You land in Rome, it’s 38°C (100°F), and your apartment has no air conditioning. There’s no broken unit to call about. It just was never installed. The good news is that European summers have been hot for centuries, and European parents have a whole playbook for keeping kids comfortable in that heat that has nothing to do with a thermostat.
This guide is about making the heat work for your family rather than against it. Nothing drastic. Just a few small shifts to timing, hydration, and bedtime routines go a long way when the days are this hot. Here’s what helps, and how to keep kids comfortable and safe while you’re there.
What’s Actually Going On With the Heat
It helps to know why AC isn’t standard everywhere before you arrive, mostly so you’re not surprised by it. Many European buildings are centuries old, built with thick stone walls and tall ceilings specifically engineered to stay cool without any machinery at all. Shutters, cross-ventilation, and slower midday schedules did the job long before AC units existed, and a lot of places still lean on those same tricks today. Spain has Siesta. Italy has Riposo, Greeks have Mesimiri, and Germans have “hallo! Lass das verdammte Fenster offen!”.
Heatwaves are getting longer and more frequent across the continent, and AC is slowly catching up. In the meantime, plenty of apartments, regional trains, and older hotels still run without it. Knowing this in advance means you can plan around it rather than spend your first day searching for a fix that just ain’t coming.
Kids Feel the Heat More Than You’d Expect
A 32°C (90°F) day in your hometown feels manageable because your body has spent the summer adjusting to it gradually. The same number on day two of a trip, stacked on jet lag, a long flight, and unfamiliar food, can feel completely differently. Most adults need a few days to a week of steady heat exposure before their bodies properly adapt.
Kids feel that adjustment period more intensely. Children under 10 heat up faster and cool down slower than grown-ups, since their bodies are smaller relative to their surface area and their sweat glands aren’t as developed yet. That just means building in more breaks, more fluids, and gentler expectations for outdoor time than you’d plan for at home, especially in the first few days.
Common Heat Mistakes Worth Avoiding
A lot of heat advice floating around sounds reasonable but actually works against you. Here’s what to skip, even if you see other families doing it.
- Pushing through the midday heat because “we’re on vacation and don’t have time to waste.” Locals build their whole day around avoiding 1pm to 5pm outdoors for a reason. This isn’t new to them. Take a hint. Treating that window as wasted time rather than recovery time is how families end up with an overheated, miserable kid by dinner.
- Loading kids up on ice-cold drinks the second they complain about the heat. It feels like a good idea, but a stomach full of very cold liquid can cause cramping and actually puts some kids off drinking more, which kinda defeats the purpose. Cool, not icy, drinks offered consistently work better than an occasional ice-cold one.
- Limiting fluids before a car journey or sightseeing day to avoid bathroom stops. We see this a lot actually, especially with younger kids who aren’t fully potty trained, but cutting fluids in heat is the opposite of what a child needs. Plan for the bathroom stops instead.
- Assuming sunscreen is only needed on visibly sunny days. Heatwaves often come with hazy or overcast skies, and UV exposure doesn’t track with how hot or bright it feels. Apply it daily regardless of cloud cover.
- Dressing kids in dark colours because “that’s what we packed.” Dark fabrics absorb significantly more heat than pale ones. If the only options in the suitcase are navy and black, it’s worth a quick stop at a local shop for a couple of pale, breathable pieces. Raid the local mall if they have one and swap those dark colours and thick shirts for something more climate appropriate.
- Relying on a closed car as a quick break from the heat. A car parked in the sun heats up far faster than most parents expect, sometimes within minutes, and even a “quick errand” with a child left inside is genuinely dangerous. If anyone’s getting out, everyone’s getting out. This one is obvious. But sadly still needs to be said.
Before You Land: What to Check and Pack
A bit of prep before you even board the flight sets the whole trip up better. When booking accommodation, search the listing specifically for the words “air conditioning,” not just “cooling” or “fan,” since hosts sometimes list a fan as climate control. Scroll the reviews for anything written by a summer traveller, since they’ll mention it directly if it’s missing. If you’re still not sure, message the host and ask before you pay.
Pack with the heat in mind, not just the destination:
- Light, loose, breathable clothing in pale colours for every member of the family
- Wide-brimmed hats for every kid, not just the youngest one
- A physical handheld or clip-on fan, since you can’t always count on finding one locally
- Reusable, ideally insulated water bottles for each child
- Electrolyte sachets, especially useful for kids under 5
- A few cooling towels or a small compact cold pack that doesn’t need a freezer
If you’re flying in, our carry-on packing list for flying with kids covers the general essentials, but the heat gear above is worth adding on top of that list specifically
Making the Most of Your Days in the Heat
The local rhythm in hot countries exists for a reason, and it works just as well for visiting families as it does for residents. Don’t try and reinvent the sweaty wheel. Plan the big outings, the museum visit, the long walk, the day trip, for early morning or after 6pm, when both the temperature and the crowds drop. Treat the early afternoon, roughly 1pm to 5pm, as built-in downtime rather than wasted time. A slow lunch somewhere shaded, an indoor play space, or simply a long nap back at the apartment all turn that window into something restful rather than something to push through.
Hydration works best on a schedule rather than waiting for kids to ask. Most children don’t reliably recognise their own thirst until they’re already behind on fluids. Aim to offer water every 30 to 45 minutes when you’re out and about, more often in serious heat. Dark yellow urine is a useful, low-effort sign that a child needs more fluids.
A few simple cooling tricks make the hottest hours far more bearable. Closing shutters during the hottest part of the day keeps direct sun from heating up a room, and opening everything back up once the evening air turns cooler than the air inside undoes that heat fast. A lukewarm shower brings body temperature down gently, without the shock of icy water. A damp cloth on the back of the neck or wrists works just as well when there’s no shower nearby at all.
If you’re near open water on a hot day, our guide on staying safe around water with kids is worth a read before anyone jumps in to cool off.
Helping Kids Sleep Well When It’s Hot
Good sleep is what makes or breaks a hot trip, so it’s worth putting real effort into the room itself. If your accommodation has no AC, the daytime shutter strategy matters here most of all: keep the room dark and closed up while you’re out, so it doesn’t trap heat all day, then open every window the moment the evening air cools down. A simple desk fan, even a cheap battery-powered one picked up locally, makes a genuine difference at bedtime.
Light pyjamas, or just underwear for sleep in the worst of it, help more than people expect. A barely damp washcloth on the forehead, paired with a fan pointed across the room rather than directly at a child, cools the air without leaving anyone chilled. Our hotel room hacks for families post has more on adapting an unfamiliar room to fit your family’s routine, heat or no heat.
Tips from our Facebook Community
We asked our Facebook community what’s actually worked for them during recent European heatwaves, and a few things came up again and again.
Knowing When to Step In
Most hot days end in a cranky kid, a skipped activity, and an early bedtime, and a bit of extra shade and water usually sorts that out. However, tt’s still worth knowing the difference between ordinary overheating and a genuine heat illness, because children can move from one to the other faster than adults realise.
Watch for heat exhaustion: heavy sweating, pale or clammy skin, headache, dizziness, nausea, or unusual crankiness that doesn’t settle with rest and shade. If you spot this, move your child somewhere cool and shaded right away, offer small sips of water or an electrolyte drink, and sponge or spray cool water onto their skin. Most kids improve within about 30 minutes of this kind of cooling.
If symptoms don’t ease in that time, or you notice confusion, very hot and flushed (or unusually dry) skin, a high fever, or your child becomes hard to wake or unresponsive, treat it as heat stroke. This is a medical emergency. Call for help immediately and keep cooling your child while you wait for it to arrive.
A bit of planning around timing, shade, and fluids keeps things firmly in “cranky kid” territory rather than anything more serious.
Hot days abroad can still be good days. Shutters closed by morning, windows open by night, slow afternoons built in on purpose, and water on a schedule rather than a request. Get that rhythm going and the heat stops being the thing you’re managing and starts being just another part of the trip.
Your Heatwave Cheat Sheet
Pin this to the mini fridge, or just keep it in your back pocket for the trip.
