Le Touquet with kids: things to do with children aged 0 to 15

With children, Le Touquet ticks almost every box: a vast beach with no pebbles, a flat town where you can cycle away from cars, supervised activities for every age and short distances that spare you long journeys. The resort also holds the national Famille Plus label, which recognises destinations that take special care to welcome families.

Here are our ideas sorted by age, followed by outings for rainy days and family day trips in the surrounding area.

What makes Le Touquet so easy with children

• The gently sloping beach: you can walk a long way in shallow water, and the fine sand is perfect for building castles.
• Everything is on foot or by bike: market, beach, ice-cream shop and playgrounds, without getting back in the car.
• Cycle paths separate from the roads in the forest, reassuring for young cyclists.
• Supervised activities all year round, with more on offer during the French school holidays.
• Free places to go: skatepark, playgrounds, the Parc de l'Estuaire, treasure trails and nature paths.

One small drawback: the Channel stays cool and the wind picks up quickly. Pack windbreakers and spare clothes, even in July.

With toddlers and pre-schoolers (0-5)

The Festival des Tout-Petits

Every summer, from mid-July to mid-August, Le Touquet hosts the Festival des Tout-Petits, a programme of shows, workshops and activities designed for children aged 0 to 12. The programme changes each year and is published by the tourist office before the summer.

Beach clubs

From age 3, the beach clubs set up in front of the promenade are where young holidaymakers meet: supervised games, trampolines and sandcastle competitions. The tourist office lists Ojem Jeunesse, Ojem OM and Caddy Sports among others. You can sign up by the half-day or by the week.

Little seafront treats

• the wooden-horse merry-go-round and the carousel;
• the little tourist train that tours the resort;
• the free playgrounds and the Parc de l'Estuaire, to the north near the Canche bay;
• a pushchair stroll along the promenade at sunset.

With 6-12-year-olds

This is the ideal age to make the most of the resort. A few activities that never fail:

Climbing the Canche lighthouse, a historic monument almost 58 metres tall, is a small adventure: more than 270 steps, then a view over the whole bay. It opens at certain times, notably at weekends and during the school holidays. The treasure trails and orienteering course offered by the tourist office are another fun way to discover the town.

With teenagers

Teenagers love the independence a bike gives them in a safe, compact resort. There is plenty of sport on offer:

• surfing, kitesurfing and paddleboarding with the Centre nautique de la Manche;
• tennis and padel at the Pierre de Coubertin tennis centre, one of the largest on the coast;
• golf, with lessons and a covered driving range;
• escape game, cinema and skatepark for evenings or grey days.

Sporty types will find all the details in our article on sport in Le Touquet. Budget-wise, many activities are free: skatepark, beach, forest, observation hides and playgrounds. Enough to alternate a paid outing with a "nature" day without breaking the bank.

Nature at a child's level

Children love the sense of adventure in the natural areas around the town, as long as you adapt the distance. To the north, the Canche Bay Nature Park offers a pine-wood loop of about 1 km, manageable for little legs, and the clifftop road, closed to cars, leads to an observation hide where you can watch the estuary birds and, with a bit of luck, seals lying on the sandbanks at low tide. Bring binoculars: it's often the best memory of the holiday.

In the forest, children can play at spotting red squirrels, which the town protects with rope bridges strung between trees above some avenues. On the beach at low tide, the "bâches" (the large pools left by the sea) are full of little crabs and shrimps to observe before releasing them.

• stay on the paths in the dunes, as the vegetation is fragile;
• keep at least 300 metres between you and the seals, and never approach them;
• check the time of the incoming tide before heading far out onto the foreshore.

To know which animals to look for, read our article on Le Touquet's wildlife, and to choose your patch of sand, our guide to Le Touquet beach.

When it rains, and for day trips

A rainy day is no disaster in Le Touquet. The Musée du Touquet-Paris-Plage, the media library, the cinema, the escape game or art workshops take over. We've gathered more ideas in our article what to do in Le Touquet when it rains.

Please note: the former Aqualud water park on the seafront has been closed since 2019 and is no longer an option.

Family day trips

• Parc Bagatelle: the Opal Coast's historic amusement park, opened in 1955 between Le Touquet and Berck, with around thirty rides, some of them for little ones. It's reached by car via the D940, heading south.
• Nausicaá, the national sea centre (a large aquarium) in Boulogne-sur-Mer, about thirty kilometres to the north.
• The seals of the Authie bay, at Berck, which can be watched from a distance from the beach.

Where to stay in Le Touquet with children?

With children, the right accommodation changes everything: being within walking distance of the beach and shops, having room to hang out swimsuits and proper baby equipment saves a lot of back-and-forth. That's what we wanted at Villa Mon Étoile: our family apartments, 300 metres from the beach, are equipped for a baby (travel cot, high chair, baby bath, child-friendly tableware, games and books), and together the two apartments form a four-bedroom duplex for eight people (plus two babies), handy for travelling with grandparents or another family.

Charles's tip: book beach clubs and sand-yachting courses as soon as you arrive, or even beforehand for the summer holidays: places go fast. And plan your days around the tide rather than the clock: low tide in the morning means shrimping and cycling on the sand; high tide in the afternoon means swimming near the promenade.