Traveling Route through Poland by Car for Families with Children

Poland is a great destination if you’re travelling with children. There are many entertainment and water parks, interesting museums and attractions here. And the prices in Poland are definitely lower than in Lithuania. We go to Poland very often for entertainment and holidays. We would like to share with you travelling route in Poland by car – some routes we will share are some of the most popular for travelling with children and those travelling routes are recommended to all parents.

This detailed travel itinerary by car in Poland with children prepared for you is intended for those who want to visit the most popular attractions with children in Poland and the largest water park in Europe. In this article, you will find a detailed route and all the necessary information on how to plan your route, where to stay and what to do.

Travel Planning

This travel route by car in Poland with children is perfect for families with children of all ages. In order for the trip to be a great success, though, we recommend that you properly prepare for it. Be sure to read our prepared article before your trip: “Tips for preparing for a trip with children”.

You can find all our recommendations on how to prepare for a road trip by car in the article “Traveling by car with a baby or child”.

If this is your first trip with a baby, please read the article “First trip with baby”. And if it’s the first time with a child, please read our prepared tips in the article “First trip with a child”.

Since you will cover a lot of kilometers during the trip, make sure to keep the children busy in the car. For this, we have prepared an article for you. Please read “How to keep kids busy while travelling”.

Also, be sure to provide snacks for the children. In Poland, there is a very large assortment of various snacks for children in stores. So feel free to stop at grocery stores on the way (Biedrionka, Kauflad) and you will definitely fill the children’s snack boxes with treats. You can read what delicious things to buy and more information about shopping in Poland in our article Shopping and entertainment in Poland in Suwalki, and in our article Entertainment and shopping in Augusta in Poland.

The First Day

We leave Lithuania very early (we recommend leaving around 5 o’clock in the morning) so that you can stop more often with your children and rest your legs. We also recommend that you have a leisurely lunch. Here’s a place we like very much – Zajazd Orchidea. This inn is about 80 km from Warsaw, so it is a great place for us to have lunch and rest. And the food here is very tasty.

We continue to Wrocław. The journey from Vilnius to Wroclaw takes about 9-10 hours. Based on my experience traveling with children and making several short stops and one longer lunch stop, the trip takes us about 11-12 hours. Since the time in Poland differs, you can expect to arrive at the hotel around 16:00 – 17:00. Of course it depends on where you live.

We recommend using the Booking.com reservation system – the system always works for us when looking for the best accommodation offers.

After staying at the hotel, we recommend that you definitely take a walk around the Old Town of Wrocław. The city is very beautiful – especially the Market Square which is furnished with Renaissance-style houses and the Gothic-style town hall. Also have dinner in the old town.

Dwarfs are the symbol of the city of Wrocław. The whole city is full of them! For those who want to hunt down all the dwarves, a map has been released and a smartphone app has been created. Here’s a Dwarf “embassy” – it’s a website. It contains a brief description of each dwarf. We promise you: if you send your children gnome hunting, it will be a great entertainment.

On the first day of the trip, you have to drive about 850 km. (We calculate the distance from Vilnius).

The Second Day

After breakfast at the hotel, we travel to the wildest and largest zoo in Poland. The Wroclaw Zoo was established in 1865, when the city was still part of the Kingdom of Prussia. This is not only the oldest, but also the largest zoo in Poland. On the territory of 33 hectares, you can see 1100 different species of animals. In total, more than 14,000 individuals live here, and they’re coming from various corners of the world – Africa, North and South America, Asia, and Australia. We recommend buying tickets in advance.

In 2014, Afrikarium (made from a combination of the words Africa and aquarium) was established in the museum. Thanks to the concept of the facility, Afrikarium has become a unique global complex presenting the African environment.

The “Red Sea”

“Red Sea” (coral reefs created in a tank with a capacity of 1 million l, among which 60 species of colorful fish dive), “East Africa” ​​(hippo diving in a huge aquarium), “Mozambique Canal” (an 18-meter suspended acrylic tunnel, which you can admire while traveling turtles, stingrays, like rocket-launching sharks), “Congo River Jungle (crocodiles, sirens), “Skeleton Coast” (jellyfish, morays, other interesting burrowing animals and eels).

The exposition dedicated to the African continent allows the visitor to feel that he is not only in the jungle, but also underwater, where he can observe the fauna of the African coasts and depths for a whole day. It is not for nothing that this pavilion is the No. 1 attraction in Poland.

After the visit, you leave for Katowice, where you spend the night in a hotel. We recommend using the Booking.com reservation system – it always works for us when looking for the best accommodation offers.

Depending on how long you will spend in the zoo and Afrikanium and when you will arrive in Katowice, we have two recommendations for you.

Recommendations in the City of Katowice

Here’s a place we like very much – the Nemo Water Park is located near the city of Katowice. It has three outdoor pools that are open seasonally, outdoor trampolines for children, as well as an outdoor and indoor cafe. Inside is a great area for children. More information with exact coordinates of Nemo water park can be found in the “Travelling with Children ®” Krakow attractions map.

If you like shopping, we highly recommend the Fashion House Sosnowiec. Fashion House Sosnowiec is a very large outlet center near Katowice. Here you will find our favorite children’s store Smyk, as well as Guess, Benetton, Nike, Puma, Reebok, Regatta, New Balance and many more.

You drive about 300 kilometers a day.

The Third Day

After breakfast at the hotel, apartment or cozy cafe, travel to Energylandia. This is the largest amusement park in Poland, which has three main zones: Baikolandia (intended for very young children), Family and Extreme.

A childhood paradise awaits the smallest park visitors: not only carousels and trains, but also heroes of favorite fairy tales.

The Family Zone and the Viking Village

The family zone established in the Viking village will not disappoint, and the adrenaline dose will be increased by sailing on a real Viking ship on a crazy river, Dragon and Boomerang trains, an interactive monster attack and many other fun attractions.

The extreme zone is for the bravest. You will go up to a height of 33 meters on the Mayan train, on the Formula 1 attraction you will go at a speed of 100 km/h, and on the Water train you will go up to a height of 60 meters and go down at a speed of 110 km/h.

We strongly recommend buying tickets in advance at a reliable and tested reservation system.

More about Energylandia

Read about the trip to Energylandia in the articles “Train trip to Krakow with children”, “Krakow with children: Energylandia Park and Zoo”

We recommend that you go to the park from the moment it opens and stay until it closes. And if you’re going in summer, we recommend spending one more day at the Energylandia water park. We recommend it to you because it is impressive and definitely worth visiting.

You will be really tired after the park, so take your children to the hotel to rest. If you still want to have dinner in Krakow, we recommend:

• Judah food market. A very popular food van spot. Located in the Jewish Quarter.
• Wezze kraft. A very popular place among young people and tourists. It has a great patio and bakes very tasty pizzas.
• Under wawelem. A mix of Polish and German cuisine. Very tasty food and huge portions. The prices are very friendly.
• Bark. Restaurant on the ship, on the Vistula river. There are concerts, simple but really delicious food.

About 50 kilometers from Katowice to Energylandia. It depends on where you stay after Energylandia and if you go to Krakow. However, you will probably drive no more than 100 kilometers per day.

If you decide to stay in Krakow, you will definitely find good accommodation options on Booking.com.

Booking.com

The Fourth Day

Get up a little earlier so that the kids can sleep in the car and drive to Suntag Water Park. The distance is about 300 kilometers. With a short stop, you can cover it in four hours, because the road is good. Suntago is the largest water amusement park in Europe, the size of which is about 70,000 sq. m. About 15,000 people can visit it per day. With a temperature of around 32 degrees and 740 palm trees imported from Malaysia, Florida and Costa Rica, this water park is sure to keep you entertained. The park is divided into three separate zones. Relax Suntago, Jamango and Saunaria Suntago.

The park is open from 10:00 a.m. excluding public holidays. The rinks are open from 1:00 p.m., from which time the crowd starts to increase. If you want to enjoy the park when there are fewer people, come from 10:00 a.m. It is best to go on a weekday, not on a weekend, because there are really many people.

Although there are many cafes and restaurants in the park, if there are more people, you may have to wait for more than an hour. There is a wide selection of food, from pizza to Asian food and ice cream. The prices are really friendly. There are several cafes where mothers can drink wine or a cocktail.

We recommend that you bring drinks or snacks with you, you can have a picnic outside in the summer and inside in the winter. Food and drinks are free to bring into the park.

Recommendations for Visiting the Suntag Water Park

Buy your tickets in advance, because lines are twice or three times shorter to enter the park with already purchased tickets. In addition, with a ticket you are 100% guaranteed to enter the park, as the number of people during the COVID pandemic was limited. Tickets can be purchased on the park’s website.

Ticket prices for smaller children are determined by height up to 90 cm, up to 120 cm. Although most of the slides are designed from 120 cm, but the person maintaining the slide decides whether to allow a child to go down it.

Zones in the Water Park

There are three zones, but only Jamango is allowed to go through if you’re travelling with children. In other areas, people are really less, because many people come to the park with children.

By the way, there is a shop before entering the park – that’s a fit if you sometimes forget your swimming ring, flip flops, shampoo or other accessories necessary for swimming.

We recommend spending a whole day in the park, because there are really many activities. A four-hour ticket is really too little, because you won’t have time to try even a small part of the entertainment. And the two-hour ticket is not even worth thinking about!

Believe me, after the Suntag water park you will definitely want to go to the hotel and rest.

We recommend using the Booking.com reservation system – it always works for us when looking for the best accommodation offers.

Booking.com

Depending on where you stay in Warsaw, the distance from Suntag will be about 50 kilometers. If you still choose to spend four hours in Suntag, you will have time for a walk or dinner in Warsaw. Information on what to do in Warsaw can be found in the article Traveling to Warsaw by train with children – a serious challenge or a fun experience?

For dinner, we recommend the Food Hall Brewery – here you will find food for different tastes, from pizzas to Thai cuisine or tapas. The place is spacious, has a cozy courtyard, many tables inside and chairs for children. We also really like the Bar Koszyki too. It is a very big food market. A very popular place.

You will drive about 350 kilometers.

The Fifth Day

After breakfast, we recommend you drive to the Copernicus Science Center. At the Copernicus Science Center, you can visit exhibitions where many of the “exhibits” can be touched and, in the true sense of the word, tried for yourself. In the center you can also visit the performances of the Robot Theater and the High Voltage Theater or take part in scientific experiments. Mini-workshops in the center’s laboratories and breathtaking sensations in one of the most modern planetariums in Poland are also waiting for you. We recommend buying tickets in advance, as the museum is very popular.

After visiting the museum, have lunch and drive home. We highly recommend having lunch at the restaurant Podwale 25. This is a very large German-style restaurant in the Old Town of Warsaw, right next to the defensive city wall. If you like Bavarian-style restaurants, German sausages, you will like this restaurant as much as we do. The locally brewed beer is very tasty here. The portions are very large and the food is really tasty.

After your day finishes, Vilnius will be just 500 kilometers away. With several stops, it will take you about 7 hours.

You can plan a longer trip as well – for that, stay one day in Krakow and one day in Warsaw.

This travel route by car in Poland is a short option that will allow you to get to know the largest and most popular objects visited with children in Poland. However, there are a lot of water parks, amusement parks and very interesting museums in Poland. If you are looking for more ideas on where to go to have fun with children in Poland – you will find all the information in the article Amusement parks in Poland with children.

Read about traveling in Poland here – A trip to the Tatras with children and a baby, or in our article A trip to the Polish seaside with children.

This article is author’s work and was prepared by “Travelling with Children ®”. Copying and using without permission is strictly prohibited.

You can find more information about places of interest throughout Lithuania on our website, on the Facebook account “Travelling with children” and on the Instagram account “Travelling with children”.

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