Volcanoes With Children

Volcanoes are close to unbeatable as a family destination, for a reason that has nothing to do with adventure. They are one of the few places where the thing a child has drawn at school is standing in front of them, at full size, steaming.

The problem is that the volcano tourism industry sells mostly to people in their twenties and thirties, so the listings are written for them. Which means the question of whether a four-year-old can manage it is answered in reviews rather than in descriptions, and the answer varies from easily to absolutely not, and here is the official age limit.

The start time. This is the big one, and it is invisible in the marketing. A sunrise trek means waking a child at two in the morning, driving in the dark, and walking uphill by torchlight. Even children who walk happily for hours will not enjoy that, and neither will you.

The cold. Covered in detail elsewhere on this site, and it hits children harder because they are smaller and because they are being carried or waiting rather than generating heat. The gap between the beach and the crater rim before dawn is routinely fifteen to twenty degrees.

The ground. Volcanic scoria is loose and it slides, which is tiring for short legs and slightly alarming for parents on a descent. Sharp a'a lava is genuinely unsuitable for small children off marked paths.

Actual distance and ascent, in our experience, are the least of it. A child who does a two-hour walk at home will manage most of what is on this page.

Only one place in this catalogue publishes an age limit. It is worth separating that from the two where we are giving you our own judgement, because the difference matters if you are weighing up an operator who tells you otherwise.

Mauna Kea, Hawai'i — this one is official. The institution managing the mountain advises that children under 13 should not go above the visitor information station at 2,804 metres, along with pregnant women and anyone with heart or respiratory conditions. It is published, it is specific, and a great many stargazing tours drive to the summit anyway. The guidance exists regardless of what the tour says.

Kawah Ijen, Java — our judgement, not a rule. Nobody publishes an age limit here and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But the descent to the crater floor puts you in sulphurous gas measured at several times the safety threshold, on unstable ground, in darkness, and it is a working sulphur mine rather than an attraction. Treat the crater floor as adults only. The rim walk is a completely different and much more reasonable proposition.

Anything glaciated — a practical impossibility rather than a rule. Cotopaxi's summit and Mount Rainier's are roped mountaineering with permits attached. No age limit is published because none is needed.

Ask whether there is a shorter version. Many operators run one and do not advertise it, because it looks less impressive in a listing. On several mountains there is also an assisted option: a jeep, a cable car, a horse at Bromo, porters on the multi-day treks.

Take more warm clothing than seems reasonable. This is the single most repeated regret from families on tropical volcanoes, and the layer that gets left behind is always the fleece.

Check the group size and the pace. A private tour on a family trip often costs less than the difference in enjoyment, because you stop when you need to rather than when twelve strangers do.

Pick the volcano for the payoff, not the achievement. A crater lake, a steaming vent, a black beach and a lava tube all deliver something visible at the end. A long walk to a viewpoint that might be in cloud is a harder sell at hour three.

Consider going in the afternoon instead. Sunset tours exist on most of the famous sunrise mountains, they show you the same landscape in the same low light, and nobody has to be woken at two.

What happens if we turn back halfway? On a group trek, usually nothing good, because the group continues and the guide cannot split. This is the strongest argument for a private guide on a family trip, and it is worth more than the price difference suggests: it converts a fixed itinerary into one you can abandon at any point without anyone else's day being affected. On the road-accessible destinations it does not arise at all, which is a real advantage of Lanzarote, Rotorua and the Azores over anything that involves a summit.

How do I tell if a child has altitude sickness? With difficulty, and this is the honest answer rather than a reassuring one. The symptoms are headache, nausea, poor appetite and unusual irritability, all of which describe a tired child at the end of a long day. Younger children in particular cannot reliably report how they feel. The rule that works is behavioural rather than diagnostic: if a child who was fine becomes miserable and stays miserable as you go higher, go down. Descending fixes it and costs you an afternoon.

Are there toilets? Almost never above the car park, and this decides more family days than altitude does. The road-served sites have facilities at the visitor centre and nothing beyond it. Plan on the basis that the last toilet is the one at the start.

Does a pushchair actually work anywhere? On the boardwalks at Rotorua and in the developed lava tubes, yes. On volcanic gravel, no: the wheels sink and the surface is loose even where it is flat, including on the graded path at Vesuvius. A carrier is the right answer for anything that is not paved, and it has the additional advantage of keeping a small child warm at a viewpoint, which a pushchair does not.