Plan a beach week your kids will actually remember

Both are well travelled by families, so the useful question is what changes for your child's age. Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean resorts usually run lifeguard cover from late May to mid-October, with shallow shelf entries on many beaches. Red Sea resorts in Egypt staff pools and beaches year round, but the reef drop-off arrives quickly. We log sea floor, midday shade and walking distance to a paediatric clinic on every shortlisted row.

Large Turkish resort towns generally have a state hospital within 20 to 40 minutes by road, plus private clinics that take travel insurance. Egyptian resort strips run private clinics and 24-hour pharmacies on site, with a larger hospital in the nearest city. We record travel time in minutes, not kilometres, and note whether English-speaking paediatric staff are confirmed or unconfirmed.

Rules depend on the passport each traveller holds, and children sometimes need their own document. Check the current entry requirement with the embassy or consulate for your nationality, and confirm that every passport carries at least six months of validity beyond the return date. Our dossiers list the typical lead time and the documents families most often forget, but the embassy page is always the source you act on.

Private transfers are the reliable option for families with children under eight, because shared shuttles rarely carry correctly sized seats. Book the seat with the transfer, not at the airport, and size it to your youngest traveller rather than the oldest. Transfer times from the main arrival airports to the family resort belts sit in a wide range, so we give you the window and the road distance instead of a single figure.

For the Turkish coast, late May, June and September keep the sea warm while the midday peak stays gentler. Egypt's Red Sea is swimmable most of the year, but July and August push daytime temperatures high enough that a midday shade plan becomes essential. We show sea and air temperatures beside each sample week so you can judge the trade-off yourself.

Club age bands vary hotel by hotel, and the useful band is the one that covers your own children, not the headline promise. Some accept from age four, others from six, and most require a parent present for under-threes. Each shortlisted resort row carries a child-care flag with the confirmed age band and the supervision ratio, so you can see at a glance whether your week works.