How to travel with skateboard-obsessed kids

Carla Grossetti Carla Grossetti
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The best way to see a city with children is to pack skateboards for a more portable commute, as Carla Grossetti explains.

The one thing my sons never leave home without are their skateboards and their skateboard gear from Free Skateshop. Our mantra is: ‘Have skateboard, will travel’. It’s how we roll.

 

The beauty of travelling with skateboards is that we have been better able to convince our two sons to take long walks with us when they know their efforts will be rewarded with a few runs at a new skate park.

 

The fact that many of our favourite getaways include long smooth paths along coastal foreshores means that as well as letting the kids carve it up to their happy place, we all get to enjoy a bit of exercise while exploring a new town or city.

 

When my boys, Fin and Marley, were really little, it was quite often hard work; we would pretzel our spines to push them along. But as well as giving them a feel for rolling on a skateboard, it got us all from A to B.

 

Now they are of an age where they like to ‘pop shove it’ in peace; we are equally happy to leave them momentarily at a skate park while we continue on our merry way.

 

When it comes to planning our day-to-day itineraries, our first move when visiting a new region is to find out where the local skate park is and plan our morning walks accordingly.

 

It often feels like a covert operation, to wake up while the city lights are still winking. But the fact that we all get up around dawn means we also time our runs when the skate parks aren’t too crewed out.

 

My husband grew up skateboarding in drainage ditches in Canberra and what he and I have noticed over the past decade is that many councils have realised that skateboard parks are an attraction: community assets that should be built in picturesque public places.

 

The Cairns City Council has been particularly progressive, with Cairns Skate Park the biggest of its kind in the country, integrating beautifully with a playground and beach volleyball park on the Esplanade.

 

The beauty of many of the newish skate parks is that the transitions and bowls have been built for everyone from rank beginners to world-class skaters.

 

Rather than encourage stealth boarding at the scuzzy end of town, more and more towns and cities are including skate parks to enhance the urban landscape as well as encourage social cohesion.

 

I also love that skateboarding encourages my children to do something that is active, healthy

Need tips, more detail or itinerary ideas tailored to you? Ask AT.

AI Prompt

Where to go for skateboard-friendly walks

• Lake Ginninderra foreshore (next to Belconnen Skate Park) in Canberra, ACT

 

• The Royal Park river-edge boardwalk (near the Royal Sk8 Park) in Launceston, Tas

 

• The green space around Princes Gardens (near Prahran Skate Park) in Prahran, Vic

 

• The walk to Yamba Point (near Yamba Skate Park), Yamba, NSW

 

Visit skateboard.com.au to find a skate park near you and fun while we stick together as a family. While we still occasionally cop a board bite in the Achilles, or have to compromise on our holiday wardrobes in favour of packing their hardware, cruising through the cityscape with our kids away from roads confused with cars and cyclists is a great way to navigate your way around. Stoked.

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Carla Grossetti
Carla Grossetti has written across print and digital for Australian Traveller and International Traveller for more than a decade and has spent more than two decades finding excuses to eat well and travel far. A prestigious News Corp cadetship launched her career at The Cairns Post, before a stint at The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald gave way to extended wanders through Canada, the US, Mexico, Central America, Asia and Europe. Carla was chief sub editor at delicious and has contributed to Good Food, Travel & Luxury, Explore Travel, Escape. While living in London, Carla was on staff at Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times Travel desk and was part of the pioneering digital team at The Guardian UK.
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3 wild corners of Australia that let you reconnect with nature (in comfort)

    Kassia Byrnes Kassia Byrnes
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    The country’s rawest places offer some of its most transformative, restorative experiences.

    Australia offers sublime opportunities to disappear into the ancient, untouched wilderness, worlds away from modern stress. Wild Bush Luxury offers a collection of experiences that are a portal into the continent’s wildest, most undiscovered landscapes, from wide floodplains to vast savannas, where the only distractions are birdsong, frog calls, curious wallabies and the daily drama of sunset. With a focus on conservation and Indigenous knowledge, these all-inclusive experiences allow guests to slow down and quiet their minds for intimate encounters with the natural world.

    1. Bamurru Plains

    safari tent at Bamurru Plains wild bush luxury
    Let nature take front row.

    In the remote Top End, just outside Kakadu National Park on the fringes of the spectacular Mary River floodplains, you’ll find Bamurru Plains, a peerless Australian safari camp. After a quick air transfer from Darwin to the camp’s private airstrip, you’ll be whisked away via 4WD to a vivid natural wonderland of shimmering floodplains, red earth, herds of peacefully grazing water buffalo and 236 bird species (Bamurru means magpie goose to the Gagadju people).

    Accommodations consist of 10 mesh-walled bungalows and two luxe stilted retreats where guests enjoy panoramic, up-close views that invite them into their rightful place in the landscape (and binoculars to see it even better). Being an off-grid experience designed to help guests disconnect, the only distractions are birdsongs, frog calls, curious wallabies, the occasional crocodile sighting and the daily drama of the spectacular golden sunset.

    It’s a place where nature’s vastness rises to the level of the spiritual, and Bamurru’s understated, stylish,  largely solar-powered lodgings are designed to minimise human impact and let nature take front row.  Guests relax in comfort with plush linens, an open bar, communal tables that allow for spontaneous connections and curated dining experiences from the in-house chef using local ingredients and bush-inspired cooking methods.

    Bamurru Plains airboat tour
    Zoom across the floodplains. (Image: Adam Gibson)

    It’s a restorative backdrop for days spent zooming across the mist-covered floodplains in an airboat, birding with expert guides, taking an open-sided safari drive or river cruise through croc country. Spend time at the Hide, a treehouse-like platform that’s perfect for wildlife spotting.

    In fact, nature is so powerful here that Bamurru Plains closes entirely during the peak monsoon season (October to April), when the floodplains reclaim the land and life teems unseen beneath the water. Yet Wild Bush Luxury’s ethos continues year-round through its other experiences around Australia – each designed to immerse travellers in a distinct Australian wilderness at its most alive and untouched.

    2. Maria Island Walk

    woman on a headland of Maria Island Walk
    Maria Island Walk offers sweeping coastal scenes.

    Off Tasmania’s rugged east coast, the iconic Maria Island Walk is an intimate four-day journey through one of the country’s most hauntingly beautiful and unpopulated national parks, encompassing pristine beaches, convict-era ruins, and wildlife sightings galore. Accessible only by a small ferry, Maria Island feels like a place reclaimed by nature, which is exactly what it is: a penal settlement later used for farms and industry that finally became a national park in 1972.

    These days, the island is known as ‘Tasmania’s Noah’s Ark’ and its only human inhabitants are park rangers. It’s a place where wombats amble through grassy meadows, wallabies graze beside empty beaches, dolphins splash in clear water just offshore and Tasmanian devils – successfully reintroduced in 2012 after near-extinction on the mainland – roam free and healthy.

    Each day unfolds in an unhurried rhythm: trails through coastal eucalyptus forests or along white-sand bays, plateaus with sweeping ocean views, quiet coves perfect for swimming. Midway through the journey, you’ll explore Darlington, a remarkably preserved 19th-century convict settlement whose ruins tell stories of human ambition at the edge of the known world.

    At night, sleep beneath a canopy of stars in eco-wilderness camps – after relaxing with Tasmanian wine and locally-sourced meals, and swapping stories with your fellow trekkers by candlelight.

    3. Arkaba

    two people standing next to a 4wd in Arkaba
    Explore Arkaba on foot or on four wheels.

    For a bush immersion with more of an outback flavour, Arkaba offers a completely different type of experience. A former sheep station and historic homestead in South Australia’s striking Flinders Ranges that has been reimagined as a 63,000-acre private wildlife conservancy. It’s now patrolled mainly by kangaroos and emus.

    Small-scale tourism (the homestead has just five ensuite guestrooms) helps support rewilding projects, and guests become an essential part of the conservation journey. Days begin with sunrise hikes through ancient sandstone ridges or guided drives into the ranges to spot yellow-footed rock-wallabies. And end with sundowners on a private ridgetop watching the Elder Range glow vibrant shades of gold, crimson and violet as the air cools and time stands still.

    Here, you can join conservation activities like tracking native species or learning about Arkaba’s pioneering feral-animal eradication projects, then unwind with chef-prepared dinners served alfresco on the veranda of the homestead, which is both rustic and refined. The highlight? Following Arkaba Walk, a thriving outback wilderness where emus wander and fields of wildflowers grow.

    It’s an unforgettable immersion in Australia’s vast inland beauty, a place where the land’s deep and complicated history – and astounding resilience – leave their quiet imprint long after you return home. In a world where genuine awe is rare, Wild Bush Luxury offers a return to what matters most in the untamed beauty of Australia’s wilderness.

    Disconnect from the grind and reconnect with nature when you book with at wildbushluxury.com