Madrid is a great destination for families with kids thanks to its abundance of parks, like the expansive El Retiro Park with playgrounds, boat rides, and puppet shows. The city’s many interactive museums, such as the Railway Museum and the CaixaForum, make learning fun for young children. Family-friendly dining is easy to find, with welcoming restaurants that cater to kids and offer flexible mealtimes. Plus, Madrid’s excellent public transport and walkable neighbourhood’s make it easy to explore at a relaxed pace.

It also happens to have a major airport, so often times, flight prices to Madrid will be practical. We have used it as our main destination from US to Europe twice because of flight options, and from there took a smaller European airline to our final destination. I’m glad we added in 2 days to leisurely explore with our kids this time!

Gran Vía is a great spot to stay in Madrid with kids because it’s centrally located, making it easy to walk or take short metro rides to major attractions like El Retiro Park, the Royal Palace, and Puerta del Sol. The area is lively and well-lit, with plenty of family-friendly restaurants, shops, and even kid-focused entertainment like musicals and cinemas. Many hotels along Gran Vía offer family rooms and amenities such as cribs and babysitting services. Despite its vibrant atmosphere, nearby side streets provide quieter options for a peaceful night’s sleep.

The hotels in this area were a bit pricy, so we found a apart-hotel in the area on a side street that provided a quieter option for our family, but with great accessibility to stores and restaurants. This is the link to the apartment we stayed at. There was a bedroom, one and a half baths, a kitchenette, and a sofa bed in the living room. There was a staircase to the apartment, but my husband managed taking the luggage. Overall, the cleanliness and aesthetic of this apartment was wonderful, the host was responsive, and we LOVED the accessibility to walk everywhere we wanted to get to.

Madrid is a very family-friendly city, offering a wide range of attractions, parks, cultural activities, and services that cater well to families traveling with kids. We had more items on our itinerary than we actually did (per usual), but still enjoyed it!

This bus tour was a relaxing, and a bit anti-climatic. But the kids loved sitting at the top of the bus, and then all three (plus the grandparents) took short power naps. We saw a high level of the city and made mental notes of where to come back to. These bus tours are kind of idea as the “first activity” of the trip, when there is still jet lag, the kids are tired, and you want to sit down but also optimize sight seeing time.

The Royal Palace of Madrid is the official official residence of the Spanish royal family, although they do not live there today. It is mainly used for state ceremonies and official receptions.

El Retiro Park is great for little kids because it has multiple playgrounds, puppet shows, plenty of space for kids to run around, and wide, safe paths perfect for strollers or scooters.

We spent most of the weekend just perusing the Gran Via street, stopping by to grab food and snacks and exploring the stores and admiring the architecture. We stopped by the Lego store for our kids to get activities to work on during down-time at the hotel.

Although we didn’t go to many authentic Spanish restaurants during our stay in Madrid, we did go to several international cuisines that had the child-friendly options that we knew our kids were more likely to eat. We ended up really enjoying all the food spots we went to – I have our list compiled below of our recommendations!

For more on traveling to other cities in Spain, check out my blog posts on Barcelona, the Andalusia region, Mallorca, and Canary Islands.