10 Family adventures in Asia for your bucket list

If the pandemic has taught us anything, surely it’s that we should make the most of life while we can, as you never quite know what is lurking around the corner. Asia alone, as a continent, has bucket loads of amazing places to visit with once in a life time family adventures on offer.

With better times for sure to come, we’d like to inspire you, so have a look at these ten amazing family adventures in Asia!

1. A toboggan ride descending from The Great Wall of China

family adventures

No trip to China’s capital Beijing is complete without a visit to The Great Wall. But if just gawping at its ancient architecture is not thrilling enough for you, you can head to the Mutianyu section of the wall and choose to take the chairlift up and the toboggan ride down. Three generations of our family enjoyed this experience, ranging from the young three year old to the young at heart seventy something – it’s fair to say that some travelled faster than others! Please have a look here at our article for more info.

2. Cruising around Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

This Unesco World heritage site boasts 1600 limestone islands and islets cover 1,500 square km.

The best way to get to Ha Long Bay is by car or bus from Hanoi. There are many companies offering day trips or longer stays aboard a boat. Our children were young at the time, so we opted for a day trip, but if we went back again I think an overnight stay would be fun. More here!

3. Giving elephants a spa in Phuket, Thailand

We took the kids for this family adventure to the Phuket Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. If you don’t mind getting your hands (and everywhere else) dirty, you can spend a memorable morning or afternoon feeding, covering in mud and then showering down a small group of big and baby elephants. This is a sanctuary, where the ethical treatment of these magnificent animals all over the world is promoted. Have a look here for more information of the company we booked with.

4. A boat trip in Luang Prabang, Laos

We loved our long weekend exploring Luang Prabang by bike, tuk tuks and long boats. But one of the highlights was reaching a restaurant called Dyen Sabai by boat and then enjoying watching life on the Nam Khan River from the comfort of the open air restaurant perched by the bank.

The free boat ride is only available from noon to closing time during the rainy season, the rest of the year the restaurant can be accessed via a bamboo bridge. More info on the boat ride and Luang Prabang here.

5. Riding on a buffalo and crab fishing in Hoi An, Vietnam

A lot of people can claim to have mounted a horse, but not everyone can boast that that they have bareback ridden on a water buffalo. As if this wasn’t enough fun for one morning, it was followed up by trying to catch crabs in a traditional Vietnamese basket boat, whilst balancing a conical hat on your head. We could have even cycled through the streets of Hoi An to access these adventures, if we’d had wanted to. More info about cycling tours here.

Here are a few more adventures we still want to tick off before we kick the bucket:

6. Renting an E-bike in Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan

E-biking is so much fun! Probably the best place to whizz around on electric bikes has got to be Bagan in Myanmar, surrounded by 2000 red brick Buddhist temples and pagodas. More info here.

7. Watching the sunrise at Mount Bromo, Indonesia

Credits: Harriet ten Hoopen

Now not many spectacles would drag me from my bed in the middle of the night, but I am willing to make an exception to see an active volcano (hopefully not too active) in all its glory at sunrise in Indonesia. Reaching nearly 2,500m, Mount Bromo is not the highest of peaks belonging to the Tengger Massif, but it is the most well known. More about traveling the island of Java, Indonesia, in our article here.

8. Snacking on street food and shopping in Seoul, South Korea

I love shopping whilst my family love eating, so we want to head to the Myeongdong area in Seoul that should tick both those boxes.

9. Sandboarding and kite surfing in Mui Ne, Vietnam

A 3 to 4 hours train ride from Ho Chi Minh city is Mui Ne, a coastal fishing town that offers rolling red sand dunes. Perfect for those that want to grab a plastic tray and go sliding down sandy banks. And if you still have some energy left, you can go kite surfing in nearly Phan Thiet.

10. The 10km Angkor Wat run in Siem Reap, Cambodia

I must confess I have already completed this once with a group of friends. Part of me wants to be the only member of the family that can brag about completing this, but it was just such a wonderful experience that I would like to go back and do the run again, with the rest of the family. It usually takes place in early December each year, but you’ll need to book way ahead of that. More info here. Money raised goes towards helping landmine victims in Cambodia.

Everybody has a different idea of what is fun. Some of you might be thrilled with the prospect of hopping over to Macao to go attempt the world’s highest bungee jump from a building. Whilst others might want to guzzle down the Japanese delicacy of Shirako made up of the male cods sperm sacs. My friend informs me it was just like mac and cheese, but as you can see it still didn’t make it on to my Asian bucket list. Whatever makes it on to your list of adventures I hope you have a whale of a time achieving your goals.

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