Ashfield Caravan Park

If you're here with kids, Flamingo Land will probably/ certainly be your first stop... Set only a third of a mile from Ashfield, this Kirby Misperton theme park is home to the UK's most visited zoo, as well as family and extreme rides, rides for smaller sorts, cable cars and a safari train; you'll need at least a day. To explore some history after that, the 17th-century stately home of Castle Howard (yes, the one in Brideshead Revisited) is 20 minutes' drive away. Kids should like the excellent and interactive World War II museum of Eden Camp, 10 minutes from the site, and a wander around the historic house, 450 acres of gardens and the National Centre for Birds of Prey at Helmsley's Duncombe Park, half an hour away. And that aforementioned choc factory? It's York's Chocolate Story (40 minutes), telling the sweet tale of the city's chocolate trade with interactive tours, exhibits and events. If you can drag them away, take the kids after that to the Jorvik Viking Centre, to see how slightly more bloodthirsty folk lived.