About Holidays with Kids

Holidays with Kids

Holidays with Kids (holidayswithkids.com.au) is Australia's leading family travel magazine and website — the country's #1 multi-platform family travel network, reaching more than 900,000 Australian families each quarter. Published by Signature Media, the quarterly magazine (196 pages per issue) inspires families to discover destinations, experiences and stays that work for every stage of the journey, from camping and farm stays to luxury resorts, combining destination inspiration with practical advice on safety, logistics, entertainment, activities and family-friendly facilities.

Overview

Holidays with Kids is a quarterly family travel magazine with over seventeen years' experience covering family travel at home and abroad. Each issue brings readers 196 pages designed to meet the needs of all families and create confidence in travelling with children — appealing whether travelling on a budget or on an extended luxurious getaway. The portfolio includes Caravan & Camping with Kids (annual; Australia's #1 guide to family camping, caravanning and holiday parks), Ski & Snowboard with Kids, The LUXE Edit (luxury family travel), Family Matters by HWK (bi-monthly ebook), and holidayswithkids.com.au. The network's social channels have a combined audience of more than 214,300, with an online database of 72,000+ engaged with offers, content and travel news.

History

The magazine has been published since 1996 — "our status and success since 1996 as one of Australia's top travel publications," as associate publisher Cara Wagstaff put it during the record 2013/14 summer edition, whose advertising revenue was the highest for an edition since spring 2008 and which ran to a bumper 196 pages. Signature Media calls it Australia's biggest-circulating travel magazine, distributed to consumers and travel agents with a circulation of 50,000 copies and a readership of 600,000 including in-lounge and in-flight placement with Qantas International.

The winter 2022 issue showed the post-COVID formula: with international borders open, the issue bounced back to Bali, found paradise in Vanuatu, hightailed it to Hawaii, enjoyed family fun Fiji-style, joined the Guardians of the Galaxy on Walt Disney World's Cosmic Rewind, delved into kid-friendly conservation in South Africa and tackled travel with teens — while staging an "Aussie Wintervention" of snow play and vineyard vacays at home. The issue also carried the "On native land" report on thoughtful travel, with editor Aleney de Winter: "Raising thoughtful travellers begins with teaching our children to be mindful of whose land we're travelling on, and the impact we have on the communities we visit."

The spring 2020 issue launched The LUXE Edit (previously Five Star Kids) for luxury family travel and introduced Family Matters by HWK; it published the 2020 Ski & Snowboard with Kids Best Family Ski Resorts Awards as voted by judges and readers. The print edition has been distributed to Qantas lounges, family-friendly hotels and resorts, holiday parks, Jindabyne and Falls Creek lodges and chalets, visitor information centres, travel agents and newsagents Australia-wide, plus subscribers — with a complimentary digital version on the website and ISSUU.

The network

The portfolio's annuals and awards extend the brand: Caravan & Camping with Kids recognises the best in family-friendly holiday parks in the annual Top 10 Holiday Park Awards; the website's "Best of" guides cover 4WD adventures, holiday parks, fishing and boating, caravanning, bush camping and glamping. The digital-exclusive "Top 10 Best Australian Beaches 2026" (Bate Bay, Pinky Beach, Beachcomber Cove, Tallow Beach, Hellfire Bay, Godfreys Beach, Inskip Point, Mount Martha, Smoky Bay, Ellery Creek Big Hole) shows the site's listicle engine at work.

The COVID years and a consolidated network

The autumn 2020 issue went to print as COVID-19 reached Australia, and associate publisher Cara Wagstaff said the team dedicated it to domestic travel and to raising awareness of the regions most in need of tourism support after the bushfires. When the whole industry collapsed, the magazine refocused on road trips, national parks and holiday parks, while its luxury stablemates turned to private planes, yachts and villas as the likely shape of upscale travel after the pandemic. The crisis also accelerated a digital consolidation: in August 2019 holidayswithkids.com.au was relaunched as a single platform absorbing fivestarkidsmagazine.com.au, caravanandcampingwithkids.com.au and skiandsnowboardwithkids.com.au — a rebuild shaped by keyword and user-experience research with digital agency Indago. To celebrate the relaunch the team ran its biggest giveaway yet, the HWK Mega Giveaway, with 36 families sharing more than $15,000 in holidays and travel products, lifting site traffic 40% on the same period the year before. The network also exercises its authority through its Readers' Choice Awards, which recognise the best accommodation options for families, and the annual Little Luxie Family Travel awards for the best international luxury family-friendly accommodation. Family travel, the publisher notes, is a $500 billion global market — up to 30% of the entire travel industry — which explains why the network keeps extending rather than contracting.

Content and positioning

The content combines destination inspiration with the practical advice families need: safety, logistics, entertainment, activities, childcare and family-friendly facilities. The pitch — "whether planning a first holiday with a baby or an adventure with teenagers, Holidays with Kids is the trusted guide to travelling well together" — positions it as the family-travel authority across every life stage and budget.

Seventeen years of family travel

The magazine's own app-store description states its aim plainly: "to help you and your family create lifetime memories." With the widest readership of any publication in its genre, it is "firmly established as the go-to magazine for family travel," with more than seventeen years' experience providing news, developments and inspiration on family travel at home and abroad. The editorial promise is confidence: 196 pages per issue taking readers "through the best the world has to offer, without losing sight of those important logistical factors that families must consider" \u2014 children's safety, family entertainment, and the full spectrum of accommodation from camping and farm stays to luxurious resorts. It is a magazine that understands its reader is not a traveller but a travel organiser \u2014 usually a parent \u2014 planning for people of wildly different ages, needs and stamina.

The Signature Media stable

Holidays with Kids sits inside a travel-publishing house built around it. Signature Media's portfolio has included the quarterly Signature Travel and Lifestyle magazine, the thrice-yearly Five Star Kids, LATTE \u2014 described as the only luxury travel trade e-news in Australia \u2014 and Signature Spa Beauty and Wellness (relaunched as a bi-annual in 2014 with a new sales and editorial team), plus the acquired Vacations & Travel title folded into the network. The 2014 figures show the scale the flagship had already reached: 50,000-copy circulation, 600,000 readership including Qantas in-lounge and in-flight, 1.8 million website page views a month, and 53,000+ online members. The current network \u2014 900,000+ families a quarter, 214,300+ social audience, 72,000+ database \u2014 shows a decade of multi-platform growth on that base.

Distribution: where families find it

The magazine's distribution is built around the family journey itself: open and operating domestic Qantas lounges, family-friendly hotels and resorts, holiday parks, lodges and chalets in the snowfields of Jindabyne and Falls Creek, visitor information centres, select travel agents, newsagents Australia-wide, and subscribers. It is placed where families are already travelling or planning \u2014 the lounge before the flight, the park on arrival, the newsagent at home. The complimentary digital edition on the website and ISSUU, promoted with solus EDMs, boosted social posts and Google ads, extends that reach to the planners still at the kitchen table.

Coverage and audience

Holidays with Kids serves Australian families nationally — 900,000+ families each quarter across the network — through the quarterly print magazine, annuals, ebooks, website, app (Pocketmags), social channels and enewsletters. Its audience spans budget campers to luxury-resort families.

Ownership

Holidays with Kids is published by Signature Media (associate publisher Cara Wagstaff). Signature Media also publishes Signature Travel and Lifestyle, LATTE (luxury travel trade e-news) and acquired Vacations & Travel. Further ownership and financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital presence

The brand maintains holidayswithkids.com.au with destination guides, accommodation listings, best-of lists and digital exclusives, plus the Pocketmags app for current and back issues and subscriptions (4 issues per year). The complimentary digital edition is distributed via the website and ISSUU, and the enewsletter pushes digital exclusives \u2014 like the best-beaches list \u2014 to subscribers first, keeping the database warm between quarterly issues.

Sources and further reading

• Holidays with Kids, "About us" and "Advertise with us" — positioning, network, reach.
• Signature Media — the winter issue and spring 2020 issue announcements.
• TravelDailyNews via Tourism Cambodia — the 2013/14 record edition and circulation.