About Us

Welcome to School Holiday Activities, where we help Australian families find genuinely great things to do with kids during the school holidays.

We cover school holiday activities, events, programs and family days out across cities, towns and regional areas throughout:

• Queensland,
• New South Wales,
• Victoria,
• South Australia,
• ACT,
• Western Australia and the
• Northern Territory as well as
• Tasmania.

Hi, I’m Janine Mergler

I’m Janine Mergler, an Australian educator, family publisher, mum and the editor of School Holiday Activities.

I hold a Bachelor of Education from QUT and have worked as a secondary school teacher, university lecturer and education professional. I later moved into family publishing and spent more than a decade helping Australian parents find useful, reliable information about education, family life, events and things to do with kids.

But there is another qualification behind this website that matters just as much: I actually go to these places.

For years I have travelled around Australia with my son Alex, and often with my niece and nephew too, trying attractions, exploring cities, visiting museums, climbing things, catching trains, eating in family restaurants, finding free activities and occasionally paying an alarming amount of money for a BIG day out.

Alex has effectively grown up testing family activities with me. Our adventures have taken us from the little-kid years through primary school, tweens and teenagers and now into young adulthood. That gives me a particularly useful perspective on how an activity changes depending on the age of the child you take with you.

We have travelled extensively throughout Australia and personally experienced many of the attractions, activities and destinations you will find recommended on this website. Where I have visited somewhere myself, I tell you about our experience and share the practical details I think another parent would want to know.

I’m also happy to tell you when something wasn’t a hit with us. Not every attraction suits every family or every age group, and I think that information can be just as useful as knowing what we loved.

Of course, it isn’t possible for us to personally visit every event, program and attraction across Australia. Where we haven’t experienced something ourselves, our team researches it using current information from the attraction, venue, event organiser or other reliable sources. We regularly review and update our guides because school holiday programs, opening arrangements and family activities change.

What you’ll find on School Holiday Activities

We’ve hunted high and low, travelled to cities and towns across Australia and spent years discovering the kinds of activities that make school holidays memorable.

That includes:

• Free activities such as museums, galleries, playgrounds, gardens and beaches;
• Cheap and affordable school holiday activities including local shows, seasonal events and council activities;
• BIG days out including theme parks, major attractions, shows and special experiences;
• Indoor activities for rainy days and very hot Australian ones;
• School holiday programs for parents who still have to work;
• Age-specific ideas, including activities for toddlers, primary school children, tweens and teenagers.

I have a particular soft spot for finding things to do with teenagers that aren’t lame. Having travelled and explored Australia with Alex throughout his teenage years, I know that what entertained him when he was six was definitely not going to cut it at sixteen.

Our aim is not simply to give you another enormous list of places.

I want our guides to help you work out what is actually worth doing with your family.

Where we have firsthand experience, you’ll find our opinions, photographs, practical observations and tips throughout the site. We consider things parents actually need to know, including what ages an experience is best suited to, whether it represents good value, what there is to do nearby and whether we would choose to do it again.

Helping families make school holidays affordable

I know that keeping children entertained throughout the school holidays can become expensive very quickly, particularly during the long summer break.

That’s why free and affordable activities have always been an important part of what I publish.

Over the years I have been regularly invited to share my family lifestyle and money-saving expertise in the media, including with Channel 9. I am often asked by Channel 9 to share my top tips for school holiday savings, and you’ll find plenty of those same practical ideas throughout this website.

You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars every day to give your kids brilliant school holiday memories. Sometimes our favourite experiences have cost very little, or nothing at all.

And because parents still have to work…

We also include school holiday programs in our capital city guides.

I appreciate that not every parent can take weeks away from work whenever the school holidays roll around. Sometimes you need a full-day program. Sometimes you need something educational or active. And sometimes you simply need somewhere the kids will genuinely enjoy going while you get some work done!

We research school holiday programs, workshops, camps and other supervised activities to make finding those options easier.

Our promise to parents

School Holiday Activities exists to make planning the school holidays easier.

We combine professional experience in education and family publishing with real-life experience travelling around Australia as a family.

When we’ve been somewhere, we’ll tell you what we experienced.

When we haven’t, we’ll research it carefully.

When something changes, we’ll do our best to update it.

And when we discover something genuinely brilliant for families, you can be fairly certain I’ll tell you about it!

Thanks so much for dropping by. I hope our adventures, reviews and guides help you spend less time searching and more time making memories with your own family.

And if we’ve missed somewhere your family loves, please let us know. Some of our best discoveries come from other Australian families sharing their favourites with us.

If you are a family-friendly attraction, event or business and would like to advertise with us, we would love to hear from you too.

Janine Mergler

Editor, School Holiday Activities