The Budapest Baths With Kids: Which One, When, and What to Bring

Budapest sits on more than a hundred hot springs, and the baths are the reason to bring children here rather than anywhere else in central Europe. A palace full of warm pools. That is the pitch and it is enough.

Szechenyi is the one. Yellow palace, three outdoor pools, fifteen indoor ones, chess players in the water, steam rising in winter. The outdoor pool with the whirlpool current is where every child ends up and stays. Water at thirty eight degrees in the big pool, thirty in the swimming one, and the indoor pools go up from there.

Kids are welcome, and the rule that matters is that the thermal pools are for over fourteens in most baths. The outdoor pools and the swimming pool at Szechenyi are for everyone. That is the one to go to. Gellert is beautiful and stricter. Rudas is adults only most of the week.

What to bring and when to go

Swimsuits, flip flops, a towel each or rent one, a swim cap if anyone wants the lap pool, and a bag for wet things. Book a cabin, not a locker, for a family, it is a small changing room that locks. Go at opening on a weekday or in the late afternoon. Weekend middays are packed.

Two hours is the right length with children. Longer and they are pruned and cranky. Then the Varosliget park outside for the playground and the castle on the lake.

In winter the outdoor pool with snow on the ground and steam on the water is the single best thing you can do in Europe with a child. In summer it is a water park with a hundred year old roof. Either way, go twice.

Planning Hungary with kids? Start with the full Hungary family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.