34 Best Sightseeing Attractions In Dorset

More of the best-scored end than the flat number suggests. Four of the eight our records put at the top are operators who take you out on the water rather than places with a car park and a front door. Nothing is wrong with that, but it changes what a booking means: you are buying a slot on somebody's timetable and on the weather's, and thirty-four looks a good deal shorter once you take out the days the sea will not have you.

Work from the entries our records flag as having indoor space. The Town Mill is recorded as indoor, and Nothe Fort and Brownsea Island as both, which is the useful category here because it means a visit does not collapse when the sky does. The boat operators are the opposite case. They are the reason to have a second plan written down before you leave the house, not a reason to steer clear of the category altogether.

Because the heading is broad and our records are imperfect. Arcadia Escape Room is categorised as indoor play and still appears here, which tells you to read each entry rather than trust the label above it. The practical effect is mostly harmless: you get a wider list than the word implies. The risk is a parent scanning quickly, assuming every entry is a place to wander round and look at things, and booking an hour in a locked room instead.

It is a good number, though it is not thirty-four separate weekends. Several entries do much the same job as one another, a few carry almost no detail beyond a name, and at least one is filed under a different category altogether. Treat the count as the length of the shortlist you have to read through rather than the size of the choice, and expect to cross off a fair share before the two or three that suit your children's ages emerge.