Armenia with children
Armenians are exceptionally warm towards children, in the specific Caucasus way where a stranger will pick up your toddler in a restaurant without asking and hand them back twenty minutes later having fed them. That is real and it is the best thing about travelling here as a family.
The constraint is equally real and it is two things: the drives, and the monasteries. Armenia is a small country made large by mountain roads, and its principal attraction is a category of building that children exhaust after one a day.
Here is what works, what does not, and the six changes we make.
Why Armenia works with children
It is safe. Ordinary crime is very low and children are treated as public property in the best sense.
It is cheap. A family room in a good guesthouse is $35 to $60, and food and entries barely register. That means the budget goes on the thing that actually makes family travel work, which is a private car and driver.
The food has a big mild category. Lavash, cheese, cucumber and tomato, grilled meat, rice, bread, and the best fruit in the region in summer. What to eat in Armenia covers it, and fussy eaters do fine.
No health complications. No malaria, no required vaccinations beyond routine ones, good pharmacies in Yerevan and the larger towns.
Altitude is not a factor. Nothing on a family route is high enough to matter. Lake Sevan at about 6,200 feet (1,900 m) is the highest you would sleep.
The late start suits small children. Yerevan does not open until ten or eleven and dinner is at nine. Families with young children who are used to fighting for an eight o’clock departure find Armenian rhythm strangely restful.
What genuinely works
The Wings of Tatev cable car. About 3.5 miles (5.7 km) across the Vorotan gorge, and it is the single best thing in Armenia for children. It is also the longest cable car of its kind, which is exactly the sort of fact a nine-year-old will repeat for a year.
Khndzoresk. The abandoned cave village below Goris with a swinging footbridge across the ravine, caves you climb into, and the fact that people lived in them until the 1950s. Two hours, and it beats every monastery on the trip.
Garni gorge and the Symphony of Stones. Hexagonal basalt columns hanging over a river, reached on foot or by a short vehicle track from the temple above. Children can get right up to them and it is a geology lesson that does not feel like one.
Lake Sevan. Warm enough to swim in during August, with a beach, boats and the church steps on the peninsula. In summer this is a genuine day off.
Areni cave. The one with the archaeology in it. There is a cave, it is dark, there are drips, and the fact that it holds the oldest known winemaking installation anywhere is more interesting to parents than to children, which is fine because the cave carries it.
Yerevan’s Cascade. An enormous stairway with escalators inside it, fountains and modern sculpture, including a good number of animals. Children climb it, ride it and run around the sculpture, and there is ice cream at the bottom.
The water in Yerevan. The city has drinking fountains, pulpulaks, on street corners everywhere, which small children find delightful and which solves the summer water problem.
Tsaghkadzor and Jermuk. Tsaghkadzor is a ski resort forty minutes from Yerevan with a summer gondola. Jermuk has a waterfall, a mineral water gallery where you taste warm spring water from a row of taps, and a cable car.
What does not work
Monastery days in sequence. One a day is the ceiling. Two is a negotiation. This is the whole design problem of a family trip in Armenia, and it is a sharper version of the problem every Armenian trip has.
The genocide museum. Tsitsernakaberd is essential for understanding the country and it is not a place to take a young child. The memorial itself, the outdoor part with the eternal flame and the wall, is appropriate for older children with preparation. The museum is not. We build it as an adults’ morning where that is possible.
The drive to Tatev in one go. Five and a half hours from Yerevan with no stops. As a family we split it in Vayots Dzor and never attempt it in a day.
Yerevan in July and August afternoons. Over 100°F (38°C) is normal. The city has trees, fountains and shade, and the middle of the day still does not work for walking with a small child.
Aragats. The Kari Lake road is high summer only and the walking is a real hillwalking day at about 12,700 feet (3,880 m). Not a family activity.
Long monastery explanations. A guide who is excellent with adults can be a difficult two hours for a seven-year-old. We brief the guide on the ages before you arrive, which changes the day completely.
The six changes we make
- Halve the monastery list, then halve the drives. Whatever the adult route is, cut it. Three or four monasteries in nine days, one a day at most, with something physical in between.
- Drive legs capped at two and a half hours. With a stop in the middle that is not a petrol station. Between Yerevan and Vayots Dzor that is Khor Virap or the Areni cave. Between Vayots Dzor and Goris it is the Shaki waterfall or the Zorats Karer stones.
- Four bases in nine days. Yerevan, Vayots Dzor, Goris or Tatev, and Dilijan or Sevan. Unpacking less buys more happiness than any single sight.
- Guesthouses with a yard. A family guesthouse with a garden, animals, a grandmother and a table beats a four star hotel every time in Armenia, and it costs a third as much. The exception is Yerevan in summer, where a hotel with a pool earns its rate.
- A driver rather than a rental car. $60 to $150 a day for the vehicle depending on the length of the leg, with the car seat arranged in advance. There is no useful rail network and no internal flights, so the vehicle is the whole transport plan.
- Use the late mornings. Do not fight the city. Build the day from eleven, take the long lunch, and use the evening, which in summer is when Yerevan is at its best and the fountains at Republic Square run.
By age, roughly
Under 4. Yerevan, Sevan, Garni gorge and one province. Short drives, guesthouses with gardens, and the pulpulaks. Armenia is easy at this age because the country is affectionate and expectations are low.
5 to 9. The sweet spot. Tatev cable car, Khndzoresk caves, the Cascade, Symphony of Stones, the lake in August, Jermuk’s waterfall. Our nine-day family route is built for this range.
10 to 14. Add walking. The Tatev gorge descent to the Devil’s Bridge, the Dilijan forest paths to Haghartsin, Smbataberd ridge fortress in Vayots Dzor. Also the age at which the history starts to land, including, with preparation, the memorial at Tsitsernakaberd.
15 and over. Everything, including the Transcaucasian Trail sections around Dilijan over two or three days with bags moved by vehicle.
When to go with children
May, June and September. School holidays usually force July or August, which in Armenia means heat in the lowlands, and if that is your situation we move the trip north and up: more nights in Dilijan and at Sevan, where it is cooler and the lake is warm enough to swim in, Yerevan as an evening city, and a hotel with a pool. Armenia month by month has the trade-offs.
October is beautiful and the Dilijan forest turns, but the late-month pass closures start to constrain the route.
Practical notes
- Car seats. We arrange them with our Yerevan partner in advance. Give the ages when you enquire.
- Flights. Most departures from Zvartnots leave between one and five in the morning, which matters more with children than without. We tell you before you book and we hold the room late.
- Cash. Cards work in Yerevan and the larger towns. Carry dram in the provinces.
- Monastery dress. Covered shoulders and knees apply to children too at the stricter sites.
- Sun. The country is high and dry and the sun is harder than the temperature suggests. Hats are not optional in Syunik.
- Provincial rooms. Yerevan has good hotels at every level. In parts of the south the best available family room is a good guesthouse with a shared bathroom, and we say which nights those are in writing.
How we run Armenia
GO EAST staffs its own offices in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Armenia is not one of them. We run it through a Yerevan partner we have worked with for years, whose drivers and guides meet you on the ground, briefed by us, including on the ages of your children, with your consultant on the same WhatsApp thread from take-off to landing.
Plan this trip
Tell us the ages of your children and how many days you have, and a specialist will build a route with the legs capped, the monasteries rationed and the afternoons left alone. Free first outline, no obligation.
Keep reading
- Armenia: the complete guide to planning your trip
- Armenia month by month
- Yerevan in three days
- Asia with children
- Armenia with children, 9 days
- All our Armenia trips
Frequently asked questions
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