Category × County
17 Best Adventure Days Out In Devon
Seventeen adventure listings in Devon, and they form a ladder rather than a list. At the bottom sits Pecorama, where the adventure is a miniature railway and a garden and a three-year-old is entirely at home. The middle rungs are underground: Beer Quarry Caves, Kents Cavern and Exeters Underground Passages all work from about five, provided the child in question is untroubled by dark and enclosed spaces, and they are among the few things in this category that a whole family does together. The top rung is high and roped — Go Ape Haldon and Tree Surfers both run treetop courses with minimum ages and heights that exclude the youngest outright. Ultimate Adventure and Wistlandpound add water and instruction to the mix.
Top adventure days out in Devon
Showing 1–12 of 17
AdventureGo Ape Haldon
AdventureBeer Quarry Caves
Activity CentresTree Surfers
AdventureKents Cavern
WaterWistlandpound
Activity CentresUltimate Adventure
SightseeingPecorama
AdventureExeters Underground Passages
AdventureThe Plymouth Mystery Treasure Trail
AdventureTotnes Mystery Treasure Trail
SightseeingCurious About Exeter
AdventureThe Exeter Mystery Treasure Trail
The useful thing about a ladder is that you can see which rung your family is standing on. Under five, stay with the railway, the water and the gentler sites. Five to about nine, go underground, which is the sweet spot of this county's adventure offering and needs nothing from a child except a willingness to walk in the dark. Ten and up, the ropes courses open and everything below them starts to feel tame. Fifteen of the seventeen carry an outdoor flag, so the weather governs most of what is here.
Adventure Days Out in Devon: FAQs
Are caves frightening for young children?
Some children love them from four and some are unhappy at nine, and it is not really about age. What predicts it is how a child handles the dark at home. Beer Quarry Caves and Exeters Underground Passages are guided visits, so there is an adult talking the whole way through and a clear route out, and that structure reassures most children more than a torch does. If yours is anxious about confined spaces, say so when you book rather than finding out halfway along a passage.
What is the minimum age for the treetop courses?
The high courses at Go Ape Haldon and Tree Surfers set both an age and a height minimum, and the height one catches out families more often, because a tall seven-year-old still fails the age rule and a short eleven-year-old fails the height rule. Both usually run a lower course for younger children as well. Check the current figures with the site directly before booking, since these rules are the operator's and they change, and a child turned away at the bottom of the ladder does not forget it.
Is one of these flags wrong?
It looks that way. Kents Cavern is recorded in our data as having outdoor space and no indoor space, which is not how a cave normally works, and we would treat that marking as a mistake rather than as guidance about what to pack. The lesson is general rather than specific — where an entry's indoor or outdoor flag contradicts what the place obviously is, believe the place. It is worth a quick check with the site if the whole day depends on being under cover.
What is there for a very young child?
Pecorama is the entry that has genuinely been built with small children in mind, combining a miniature railway with gardens and space, and it carries indoor and outdoor markings alike, which matters when a three-year-old needs somewhere to sit down out of the rain. Wistlandpound carries indoor and outdoor flags too. Beyond those two, the category thins out fast below school age, because most of what Devon files under adventure involves either a harness or a hill.