The amusements

You know the drill. Parking, wristbands, queues, chips, a toy they break before you're home, and a bill that'd pay the electric.

And by Tuesday they've forgotten they went.

Kids love finding things

Give a child a castle to climb, a cave to look into, an old wreck on the beach, a stone with a story, and it's not a day out any more. It's an adventure.

They found it. That's the bit they remember for years.

Make it a hunt

Open the map where you live. Let them pick the dot. Tell them the story on the way, then let them find it.

A fairy fort in a field. A holy well in a hedge. A tower somebody lived in five hundred years ago. Kids eat that up.

A lifetime of weekends

Here's the thing nobody tells you: there are dozens of these within a short drive of every house in Ireland and the UK. Most people never go to any of them.

That's a lifetime of weekends, sitting there, free, waiting to be found.