Best Brighton Kids' Activities
Where to take children in Brighton, from the pier and the pebbles to a runway café, a butterfly house and a splatter studio
Brighton is one of the easiest cities in England to visit with children. The beach is a five-minute walk from almost everywhere, the pier is free to wander, and when the weather turns there are activities, museums and pools within a short bus ride. We have been placing families in Brighton holiday homes since 2003, and these are the places our guests come back talking about, from the obvious seafront stops to a couple of spots that Shoreham and Stanmer locals would rather we kept quiet.
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The Hummingbird at Brighton City Airport
The Hummingbird is the cafe inside the terminal at Brighton City Airport, the old Shoreham aerodrome and the oldest purpose-built commercial airport in the world still in use. You sit on a terrace a few feet from the runway while light aircraft and trainee pilots take off and land all afternoon, and children will happily stay for as long as the cake lasts. Truffles Bakery runs the kitchen, so breakfasts, lunches and cream teas are a cut above airport food. Walk along the River Adur afterwards for an even better view of the planes coming in, with the Downs and Lancing College chapel behind. It is half an hour from Brighton on the 700 bus and costs nothing beyond what you eat.
Sussex Butterfly Gardens at One Garden Brighton
Opened in May 2026 inside the restored 1952 Palm House at One Garden Brighton, on the edge of Stanmer Park, this is a warm, humid glasshouse full of hundreds of tropical butterflies and moths living among the plants they feed on. Stand still and one will land on you, which is the moment every child remembers. It is run with Plumpton College as a teaching space, so the labels and the staff are good at answering the questions you cannot. It opens daily with tickets sold in advance through butterflygardenbrighton.co.uk, and One Garden's café and walled gardens are outside the door. One of the best wet-weather outings in the city.
Painting Pottery Café
The Painting Pottery Café in the North Laine is the rainy-day standby Brighton parents recommend to each other. You pick a piece from the shelves, a mug, a dinosaur, a plate, and paint it at the table while the staff keep the drinks and the encouragement coming. The piece is glazed and fired after you leave and collected a few days later, or posted home if you are heading back, which turns a wet afternoon into a souvenir. Sessions suit toddlers through to teenagers, and there is no time pressure. Book at weekends and in school holidays.
The Last Drip Studios
Tucked into Brighton Square in The Lanes, The Last Drip is a splatter art studio: everyone pulls on a poncho, picks a canvas, and throws, flicks and squirts paint at it for an hour with water guns and unlimited refills of every colour. There are no rules and no skills required, which is exactly why children love it and why parents end up joining in. Your finished canvas goes home in a pizza box, slots start at around £20 a person, and the studio opens from Thursday to Sunday. Wear old shoes.
Loading Brighton
Loading is a gaming cafe on Madeira Drive next to the Palace Pier, with more than eighty board games on the shelves, consoles on the big screens and a few arcade machines. The first hour is free and it is a couple of pounds a person an hour after that, so a wet morning costs less than a round of doughnuts. The menu runs from brunch and burgers to milkshakes, the staff will pick a game to suit the ages at your table, and nobody minds noise. A good answer to the question of what to do with a teenager who has had enough of the beach.
Saltdean Lido
Saltdean Lido is a 1938 Art Deco outdoor pool a few miles east of Brighton, the only Grade II* listed lido in the country and a building that looks like an ocean liner has moored at the foot of the Downs. The main pool is 40 metres and heated, and there is a separate shallow paddling pool with its own splash area for the little ones, which is where most families end up parked for the afternoon. Family swim sessions run on weekends and through the school holidays, the season is roughly May to September, and you need to book a slot online before you go, as under 8s must be in the water with an adult (one grown-up for every two children). The restored clubhouse has a café with a sun terrace overlooking the pool, and Saltdean beach is just over the coast road when you are done. Take the 12 bus along the cliffs from the city centre; the views alone make the trip worth it.
Munchies' Craft
Munchies' Craft on Market Street was Brighton's first cat café, a two-floor space where rescue cats wander between the tables and mostly ignore you, which is somehow the appeal. Slots are an hour, around £10 a person and must be booked, and the kitchen serves tapas and cakes while you wait for a cat to choose your lap. Staff explain the house rules on arrival (let the cats come to you), which makes it a gentle introduction for children who are new to animals. It also runs events, from craft evenings to tarot with cats, if you want something odder.
Stanmer Park
Stanmer Park is the big green escape on the northern edge of the city: woodland trails, wide lawns for picnics and football, a village with a church and a duck pond, and One Garden Brighton's walled garden and café at the heart of it. Children can run for hours here without meeting a road, and the woods have enough fallen trees to keep a den-building afternoon going. It is a short bus ride from the centre on the 25, with parking if you drive. Pair it with the Butterfly Gardens for a full day, or bring a ball and a blanket and do nothing much.
Maverick Boat Adventures
Maverick runs fast RIB trips out of Newhaven Marina along the coast to the Seven Sisters, the white cliffs you have seen on every postcard, seen from the sea for around £35 a head for an hour and a half. Sit at the front if your children like a bump and a splash, at the back if they do not. The crew keep it lively with the history of the coastline and there are calmer sunset cruises too. Newhaven is twenty minutes from Brighton by train, and this is the day trip families rate highest when they come back to us.
VRROOM Racing
VRROOM at Brighton Marina puts you in a full-motion racing simulator wrapped in three big screens, so the car pitches and lurches under you through an F1 circuit or a Nürburgring lap with no headset involved. School-holiday sessions open the room up to children, and older kids and teenagers treat it like the best arcade of their lives. Sessions are around two hours, it opens daily from midday, and there is a sports bar alongside for whoever is waiting. Book online and settle the lap-time arguments on the walk back along the Marina.
Brighton Palace Pier
The Palace Pier is where every Brighton family visit starts: free to walk along, with rides and a helter-skelter at the far end, arcades in the middle, and the smell of doughnuts and chips the whole length. Buy a wristband if your children are going to want every ride, or pay per go if they only want the carousel. Go early in the day in summer before the queues build, and go at dusk in winter for the lights and the starlings wheeling over the old West Pier next door.
SEA LIFE Brighton
Opposite the pier, SEA LIFE Brighton is the oldest aquarium in the world, opened in 1872, and its Victorian arcade of arched brick and cast iron is worth the ticket on its own. Under the vaults you get sharks and rays in the big tank, a glass-bottomed boat ride over them, turtles, seahorses and a rock pool where children can touch a crab. It takes about an hour and a half, which makes it the ideal rainy-morning plan before lunch on the seafront. Book online for a cheaper ticket than the door price.
Brighton i360
The i360 is the glass pod on the seafront that rises slowly to 138 metres and hangs there while you look along the coast to the Seven Sisters one way and the Isle of Wight on a clear day the other. The pod is wide and calm enough that even nervous children settle, the flight lasts about twenty-five minutes, and there is a bar on board for the adults. It is at the foot of the West Pier ruins, so pair it with a paddle on the beach below. Book a slot around sunset if you can.
Upside Down House Brighton
The Upside Down House on the seafront by the i360 is exactly what it says: a house built on its roof, with every room inside flipped so you appear to stand on the ceiling in the photos. It takes fifteen minutes, costs a few pounds, and produces the pictures your children will be showing people for months. There is usually a short queue at weekends but it moves quickly. A good add-on to a seafront morning rather than a destination on its own.
Volk's Electric Railway
Volk's is the oldest operating electric railway in the world, running along the seafront since 1883 between the aquarium, Peter Pan's Playground and Black Rock near the Marina. The little open carriages rattle along the top of the beach at walking pace, which is a perfect distance for small legs and a genuinely nice way to get from the pier to the Marina. It runs from spring to autumn and tickets are a couple of pounds each way. Get off at the halfway station for the playground and the beach volleyball courts.
Yellowave Beach Sports
Yellowave on Madeira Drive is a purpose-built beach sports centre with sand courts for volleyball, alongside a café with a terrace looking over the action, making it the perfect spot to book a court for an hour or join one of the kids' holiday sessions. It is a real run-around in the sun without the tide to worry about, and the café does great coffee for parents on the sidelines. If you are looking for a wider variety of sports like footvolley, beach tennis, or beach soccer, Yellowave has also expanded to a second multi-sport location further down the coast at Hove Beach Park.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
Brighton Museum sits in the Royal Pavilion Gardens, a couple of minutes from the pier, and is the easy first museum for children: a mix of Egyptian mummies, a giant Salvador Dali sofa shaped like Mae West's lips, Brighton's own history and rotating family trails. Locals get in free and visitors pay a modest ticket, which can be combined with the Pavilion next door. The gardens outside are the best picnic spot in the centre, with the Pavilion's onion domes as the backdrop. Allow an hour inside and as long as you like on the grass.
Brighton Toy and Model Museum
Hidden in the arches under Brighton Station, the Toy and Model Museum is packed with thousands of vintage toys, teddy bears, Meccano and, best of all, working model railway layouts that run through the day. It is small, quiet and unhurried, the kind of place a grandparent and a six-year-old enjoy equally, and the ticket is modest. Because it is at the station it makes a good last stop before a train home. Check the running times for the trains before you go.
Brighton Fishing Museum
Under the arches on the seafront between the piers, the Fishing Museum tells the story of Brighton's fishing families with a full-size Sussex beach boat, old photographs and film of the town before the tourists. It is free, takes around twenty minutes, and sits among the last working fishing boats on the beach, the smokehouse and the fish stalls, so children can see the real thing outside the door. Stop for a crab sandwich or a whelk from the stalls next to it if they are brave.
Pier Pressure Escape Rooms
Pier Pressure in the North Laine runs Brighton-themed escape rooms, from a seaside gangster caper to a modernist mystery, that older children and teenagers rate as highly as the adults. You get sixty minutes as a team to crack the puzzles and get out, younger children can play alongside an adult, and the game masters pitch the hints to the group. It is the best answer we know to a rainy afternoon with kids who think they have outgrown museums. Book a room in advance, especially in the holidays.
Amex Stadium Tours
Brighton & Hove Albion's stadium at Falmer opens its doors for tours that take you through the players' entrance, the changing rooms, the press room and out through the tunnel to the edge of the pitch. Football-mad children get the biggest thrill, but the guides tell the club's story well enough that the rest of the family enjoys it too. The stadium is ten minutes from Brighton by train to Falmer, and the tour takes around ninety minutes. Check the calendar, as tours pause around match days.
Hollywood Bowl Brighton Marina
Hollywood Bowl at the Marina is the wet-weather fallback that works for every age: bumpers and lightweight balls for the small ones, an arcade with the usual grabbers and racers, and a diner for the interval. It sits among the Marina's restaurants and the cinema, so you can make an evening of it, and the boardwalk outside is a good place to burn off the sugar afterwards. Book a lane online for weekends and school holidays, and pair it with a walk along the harbour wall to see the boats.
LaserZone Brighton
LaserZone on West Street is a crash-landed spaceship of an arena, all swirling smoke, black light and two floors of ramps and hiding places to stalk your family through. You can book one, two or three missions at a time, with a single game from around £9 a head and a three-game pack with a drink and a keepsake for under £20. The minimum age is six, the phasers are light enough for small hands, and the printed scorecard at the end settles every argument about who really won. It is a couple of minutes' walk up from the seafront, so it works as a rainy-day fallback or a way to burn off the last of the energy before tea. Our tip is to book a weekday slot in the school holidays, when the weekend queues get long.
Globalls
Globalls at Brighton Marina is crazy golf played in the dark under ultraviolet light, with three 12-hole courses to choose from: Aquatica under the sea, Jurassic among life-sized glowing dinosaurs, and Zootopia with a neon zebra and a rhino covered in stars. Everything is hand-painted by the in-house team, so it feels more like walking into a fluorescent cartoon than a golf course, and small children who lose interest in the scoring still love the sculptures. A course is around £10 a person and a round is quick enough that two courses with a slushie in between fills a wet afternoon nicely. It sits on the Marina's Waterfront strip alongside the cinema and the bowling alley, which makes it easy to stack with lunch or a film. Wear white or something pale if you want to glow along with the dinosaurs.
Lagoon Watersports at Hove Lagoon
Hove Lagoon is a shallow, sheltered saltwater lake tucked behind the beach huts on the Kingsway, and Lagoon Watersports has been teaching children to sail, windsurf, paddleboard and wakeboard on it for years. Because the water is shallow and flat there is none of the intimidation of the open sea, so nervous first-timers find their balance quickly, and there is a cable-tow wakeboard course for the older ones (from around age ten) who want more speed. Kids' clubs and multi-activity days run through the school holidays with all the kit included, and you need to book ahead as places go fast in August. Sessions start from around £35, and the family can hire paddleboards together on a calm day. The Big Beach Café and a playground sit on the lagoon's edge, so anyone who would rather stay dry is catered for too.
Ball Park Brighton
Ball Park on the Marina's upper boardwalk is Sussex's first football tech arena, a set of eleven pro-standard games of the kind Premier League academies use: a ten-metre sprint lane, a speed radar for shot power, a precision wall that lights up targets, an interactive ICON circle to dribble around and a Ronaldo header challenge for the ambitious. Sessions are around £10 a head and the games score you as you go, so competitive siblings will happily spend an hour trying to beat each other's numbers. It runs toddler mornings for the under fives and a quieter sensory room with a bubble wall for anyone who needs a breather. Parents get a sports bar with the football on, and the cinema and bowling are a few doors along if you want to make a day of it. Book online at weekends and in the school holidays, as the arenas fill up fast.
Jumpin Fun Inflatable Park
Jumpin Fun in Burgess Hill is a warehouse-sized inflatable park about 20 minutes' drive north of Brighton, with a giant ball pit, a wipeout-style spinning beam, obstacle courses, slides and a ninja rig of hanging nets and monkey bars for the older ones. Open Bounce sessions run every weekend in term time and daily in the school holidays, at around £16 for an hour for the over fives or £22 for two, and children aged four and under go in on a discounted ticket that includes the supervising adult. Toddler Time sessions are a calmer £5 affair for the smallest bouncers, and midweek in term time there is an Eat and Play deal with pizza and chips thrown in. Wear ordinary socks, as grip socks are not allowed here, and book online because holiday sessions sell out. It is the one we suggest when a family has a car and a child who needs thoroughly wearing out.
Monkey Bizness Lewes
Monkey Bizness on the Cliffe Industrial Estate in Lewes is a big, bright soft play centre for children up to twelve, a short drive east of Brighton along the A27. There are multi-level play frames with tube slides and a wide wavy slide, a separate padded area for babies and toddlers, and a café with tables close enough to the frames that you can drink a coffee while still seeing where everyone is. Entry is around £7 to £8 for four to twelve year olds and a little less for the under fours, with adults in for pennies, and sessions are sometimes capped at a couple of hours when it gets busy in the holidays. Lewes itself is a lovely town to add on, with the castle and Harvey's brewery along the High Street, so it works as a half-day out rather than just a run-around. Socks for everyone, including any grown-ups who plan to go in.
