of them, almost all free, dotted between Northumberland and Durham. None of them are enormous, but that's rather the point: turn up, get soaked, dry off on the grass, repeat. Ridley Park, Blyth An award-winning Victorian park with a genuinely popular water play area right at its centre, alongside two separate playgrounds for differe

Outdoor Swimming Pools Honesty first: the North East was never blessed with the lido culture you find further south, and most of our traditional outdoor pools closed decades ago. What we do have are a small handful of genuinely lovely spots, from a heated open air pool tucked into the Durham Dales to organised open water sessions on some of Northumberland's prettiest lakes. A little more planning is required than simply turning up, but the reward is well worth it. Haltwhistle

Flower and Fruit Picking There's something rather satisfying about handing a wild child a basket and letting them loose in a field, particularly when the end result is a punnet of strawberries or an armful of dahlias to bring home. The North East isn't short of proper working farms happy to let you do exactly that, from soft fruit fields near Corbridge to a flower garden growing in the shadow of a medieval priory. Here are a few of our favourites. Brocksbushes Farm, Corbridge

Visit Bill Quay Farm Bill Quay Farm is one of Gateshead's quieter treasures, a twenty seven acre community farm overlooking the River Tyne, run largely by Chrysalis Training and the Bill Quay Community Farm Association for the benefit of the whole neighbourhood. It's a small, unpolished, thoroughly genuine sort of place, home to rare breed pigs, sheep, goats and geese, and it's entirely free to wander around, animal food available for a couple of pounds a bag if your wild chi

Visit Rising Sun Country Park Rising Sun Country Park is a genuine green oasis in the heart of North Tyneside, 162 hectares of grassland, woodland and ponds built, rather wonderfully, on the site of a former colliery. There are four well marked trails of varying length, a lake with bird hides for spotting ducks and geese, and, right in the middle of it all, a proper working community farm that's completely free to wander into. The lowdown: Where: Rising Sun Countryside Centre

Visit the Angel of the North Few landmarks say "you're in the North East" quite as emphatically as Antony Gormley's Angel, standing sentinel on a Gateshead hillside beside the A1 since 1998. Twenty metres tall with a wingspan wider than a jumbo jet, she's one of the most viewed pieces of public art in the country, seen by an estimated thirty three million people a year from passing cars and trains alone. Up close, she's rather more moving than any photograph quite manages to

Visit Plessey Woods Country Park Known locally as Bluebell Woods, Plessey Woods is a hundred acres of woodland, wildflower meadow and riverside tucked along the River Blyth between Bedlington and Cramlington. It has a lovely, unhurried feel to it, with winding nature trails, a sculpture trail dotted through the trees, and a river bank where otters and kingfishers occasionally make an appearance if you're patient. It's the sort of gentle countryside spot that rewards a slow wa

Visit Hamsterley Forest County Durham's largest forest is a proper destination in its own right, the sort of place you can happily lose an entire day in. Hamsterley offers a huge network of walking and cycling trails through ancient woodland, from gentle riverside strolls to more serious mountain biking routes, along with a well loved children's trail based on Julia Donaldson's stories. It's a fair drive out from Newcastle, around ninety minutes, but for a wild child who need

Visit Northumberlandia, the Lady of the North There is genuinely nothing else quite like Northumberlandia. Just outside Cramlington, a vast reclining female figure has been sculpted from 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil, rising a full one hundred feet from the surrounding parkland. Designed by the artist Charles Jencks, she stretches a quarter of a mile long, with four miles of paths winding over and around her. It's part art installation, part country park, and enti

Visit Discovery Museum, Newcastle Discovery Museum is one of those places that manages to be genuinely fascinating for adults while offering a wild child an entire day's worth of things to press, pull and investigate. Housed in the old Co-operative Wholesale Society building near Newcastle city centre, it tells the story of Tyneside's maritime, scientific and industrial past, with the magnificent Turbinia, once the fastest ship in the world, taking pride of place at the entra

Visit West Park Pump Track, South Shields If your wild child is more inclined towards wheels than wellies, South Tyneside's new pump track is well worth the trip. Opened in 2026 on the site of four long unused tennis courts, this £175,000 facility offers a large, flowing tarmac circuit designed for bikes, scooters, skates and skateboards, plus a dedicated toddler section for those just learning to balance. It's already proved enormously popular since opening, and it's entirel

Visit King Edward's Bay, Tynemouth, for rock pooling Of all the beaches along this stretch of coast, King Edward's Bay is the one to seek out if rock pooling is the plan. It's a small, sheltered, sandy cove tucked beneath high cliffs, just along from the more famous Long Sands, and considerably quieter for it. When the tide draws back, it reveals a wonderful scattering of rock pools, perfect for a determined wild child armed with a net and a bucket, hunting for crabs, anemone