Great Kids Movies To Watch Before Traveling With Kids (By Location)

United States Family Travel Movies (By State)

We start our family travel movies in the United States of America! As an American, summer vacation makes you think of one big thing- a road trip with kids! We have taken more road trips across the USA than we could count. There’s nothing better than getting the kids packed in the car and hitting the open road!

There are dozens of children movies about travel that your kids will love. And watching a movie that is set in the location you’re headed to is a GREAT way to ignite excitement before traveling with kids! (Disney’s got some great movies that are for kids if you have Disney Plus!)

When we took our various road trips across the country, we used our Chrysler Town and Country with built-in dvd player. But most kids nowadays have their own tablets, which brings some of the great kids movies on this list right to their laps in digital format!

Here’s our list of great kids movies that take place in the United States: 

This is a great classic children’s movie about travel (especially a road trip with kids!). If you are not already whistling the “Open Road” song in your head after reading this title, it’s been too long since your last watch! LOL!

This movie focuses on a road trip across the USA, a family travel tradition, with Goofy and his son Max. Our family loves watching this movie before we go on a long road trip!

It’s one of those beloved famous kid movies that everyone needs to watch before traveling with kids. (Or just because it’s awesome!)

My (Larry) sister lived in Washington DC for a few years. Luckily, we were able to visit her a few times.  During the drive in the minivan, we would put on these movies. They’re great movies for young children as well as teens, with a diverse cast and humorous plot line. 

These movies really helped our kids get excited and interested to see the Smithsonian Museum. During our visit to the museum, we went looking for some of the artifacts shown in the movie. This scavenger hunt type of exploration made it so much fun for the kids! There are also some really great tours from GetYourGuide that help bring the museum to life as well.

It turned into one of the more memorable museum trips for our family! And, as a dad, I like to think it helped foster a deeper love for history than they had before. 

Home Alone 2 is one of the TOP kid movies for Christmas. This is a great kids movie that follows a boy named Kevin across the Big Apple (aka NYC). Kevin travels around various famous sites in the city, including Central Park. It’s fun to watch this film whether it’s the holidays or not! It’s one of the best children movies about travel, that can be watched over and over again.

We had a chance to visit New York during the Christmas holiday season. Sadly, we did not visit the FAO Schwartz toy store (shown in the movie as Duncan’s Toy Chest). But we did see the Rockefeller Square Christmas tree and spend a day exploring Central Park. 

During our Central Park visit, our kids kept looking to find the Bird Lady from the movie, which was quite entertaining. It was also fun for us adults to hear their reason why some random person was the bird person. This is another reason I keep this on my list of go-to movies about travel: the movie teaches us (again) that people aren’t always what they seem, and that kindness is always important!

Did you know: Former President Donald Trump makes a cameo in this movie. (Now, THAT was fun for our kids to realize!)

You can see our entire 4 day itinerary for visiting NYC with kids on a budget here, if you’re planning to visit New York in the future! We took an amazing food tour around Manhattan and enjoyed seeing the holiday decorations. It was one of our favorite family trips!

Secret Life Of Pets (also in NYC)

Since we already have a New York movie on this list, including this one was debatable… But since this is OUR family travel blog we get to make the rules, right?! *wink wink*

Children love this hilarious kids movie! The Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park are both featured in this movie. That makes it a great way to bring NYC to life before you visit! As we walked in Central Park, we played that lovely Taylor Swift song.  (If you know, you know!) 

Though it’s not as scenic as Home Alone 2, this movie did make our kids want to visit the Brooklyn Bridge. They were shocked at how big the bridge really was! You can also take the Staten Island Ferry to get a glimpse of both the Brooklyn Bridge AND the Statue of Liberty. (You can see our entire NYC itinerary and the free ferry we took here!)

Secret Life of Pets is also great to keep on your list of kids car movies or even a kids airplane movie- because it’s lighthearted and keeps them fully entertained. 

This is a great family trip movie for those planning to go to Florida. The movie takes place in the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. This kids movie is about a dolphin with no tail and how the aquarium helps the dolphin. Dolphin Tale 2 has a new rescue dolphin added to the cast for extra fun.

The Dolphin Tale movies are great for visiting almost anywhere in Florida, as long as you have a beach visit on your itinerary! But if you’re visiting the Gulf Coast side of Florida, you can also visit the actual Clearwater Marine Aquarium. (And yes, they take donations to help more sea life!)

We actually lived in Jacksonville FL, which was only about a 4 hour drive away. So of course, we had to plan a visit! 

Just pop in this movie into the mini-van’s DVD player, and boom! You got a family travel movie sure to make your kids appreciate not just traveling to a beachside location, but love our planet a little more as well.

The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (Jacksonville, Florida)

Not sure if many of you remember this movie, but Pipi Lockstocking’s house is located in Northeastern Florida! We watched this to get our older kids excited to visit the house. Since we were from Jacksonville, it seemed mean not to include this movie on our list of the best travel movies for children!

Describing the house really can’t do it justice. This is one of those famous kids movies you REALLY need to watch. It’s fun and whimsical, and really just encourages a great zest for life! 

If you are ever in the Jacksonville Florida area, it’s totally worth taking a day trip out to Fernandina Beach to see the house. It makes a great attraction for kids.

For even more fun when traveling with kids, the town also hosts a Pirate themed festival, called the The Annual Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival. It typically has parades, face painting, arts and crafts booths, and so much more!

If you have ever wanted to visit New Orleans with kids, this movie is a must! It truly does a great job of capturing the culture and vibe of New Orleans.

We weren’t quite sure if New Orleans was a great place to travel with kids. But after talking to some other family travel goers, we were convinced that there was simply too much culture and history to skip it!

At the time we visited New Orleans, we just had our three older children, who were aged 4 to 12 at the time. We had fun exploring the beautiful city streets, visiting an old battleground, and even a fun (kid-friendly) ghost tour, which was both spooky and historically interesting!

I think the funnest part for our family, however, was taking the famous Natchez Ferry Boat on the river for lunch! It was the highlight of our trip by far.

Most of all, our kids were in awe of the art and scenery that looked almost exactly like the movie. Everything from the movie really made the city a little bit more fun for our young children. 

If you’re planning to visit the West Coast with kids, the Beverly Hills Chihuahua series is the perfect watch! They are definitely great movies that are for kids and adults alike- and who doesn’t love dogs?!

The 2nd and 3rd movies really bring Los Angeles (and Beverly Hills, of course) to life on the big screen. The first one is also fun to watch, but is more geared towards visiting Mexico. All of them, of course, feature a cute little chihuahua named Papi and various fun adventures with his friends.

If you have older kids who might not want to watch a dog movie, Big Fat Liar is about a teen movie star and really makes Hollywood a fun and vibrant visit for kids!

And of course, LA is only a quick drive away from Disneyland and Universal Studios, making it a great day trip if you need a break from the busy theme parks!

Great Kids Movies for Visiting Europe (By Country)

Children movies about travel to Europe are another great way to get your children excited for your family vacation. Traveling with kids to Europe can seem intimidating- especially for kiddos who really love being close to home. But let me tell you from experience that these movies will make your family trip 100% better! Putting on one of these great kids movies about European travel can help your kids feel adventurous and ready to travel the world.

There’s a great list of family travel movies based in Europe. From the famous Paris, France, to the lesser known Valencia, Spain, we’ve got you covered with the top kids movies!

Here’s our list of great kids movies that take place in Europe:

Netflix’s Carmen SanDiego series is by far one of the best ways to get kids excited to travel the world! No matter where you’re traveling with kids, there’s probably an episode of Carmen Sandiego to watch that covers it!

Based on the classic stories/video game, Carmen is a spy who uses her various talents to accomplish great things around the world.

Carmen’s main ability is to stop thieves from completing heists around the world. These missions take her to France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Peru, Ecuador, the U.S., and so many more places.

The show also does a great job of bringing the local cultures to life, which means that your kids are able to really relate to the things they see on your visit. This makes any vacation more fun for the whole family.

Tomorrowland is about a futuristic world, starring George Clooney. Despite the big names in the cast, it wasn’t a big block buster. But was actually quite fun to watch with kids! We love this one as it is filmed right outside our flat in Valencia, Spain. 

If you ever plan on visiting Valencia, Spain, this is a must watch kids movie. The Future Land scenes are filmed in the Arts and Sciences complex of Valencia. It provides a great contrast to the historic beauty of Valencia’s city center!

Fun fact: Bill and Ted Face the Music, Westworld, Doctor Who and several other movie and tv shows all have scenes filmed in the Arts and Sciences complex as well!

Locally called Ciutat de Artes y Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences), the architecture is very futuristic and surrounded by strategic areas of water. You will see a lot of the architecture used in the movie in your family’s visit to the City of Arts and Sciences.

There are a handful of museums in the complex, in addition to an IMAX theater and Aquarium as well. To make the visit even more fun, there are often little row boats and/or standing boards to cruise the little pools in and a cafe with colorful Slushies that the kids can fill up however they like.  

And of course, don’t discount the fun of the historic city center, the Bioparc zoo, and other amazing attractions that Valencia has to offer!

The Lizzie McGuire movie is a Disney classic for us Elder Millennial parents. This children’s movie about travel follows Lizzie as she goes to Rome. What a great way to inspire a kid’s love of travel!

In the movie, there are spectacular shots of the various Rome tourist attractions.  This worked well for hyping the younger ones up to see the Roman Colosseum. We did not need to explain the history of what Romans did there. They were just excited that it was ‘that cool place’ in the Lizzie movie.

Our kids also loved exploring Rome’s winding streets that Lizzie cruised through in the movie. It was so fun for them to recognize some of the famous fountains and plazas from the big screen in real life! They especially loved seeing the famous Fontana di Trevi fountain.

Rome had plenty of kid friendly activities as well, making it one of our family’s favorite places to visit!

I bet you are wondering how this is a family travel movie? It’s about a fictional land!!

But Brussels is actually home to the little blue guys we lovingly grew up with as The Smurfs! In fact, Brussels has been a great contributor to the comic and cartoon world. Does anyone remember The Adventures of TinTin? (I know, we’re old! LOL!!)

If you have a family travel plan to visit Brussels, Belgium, watching the Smurfs beforehand is a great way to make your trip to Brussels with kids feel more magical. In fact you can watch all of the movies! There are lots of little homages to the Smurfs around the city. 

Brussels also has a great Comic Museum for the kids to visit, which includes a section about the Smurfs. And then after that I would recommend the chocolate museum, Choco-Story Brussels.

Visiting Brussels is a fun and unique way to see one of Europe’s most bustling international cities. You can see our entire awesome Brussels 3 day itinerary with kids here!

Adventures of Tintin – Brussels, Belgium

Not many people know this, but the Adventures of Tintin is another staple in the culture of Brussels. If you are planning on walking around the city, you will see street art, statues, and other things based upon the Adventures of Tintin comics and movies.

Watching this movie can help keep the children on the lookout for familiar characters they remember from the movie. Spielberg’s version of The Adventures of TinTin takes him to Morocco and aboard a ship. The original adventure series includes lots of places around the entire world for even more travel fun!

If you plan on visiting the Atomium Museum in Brussels, this has a lot of Tintin art. But despite the hype of the Atomium, it wasn’t our favorite attraction to visit.

Our kids were much more excited about the Brussels Christmas Market- see why in this post here!

If you have school-aged kids and/or teenagers like us, then you probably know all about Percy Jackson! After reading the books our kids couldn’t wait to see Athens!!

Our older kids even got our younger ones hooked on the mythology by forcing them to watch the Disney Plus tv show with them. LOL!! 

Watching the show or movie (though our teenagers vehemently view the movie as a disappointment and insult to the author), will help kids to relate to a lot of the history from Athens and Greece. Percy Jackson puts a fun, modern twist on the Greek mythology characters.

In fact, you can even take this awesome Percy Jackson inspired tour to really make Athens more fun with the kids! (We’re huge fans of tours and interactive games while traveling, and this one was pretty cool!)

If you have read the series or watched the show on Disney Plus, Percy Jackson and his clan travel across the United States as well. This makes them perfect travel shows for kids traveling across the United States.

Mama Mia – Greek Islands

If you are planning a family holiday or vacation to paradise- I mean Greece- Mama Mia is THE movie to watch! 

This movie takes place on a small Greek island in Europe. This is a great way to introduce kids to the REAL Greece beyond the tourist attractions and historic monuments. 

Mama Mia 1 and 2 are great kids movies if you have pre-teens and older. They provide a lovely glimpse into Greek culture and architecture, not to mention the unforgettable songs. (Thanks ABBA!) After landing in Greece just try and stop yourself from singing! 

If your family loves beach getaways and unexpected charm, the Greek Islands are a magical place to travel with kids!

For Greece based travel movies for young children in specific, however, this next one’s for you!

Disney Hercules – Athens, Greece

Staying in Greece, Athens is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world!! Hercules is an animated family movie is set in Europe, featuring a colorful ancient Greece. 

This movie features scenes in the Parthenon as well as the Acropolis. It’s so fun for kids to see cartoon locations being brought to life in the real world!

This Disney classic can help your children understand a bit of the Greek mythology in a fun way as well. While exploring the area, you can talk about the famous characters from the movie and how they relate to the real stories from Ancient Greece. 

This will make Athens more interesting for them as they will actually see the real place of Hercules’ battles. (Because, let’s face it, old ruins aren’t always very exciting for kids to visit!) Since visiting Athens is more of an adult favorite, this movie really does help make it enjoyable for the kids, too!

Not so much a family travel movie, but a great travel show for kids visiting Paris.  Our kids- even the teenagers- love the main character Ladybug (aka Marinette).

The show is about a young superhero duo that saves Paris on a daily basis. There is a movie for this franchise as well, if you prefer that over a tv show.

The show (and movie) takes place in numerous locations you can visit all around the city, and has LOTS of scenes with the famous Eiffel Tower Monument.  There is also a fun (and free) self-guided Ladybug themed tour you can do with the kids to make walking around Paris a bit more entertaining. 

Much of our visit to Paris included our younger kids looking around in hope of seeing Ladybug or Cat Noir swinging around the city buildings.

Watching the show really did bring the city to life for our family! If you’re planning to visit Paris with kids, check out our helpful Paris tips post here! But fair warning, you might fall in love with Paris like we did!

Disney’s Ratatouille (Paris, France)

Ratatouille was another great movie to help get our kids excited about trying new foods in Paris. Ratatouille is a quirky animated movie about a rat who loves to cook. He finds himself inside the kitchen of one of the best restaurants in Paris. He befriends an aspiring chef and helps him become an award winning chef.

This movie was a lifesaver for us because our older children felt the need to tease our younger ones about how people eat snails in Paris. (Gee thanks, kids… LOL!)

This movie helped encourage our kids to want to try French cuisine on the trip and be more open to eating foods they haven’t heard of before. This stayed true even when we took trips to other countries after visiting Paris!

It was by far one of the best family vacation movies we’ve watched, simply for the ability to open our kids up to trying new foods! For even more Parisian deliciousness, check out Tripadvisor’s top list of family restaurants in Paris!

Hunchback Of Notre Dame (Paris, France)

This was the movie we watched to get excited to see the famous Notre Dame Cathedral and other historical buildings in the city center. When we visited, the building was still under restoration due to the fire in 2019.

But not being able to tour inside of the historical building did not stop us from getting some great photo shots with Notre Dame in the background and admire the amazing architecture of the building. We definitely plan to tour Notre Dame when we revisit Paris again, though!

The best part of watching this movie before your trip to Paris is that it helps build an appreciation for the more historic parts of the city.

If you have free time leading up to your Paris family vacation, this movie really is a classic!

Another Disney movie for the win! Brave is one of the best movies for young children and older kids- and even us adults love to watch!

Based in Scotland, Brave is about a young girl coming of age and realizing the path she wants to take in life. She explores the Scottish countryside, and of course there’s a gorgeous castle, too! 

If you’re visiting Scotland with kids, you can invite them to keep a lookout for any Wisps that might be hiding around the area! The real-life castle that inspired the one from the movie is actually called the Dunnottar Castle in Stonehaven!

There’s a lovely tour that goes to the castle as well as some of Scotland’s beautiful countryside. It brings you to the best views of Scotland for an easily unforgettable day.

Brave is a movie that really makes Scotland feel like a magical and beautiful place when traveling with kids.

This London based movie is not only cute, but does a great job of showing England’s most beautiful parts. Your kids will get super excited to visit London’s Paddington Train Station in hopes of finding their own Paddington Bear. Don’t worry though, there’s lots of Paddington themed merch so they won’t leave empty handed!

And once you visit the Natural History Museum, you can let them know this is where the Paddington Bear almost got stuffed!

The scenes in the English countryside are also a lovely way to get your kids excited about the more scenic areas of the UK. But it’s the Paddington Bear themed walking tour of London that really makes the trip iconic.

This movie brings England to life in the most whimsical way! (It’s a bear-y good time!) Whether you’re taking a family vacation or a bucket list trip- be sure to add this to your list of great travel movies for young children and teens alike!

Minions (London, England)

King Bob!!! I think shouting that alone might get your kids excited to visit the royal crown. From visiting Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London, this movie is a great reference for children to experience the same places that their favorite little yellow guys took over.

Be careful though, your kids may be on the lookout for a powerful villain to team up with! 

The Minions movie is about a large group of bumbling little yellow creatures looking for a leader. They have a naughty disposition, so the leader they are seeking is (of course) a bad guy to cause trouble with!

The Minions movies (there’s an entire Despicable Me series) are movies that both kids and adults can enjoy. They’re cute and funny. But the first one is perfect for traveling with kids, because the various scenes of the Minions evolution really does make kids travel more fun for them. 

Conclusion: Our Fave Family Trips Movies

Watching children movies about travel can be used as a great way to make any family trip more enjoyable for kids of all ages. They will have something to look forward to during the holiday vacation and relate to your destination better than ever.

Getting kids more excited before traveling makes the trip more fun for everyone. It also cuts down on their boredom and reduces some of the stress involved with travel. (Not to mention the great family bonding time that comes with movie nights at home before you go!) So it’s a win-win!

You can snag our FREE cheat sheet to see our awesome list of go-to family travel movies here! (Plus, each movie has a clickable link to the trailer.) You can save it as a PDF on your phone for quick reference any time you plan a trip somewhere!

There’s also a GREAT resource inside to see where these movies are streaming at any time. So you’ll be prepared with the best kids plan movies (or kids car movies) before heading on your next vacation! Grab yours for free here!

There are so many more family travel movies beyond our list that are fantastic to watch before traveling with kids. What movies do you watch before your family travels? Let’s add to this list!