How KidsGoFree works
Most days-out listings tell you the adult price and leave you to do the arithmetic in a car park. KidsGoFree starts from the opposite end: tell us who is coming, and we will tell you what the day costs your family.
- Tell us your family once How many adults, how old the children are, where you start from and how far you would go. It stays on your device — there is no account and we are not asking who you are.
- Every price becomes your price Instead of "£18 adult, £12 child", a card says £36 for your family, what it would usually be, and what you save. If one of your children falls outside an offer's age band, the card says so before you drive there.
- Push the dial out The travel-time slider is the fun part. Every extra half hour in the car unlocks more places, and the map fills up as you go.
- Search like a person Type "kids eat free near Dundee tonight" or "rainy Sunday with a toddler and a 12 year old". Whatever we think we understood is shown back to you as a chip you can take off again.
"Kids go free" means six different things
This is the bit that catches families out, so every offer on the site declares exactly which one it is.
- Completely free — Nobody pays. No ticket, no catch.
- Free child admission — Children get in free; adults pay.
- Free with a paying adult — A set number of children per full-price adult.
- Kids eat free — A child meal free, usually with an adult main.
- Kids stay free — Children do not add to the room or pitch price.
- Kids travel free — Free or flat-fare child travel.
Free entry is not free with a paying adult. A free child meal usually needs an adult main. Children staying free in a room is not the same as a family room being cheap. We keep them apart so you can filter on the one you actually want.
How the drive times work
Drive times are worked out from straight-line distance with a road allowance, rounded to the nearest five minutes. They are close enough to plan around and not close enough to argue with a satnav about. The map on the home page is a schematic: pins sit in the right direction at approximately the right drive time, not on a road map.
Where the offers come from
Right now: nowhere. They are worked examples.
KidsGoFree is being built in the open. The listings on the site at the moment exist to show how the search, the family pricing and the filters behave. Prices, age bands and offer rules are illustrative and have not been confirmed with any venue. Nothing here should be used to plan a real day out yet.
When we launch, every offer will come from the venue itself — with dates, age limits and the adult requirement stated by them, and a date we last checked it.
What it costs you
Nothing. There is no subscription, no account and no paywall. When the site launches, venues will pay to list an offer and some links may earn us a commission — we will say so plainly where that applies, and it will never change the order things appear in.