LONDON — If there’s one thing all parents of young children can agree on it’s the importance of ease and convenience – especially when it comes to travel.
And what could be more convenient than flying to Billund, Denmark, only to be faced with a five-minute drive the other side?
In the middle of the Jutland peninsula, in the south of the country, the small town of some 7,500 residents is known for one thing only – Lego.
The birthplace of the founder of the children’s building blocks, Ole Kirk Christiansen, started the company during the Great Depression in 1932.
Deriving from the Danish words “leg godt,” meaning “play well,” it started as wooden toys and moved to interlocking plastic bricks in 1949.
And for children who are Lego fans – like my 5-year-old daughter – there’s nothing quite like being where it all began.
The small airport here feels only really meant for one thing – visitors to the Legoland theme park. After all, it was built by the Lego Group as a private airfield in 1961, before becoming public in 1964.
A quick drive sees us arrive at the Legoland Holiday Village, a collection of different self-catering accommodations, from apartments to cottages.
We’re staying in a Lego Ninjago Cabin – themed around a more niche Lego line of ninja heroes with magical powers – and the cottage itself is practical with a small kitchen, dining and living area, two small bedrooms, and an impressive playground directly outside. Most importantly, though, it’s close to the action.
And, as we soon learn, the area has a lot to offer families for a few days.
We start with the obvious. The theme park, with zones for every taste and age, is vast. The heart of it is, of course, Miniland, recognizable destinations around the world built out of 20 million Lego bricks, and it keeps my daughter Seren amused for a surprising length of time (the moving boats and trains specifically) and for adults it’s genuinely impressive, too.
While toddlers will love Duplo Land and the Peppa Pig playground, we opt for gentle boat rides, safari cars and trains, before wandering around Polar Land, Adventure Land, and Pirate Land – mostly watching the faster rides in awe.
New for 2026 is the Minifigure Speedway – Denmark’s first dueling roller coaster (with two tracks with trains running together) – but Seren gives one look and declares it “too scary”.
Those with the stomach for going backwards and upside down at pace are sure to love it though, along with the other roller coasters, Polar X-plorer and Dragon, it really does rival well-known theme parks.
Families can easily fill one to two days here alone if you were to give everything a go. With short queues (even during the school holidays when we’re there) the maximum I spot is a 15-minute wait.
For kids who love Lego though, what they really want to do is build with it. And while there seems to be stations for this purpose in several places (including breakfast at the buffet-style restaurant at our accommodation) Lego House – filled with 25 million colorful bricks – is a revelation.
Part interactive museum, part creative outlet, the center is a 30-minute walk (on little legs) from the holiday park accommodation into the town center of Billund itself. It’s clean and compact, with a quiet, peaceful feel, but it’s worth noting – if you aren’t interested in Lego, there’s really no reason to be here.
The four floors of Lego House include incredibly intricate ‘masterpieces’ of Lego art, impressive scenes, and different challenges for kids to complete.
Each colored experience zone represents an aspect of kids’ learning – red for creative, blue for cognitive, green for social and yellow for emotional. So parents really can feel a little smug that it’s all good for their children’s brains – as well as fun.
Seren gets stuck into creating her own car out of bricks and then racing it with other kids down a track (a blue zone). Hers comes second before all of the lovingly-made creations crash into pieces at the end.
Next, we’re building pretty flowers, and then funny faces, and even our own stop-motion film by moving Lego pieces around a scene. Each section is a new challenge keeping my child engaged, laughing and playing for most of the day.
For some adrenaline-fueled great outdoors action, we take a 10-minute drive to Wow Park. It feels like a healthy dose of nature, set among woodland, there are tree-top walks, rope swings and obstacle courses nestled among the greenery.
Some are aimed at slightly older children than Seren, but she gives most things a go. I’m dragged along a netted tree-top walk and some difficult-to-squeeze-through spaces, and onto what can only be described as a giant bouncy net with 6ft balls. We both chicken out at the big parachute-style slides and head to the petting farm area instead.
There’s a lovely sense of adventure here though, where families can get active among the woodland before coming together by a campfire over lunch.
A five-minute stroll from our cabin is the sprawling complex of Lalandia. An entertainment and sports center (think blowing alleys, rock-climbing walls, arcades and mini-golf), alongside shops, restaurants and its biggest draw – the Aquadome. A huge indoor swimming complex to rival the likes of the swimming facilities at UK Centre Parcs.
Seren declares this the “best part of the holiday” on more than one occasion – I thought Lego House would be hard to beat. She joyfully floats around the lazy river, splashes around in the multiple children’s pools, throws basketballs into hoops, squeals with delight in the wave pool, and marvels at the “hot pool” – a warmer inside-outside one.
Last year saw the opening of the baby and toddler area, and there are 31 slides altogether, some weaving out and back into the building, many of which look fast enough to impress older kids and adults, along with several saunas.
The Aquadome – much like the rest of Billund, with its attractions so conveniently close to one another – feels like a well-kept secret more families need to know about.