Spending some time on the beach in the Netherlands is always a good idea! We go to the beach in all seasons and love it in winter time with winds just as much as in spring or summer! Compared to other European beaches, I think the Dutch coastline really has it! There is always a nice beach restaurant with a loungy kind of style, for lunch or an ice cream in the summer, but also for a hot chocolate by the fire place in winter.
The beaches in the Netherlands are often quite large, and so there is lots of place for children to run around. Behind the beach is always the area of dunes that protect the country, which is below sea level. These sand dunes have special plants on it to keep the dunes in place and the area is often a nature reserve. Walking around in the dunes area is amazingly beautiful! Depending on where you go to the beach there can also be special activities in the dunes, like special walking trails for families, or the leftover bunkers of WWII to explore in Ijmuiden.
On Dutch beaches you can sometimes also ask for a ‘Jutterszak’. A sort of beach cleanup bag so you can motivate children, and yourself, to pick up plastic people leave on the beautiful beaches. Children often see this as a game and will be quickly running around trash treasure hunting.
You can read my blog post about this by clicking here.
Want to stay a bit longer at the Dutch coast? I totally understand!
I can recommend two towns, click on the town link to see hotel accomodation:
Or directly on the beach of Bloemendaal aan Zee