North-west
Pilot Concorde, and reinvent the wheel, Manchester and Wilmslow
Aircraft aficionados should plot a course for Manchester airport's Runway Visitor Park – home to the first of the supersonic Concorde fleet, where there's a chance to have a look round the cockpit and sit in the pilot's seat.
The park (0161-489 3932, bit.ly/3UtdRu) is one of the north-west's most popular outdoor attractions. Its three raised viewing mounds give a clear 180-degree view over the airfield, making it an unbeatable place to watch planes take off and land on both of Manchester's runways. The Concorde tour fee of £13 includes entry to the visitor park. Book well in advance, as it's hugely popular.
After lunch, head just two miles south-east to the historical wonder of Quarry Bank Mill (01625 445896, bit.ly/b1iRWM; prices from £6.68 adults, £3.53 children, £16.90 family), a perfectly preserved remnant of the Industrial Revolution. Tours of its noisy workshops and clattering machines, still run by Europe's most powerful working waterwheel, are a poignant reminder of the hardships and triumphs of the age. Demonstrations, events and guided walks are available throughout the year.
North-east
After the Solar Coaster, sit down with a picture book, Newcastle
Ever wondered how Inuit survive in the Arctic? Or how we got to the moon? Then go to Newcastle.
The Centre for Life (0191-243 8210, life.org.uk; adults £9.95, children £6.95) is not just a world-class science centre where scientists, clinicians, educationalists and other serious people come together to promote knowledge of the life sciences, it's also a lot of fun. Its Life Science Centre is a bold and colourful space for exhibitions, activities and scientific displays for burgeoning boffins. Among these are the Human Life Exhibition, a planetarium show narrated by David Tennant, and a motion ride through the solar system named the Solar Coaster.
After all that, you might care to sample the more sedate Seven Stories (0845 271 0777, sevenstories.org.uk; adults £6, children £5) on Lime Street – the UK's first museum dedicated to children's books.
There are lots of activities for kids, from dressing-up and dramatic fun to creative writing and wordplay, illustration and crafts – and, of course, storytelling. Adults aspiring to produce their own work might also be interested in the author and illustrator events and exhibitions.
South-east
Walks with wolves, and tales of the riverbank, Berkshire
Ever spent the morning with a wolf? Here's a chance to get close to these beautiful, intelligent and misunderstood animals and see them displaying their natural behaviour at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust (01189 713330, ukwolf.org).
Pick from a lively schedule of open days, walks, photography days, children's events and even "howl nights". You have to join the trust (£75) to go walking with the wolves, which lets you shadow the keeper in cleaning out the enclosures, giving medication and preparing puzzles and treats for the animals – in summer, fishy ice lollies are apparently a favourite.
Next open day (30 August; adults £7, children £5) you'll also be able to hug a husky, see a reptile display, have a go at archery and see birds of prey.
While you're in the area, you might spend lunch at Sonning, made famous by Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, the humorous account of a rowing trip by three young men up the Thames. In 1889 he described this pretty village as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river". He also recommends you "put up at the Bull" behind the church. Not only is the Bull Inn (01189 693901, fullershotels.com; last-minute rates from £75 per double, B&B) still "a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green, square courtyard in front", it serves a splendid lunch, too.
From there wander down river to explore nearby Cookham, made famous by the Sir Stanley Spencer, who used many of its characters in his idiosyncratic paintings. He called Cookham his "village in heaven", and lived there until his death in 1959. The Stanley Spencer Gallery in the high street keeps an impressive collection of his work (01628 471885, stanleyspencer.org.uk; adults £3, children free); print out details of the self-guided Cookham Walk for an hour-long stroll through the scenes that inspired the artist. Fans of The Wind in the Willows may already know that its author, Kenneth Grahame, also lived here, with his grandmother at the Mount in Cookham Dene. The river scenes between Cookham and Henley are thought to have inspired the book.
Kids might be more tuned in to the Look Out Discovery Centre (01344 354400, bracknell-forest.gov.uk/lookout; adults £6.25, children £4.15), just down the road in Bracknell. It's a hands-on science and nature exhibition. Try your hand at making your own short animated film, building a wobbly bridge or launching a hydrogen rocket.
South-west
Geology, biology, and some very English murders, Torbay
Hippopotamuses, mammoths, straight-tusked elephants and sabre-toothed tigers are scarce in Devon these days. But they used to be 10 a penny, and the fossilised evidence is in the local rocks. As the landscape was untouched by glaciation, the coastline and the geology, formed a mere 417 to 354 million years ago, reveals stories unseen elsewhere in the world.
Take a cruise around the rugged coast of the English Riviera Geopark (01803 528841, englishrivierageopark.org.uk) for the best views of this geology at work. Plus there are "sea-faris" – two-hour family cruises from Torquay and Brixham – and walking tours through 400 million years at Kents Cavern (01803 215136, kents-cavern.co.uk; adults £8.50, children £7), a national monument and a site of special scientific interest that shows evidence of more than 500,000 years of human activity. Combine all this with a tour of an altogether more literary kind. Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and lived for many years in the area. Visit nearby Greenway, her holiday home, which is now owned by the National Trust (01803 842382, nationaltrust.org.uk; prices from £7.40 adult, £3.70 children) and preserved as it looked in the 1950s. Regular events include exhibitions, children's trails and quizzes, and guided tours of the house and grounds.
This year the Agatha Christie festival in Torquay (12-19 September, englishriviera.co.uk; prices vary, some activities are free) will be celebrating the 120th anniversary of her birth.
Midlands
Rocket science, and an amazing experience, Leicester and Wistow
Leicester's star attraction, the National Space Centre (0116 261 0261, spacecentre.co.uk; adults £13, children £11), has launched a three-floor, interactive exhibition in its impressive rocket tower. On deck one, see how real rockets work, watch the first sci-fi movie ever made in the Edwardian cinema or take part in a space race quiz. On deck two, you can discover your inner Yuri Gagarin – the first man in space – and sit inside the Vostok capsule as it blasts skyward. Deck three allows you to join Apollo 11 as it lands on the moon, and then pilot the Eagle on to the lunar surface in the only simulator of its kind outside the US.
After lunch, get lost in space of a different kind at the Wistow maize maze (07884 403889, wistow.com/maze.asp; adults £5.50, children £4.50): eight acres and three miles of intricate pathways, bridges, towers and general confusing fun, all among a living maize crop. This year, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the maze is in the shape of a Spitfire.
North Wales
Steam up the mountain, then send the kids down the pit, Snowdonia
It would be a shame to visit this spectacular part of Wales without a trip on the Ffestiniog steam railway (01766 516000, festrail.co.uk; £11.40-£18.50 return, one child travels free with each adult). It's the oldest surviving independent railway company in the world, founded in 1832 to transport slate from the mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Horse and gravity, then steam power, helped to shift the slates to the nearby coastal port of Porthmadog for shipping around the world. Nowadays, it shifts people.
Porthmadog to Blaenau takes you on an exhilarating 230yd climb over 12 miles into the mountains of Snowdonia, through forests, past lakes and waterfalls, round hairpin bends, sometimes tunnelling through the mountains themselves.
Its sister line, the Welsh Highland railway (£10.20-£28 return, one child travels free with each adult), makes a dramatic 22-mile climb from Caernarfon to the flanks of Mount Snowdon, before dipping steeply down to Beddgelert village, and the terminal at Pont Croesor.
Next year the company plans to reopen the rail link between Caernarfon and Porthmadog: that's over 30 splendid, sooty miles.
From Blaenau station at the end of the Ffestiniog line, hop on the number 142 bus to Llechwedd slate caverns (01766 830306, llechwedd-slate-caverns.co.uk; adults £2, children £1, tours from £7.50/£6.50), part of a working mine that has been active since 1836. The real draws are the two underground "railway" tours. The Miners' Tramway, which begins in the original Victorian slabbing mill, bores into the mountain via a tunnel built in 1846, hauled by a battery-electric locomotive, then rattles through vast caverns, stopping off here and there to learn about the working conditions of the Victorian quarrymen. The Deep Mine ride claims to be Britain's steepest passenger railway, with a gradient of nearly one in two, descending to 137m below the summit of the mountain, for a walking tour with lights and sound accompaniment. Back up top there is also a Victorian village with a miners' pub and other exhibitions.
There are even alternatives for the claustrophobic. Adults might like to peel off for a tour of the Purple Moose real ale brewery (01766 515571, purplemoose.co.uk) in Porthmadog, or take the kids to see the butterflies, birds and "minibeasts" at the delightful Pili Palas zoo (01248 712474, pilipalas.co.uk; adults £6.75, children £5.75) near Menai Bridge.
