10 Best Waterfront Cities to Travel with a Baby 

Top Highlights

• Orlando is crowned as the most baby-friendly holiday destination, joined by another four Florida cities in the top 20. 

• To keep animal-loving siblings entertained, Milwaukee, San Diego, and Orlando have the greatest variety of attractions, though nearly all the shortlisted cities have at least one zoo. 

• For light travelers, you can find the most baby paraphernalia to buy or rent in stores across San Diego, Orlando, San Francisco, and Miami. 

Going on holiday with a baby for the first time is often an exhausting and costly lesson in how not to relax. Searches for “how to travel with a baby” reached a two-decade high in February this year, a 24.6% year-on-year increase. A new study reveals the most baby-friendly waterfront destinations within the US to try out this summer, with Orlando (FL), Madison (WI), and Fort Lauderdale (FL) topping the list. 

Researchers at Lake.com, a popular rental platform, analyzed how baby-friendly 50 of the most populated waterfront cities in the US are for a family of four taking a one-week trip in August 2025. In this case, “waterfront” means reasonable proximity to bodies of water such as a sea, ocean, or lake.  

They evaluated each city against eight factors, weighed differently in the following order of priority: the number of family-friendly hotels, as marked on Tripadvisor (25%), how many of these were rated four or five stars (15%) and offered baby-sitting services (15%) or airport transfers (15%), and the number of indoor play areas (10%), playgrounds (10%), baby stores (5%) and zoo attractions (5%) in the city per 100,000 residents using FourSquare. 

Top 20 Best Baby-Friendly Waterfront Holiday Destinations in the US 

*This refers to all accommodation available to book via TripAdvisor for August 1-8, 2025, for a family of four consisting of two adults, one child aged 3 and another under one year, labelled as “Family-friendly” under TripAdvisor’s style category, collected as at February 26, 2025. 

Orlando, Florida, is the most baby-friendly city in the US. A place already on many families’ bucket lists, this theme park center boasts the greatest variety of family-friendly accommodations of all evaluated cities, counting 240 options for a busy August getaway. 85% of these are rated at least four stars. 34 of them offer airport transfers for a smoother journey, while five of these hotels even offer babysitting services. A family of four, comprising two adults, a three-year-old toddler, and an infant of less than 12 months, also has the widest choice of indoor play areas (16), playgrounds (188), and zoo attractions (40) in Orlando.  

Madison, Wisconsin, is the second most baby-friendly destination in America. While there are only 36 hotels labelled on TripAdvisor as being family-friendly, available in August for a family of four, 92% of them are rated four or five stars. Every third family hotel will offer their guests a ride to and from the airport. As a relatively compact city, getting around and going on stroller-friendly, heat-free August walks simplifies family trips tremendously. 

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ranked third for baby-friendliness, where 75 hotels are family appropriate, of which 44 are highly rated. Ten of them will whisk their guests to and from the airport, while two offer parents a chance to make a date night by offering babysitting services. The sandy beaches make the entire trip worthwhile. You can avoid the high midday temperatures by visiting one of the four indoor play areas in the city. 

San Francisco, California, ranked fourth for baby-friendliness and has the most hotels with babysitting available (7) of all evaluated cities.  

“While some families prefer to bring a babysitter with them on holiday, there are hotels that offer babysitting services for parents wanting a quiet dinner out,” said Stephanie Ciccarelli, CMO of Lake.com. “San Francisco, Orlando and Boston stand out for offering baby-sitting services, where we spotted at least five to seven highly rated family hotels in each.” 

New Orleans, Louisiana, takes the fifth spot with 76 great family hotels to choose from.  

Boston, Massachusetts, ranked sixth, knows how important babysitting is, with at least five highly rated hotels offering such services.  

Providence, Rhode Island, though limited in hotel variety in general, is the seventh most baby-friendly destination and fits those who prefer less crowded places.  

In eighth place, Miami, Florida, understands how hectic airport transfers are, which is why 23 out of 61 great family hotels can pick up their guests for a smoother journey.  

Urban Honolulu, Hawaii, earned the ninth spot for baby-friendliness for recognizing many parenting challenges and offering enough options for good family hotels, airport transfers, babysitting, and wildlife attractions. 

Rounding up the top ten is Hollywood, Florida. It may be small, but the beach makes it worth the trip, despite the hot weather and rainy days – typical for August – to plan for. 

“Parents with young children often come back from holidays more stressed than when they departed,” Ciccarelli adds. “Factors that complicate their stay include underestimating the time it takes to get to and from their accommodation, feeding the family three times a day, and overspending due to poor planning or unforeseen scenarios.  

“We focused on the biggest waterfront cities because those are likely to have regular, diverse, and direct flights. It means families could avoid stressful connecting flights, leave early, or arrive later than planned if something unexpected comes up. 

“Ultimately, the best destination for each family will depend on where they are flying from and what their baby’s siblings enjoy doing. If they love animals, places like Milwaukee, San Diego, and Orlando are brilliant, with around 40 animal-related businesses each to explore. Except for Oceanside, California, all the cities in our top 20 have at least one zoo to keep your children entertained.” 

### 

Sources: Lake.com, Tripadvisor, FourSquare, US Census. 

Notes for Editors: 

• Credit with link: If you use this story, please ensure to include a linked mention of Lake.com 

• Methodology: 

1. The researchers collated a list of 50 destinations by selecting waterfront cities among the most populated cities in the US based on 2023 US Census estimates.   

2. “Waterfront” refers to any city within meaningful proximity of a large body of water, such as a sea, an ocean, or a lake, or within reasonable proximity to many smaller bodies of water (e.g., Orlando). The resulting shortlist revealed the top 50 most populated waterfront cities in the United States, which was further narrowed down as described below. 

3. Using TripAdvisor.com, the researchers collected all the accommodation information on February 26, 2025, assuming a single room reservation for a family of four with two adults, one three-year-old child, and another child aged under one, taking a trip in the first week of August (01/08/2025 – 08/08/2025).  

4. Hotels were filtered using the TripAdvisor interface through the “Style” of “Family-Friendly” and the 4-star and above review category, as well as the “Babysitting” and “Airport Transport” amenities. 

5. A geo-search was conducted using FourSquare, which was based on manually drawn radius distances around a central point, picked in the city within the Google Maps defined boundaries. The number of businesses under selected headings was counted and then normalized based on the city population as given by the US Census Bureau, specifically per 100,000 residents. These figures were then scaled from 0 to 10 to allow for a fairer comparison. 

6. The eight selected factors were then given individual weightings, as follows: 

• Hotels available which meet the four-family and date range requirements and are “family-friendly” (per 100,000 residents) – 25%; 

• Percentage of sample hotels that are reviewed 4 stars or greater – 15%; 

• Percentage of sample hotels (4+ stars) which offer baby-sitting – 15%; 

• Percentage of sample hotels (4+ stars) which offer airport transport – 15%; 

• Indoor play areas in the city (per 100,000 residents) – 10%;  

• Playgrounds in the city (per 100,000 residents) – 10%; 

• Baby stores in the city (per 100,000 residents) – 5%; 

• Zoo attractions in the city (per 100,000 residents) – 5%. 

7. Each city was then assigned a final baby-friendliness score on which they were ranked, with the highest score and therefore the most baby-friendly at the top, in descending order.