The Gold Coast’s fantastic wildlife sanctuaries have created habitats that offer littlies real-life experiences with native Australian animals. They can mingle with a mob of kangaroos, hand-feed lorikeets, nurse a baby crocodile and feed sharks and stingrays.

Dedicated to conserving Australia’s Indigenous and natural heritage, Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary boasts a variety of animal encounters for littlies. Older brothers and sisters will love a visit the Wildlife Hospital Foundation and should also try the tree-tops ropes course. Paradise Country is another great spot for koala encounters.

David Fleay Wildlife Park also hosts a range of native animals. It is in fact the only nature park on the Gold Coast with platypus. It is also home to fresh and saltwater crocodiles, snakes, lizards, kangaroos, koalas, native birds and butterflies.

In the hinterland, O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat offers excellent accessibility for wheelchair users and a fun Fire Engine Tour. You can also interact and see birdlife in action with their Birds of Prey Show.

And at Sea World the kids can steal a kiss from a seal, feed the Gentoo and King penguins or visit Polar Bear Shores, Australia’s only polar bear exhibit. If you’re also with older kids, they can enjoy animal experiences such as Seal Safari or the penguin Aquatic Adventure.

Read more: the best things to do on the Gold Coast with a baby or toddler

With a wealth of beaches, each boasting its own personality, families are spoiled for choice. But Main Beach, Surfers Paradise, Northcliffe, and Broadbeach are certainly the pick for younger kids. There is also Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creeks, two not-so-secret secret swimming holes inland from Currumbin Beach.

If you’d prefer bush to beach, take the kids to the hinterland. At Mount Tambourine village, enjoy arts and antique stores, great cafes and some of the Gold Coast’s best fudge. At Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk, stroll through the rainforest canopy and over the valley. Then, gently descend to the forest floor with its rockpools, waterfalls and butterfly lookout. If your kids like to dig and get dirty, the nearby Thunderbird Park has activities for every age, including fossicking for treasures in a thunderegg mine. There are in fact more than 100 challenges. These including 11 huge ziplines, suspended bridges, a Tarzan swing, barrels to crawl through and nets to climb. Right next to this is an awesome laser skirmish game, laid out like a movie set. It’s like being inside a computer game!

Up the road you can slow the pace down and go horse riding with Tamborine Mountain Trail Rides, along winding trails through cool, green rainforest.

A holiday to the Gold Coast ‘worlds’ is almost a rite-of-passage with Aussie kids. Not a school holiday goes past without a member of the class returning with wicked tales of slides, rides and rollercoasters.

Dreamworld is Australia’s biggest theme park. It is home to the Big 9 Thrill Rides, some of the country’s fastest, most action-packed, adrenaline-pumping rides. Partner park WhiteWater World boasts some of the coolest waterslides in the Southern Hemisphere such as the alarmingly named Wedgie, which shoots you down vertically through a trap door. There is also the Triple Vortex, the hottest high capacity tubing ride in the world.

Movie World has a mix of heart-thumping thrill rides, chilled rides for younger kids and fantastic movie entertainment. Be sure to schedule in the ‘edge-of-your-seat’ action of the Hollywood Stunt Driver Show.

Enjoy Sea World’s Shark Bay, especially the Tropical Reef Snorkel. Here you can swim with rays, reef sharks and thousands of colourful tropical fish. It’s a great introduction to snorkeling for confident guppies, especially if you can’t get as far as the Great Barrier Reef itself.

At Wet’n’Wild you can choose from the Aqua Loop, Mammoth Falls and the brand new Constrictor. Or you can choose to float pleasantly along the gentle waters of Calypso Beach.

When it comes to attractions to stimulate the senses, the Gold Coast is unbeatable. But there’s more to the coastal hub than just theme parks thrills.

It is a Surfers Paradise after all! Surfing school Go Ride A Wave has been operating since 1987. They teach thousands of people to surf every year in several locations on the Gold Coast. They now also operate in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

If you’d like to try your hand at Stand Up Paddle Boarding, Currumbin Lagoon, on the lower reaches of the Gold Coast is a great place to learn the basics. It’s also where you’ll find paddleboard company JM SUP.

Kids aged 12 to 15, accompanied by an adult, can take control and blast along the sub-tropical shores of South Stradbroke Island on a state of the art jet ski with Jet Ski Safaris. Or maybe you’d prefer to get airborne with Jetpack Adventures. They will send you sky high as hundreds of litres of water blast you up and out of the water.  

If you prefer to find your fun indoors, Game Over Gold Coast is Australia’s first Electric Indoor Karting track. It comes complete with a high-tech Laser Tag arena, 16 climbing and adventure walls, an indoor zip coaster as well as the high speed go karts.

For the more adventurous (and less scared of heights) Q1 Tower’s  SkyPoint climb takes you outside the building, 77 floors up for spectacular (and windy) views. It’s not for the faint-hearted. While you are securely fastened to a balustrade on your left of the staircase, there’s no handrail on your right!