Where to go in August, when the school gates close

August is not a subtle month. The decision to travel in it is usually made for you, by a school calendar rather than a weather forecast, and the destinations that reward it are the ones built to survive a fortnight with children in tow: warm enough to swim without debate, varied enough that nobody runs out of things to do by day four, and forgiving of the odd late start. Three very different holidays meet that brief without simply parking everyone on a sunbed.

Croatia, an island a day

The waters off Dubrovnik are calm, clear and, by August, properly warm, which is most of what a family holiday needs to succeed. What lifts a Croatian island-hopping trip above the ordinary beach fortnight is the sheer number of small islands within reach of the coast: Lopud, car-free and largely pedestrian, with a sandy beach that shelves gently enough for younger children; Sipan, the largest of the Elafiti Islands, quieter again; and Dubrovnik itself, whose old town walls are one of the more reliable ways to keep teenagers interested in fortifications for an entire morning.

The appeal is partly logistical. Short island hops by boat break up a week in a way that a single resort cannot, and Dubrovnik's airport is close enough to the old town that the holiday starts almost as soon as it lands, which matters when the alternative is a long transfer with tired children.

Crete, where the coast has a mountain behind it

Crete solves a different August problem: heat. The island's north-west corner, around Chania, sits below the White Mountains, and a route that combines the old Venetian harbour town with excursions up into the Omalos plateau and the mountains above gives a family somewhere cooler to retreat to when the coast gets too much by early afternoon. Chania's harbour, with its Venetian lighthouse and Ottoman-era mosque, is a reminder that Crete has passed through more hands than most Greek islands, and its old town is compact enough for children to feel they can explore it without getting properly lost.

The Loire, at a child's pace

Not every August holiday needs an island. A cycling route through the Loire valley, from Tours through Villandry and Amboise to the great château at Chambord, covers the ground at a pace a ten-year-old can manage, on largely flat, well-marked paths that follow the river rather than fighting it. The châteaux themselves do a surprising amount of the entertaining: Chambord has a famous double-helix staircase that children invariably want to race up and down, and Amboise's château gardens, on a bluff above the town, are as good a place as any to run off a picnic.

France in August is at its busiest and hottest inland, which the Loire, with its river breezes and shade, handles better than the deep south. It is also, for a family already tired of the airport, reachable by an easy crossing and a manageable drive, which is worth something in itself.

What August does not forgive

It is worth being honest about the trade-off. August buys certainty, not exclusivity: Dubrovnik's old town is at its most crowded exactly when you want to visit it, the beaches on Crete's more accessible stretches of coast fill early, and popular stretches of the Loire cycle path are busy with other families making the same sensible choice. None of these three trips is a secret, and none of them pretends to be. What they offer instead is reliability, which is worth more than solitude when the people you are travelling with are eight and eleven.

Choosing between them

Croatia gives you the sea and the sense of discovery that comes from a different island each day. Crete gives you the sea plus a mountain retreat for the hottest hours, useful if heat and young children do not mix well in your family. The Loire gives you neither sea nor mountain but something gentler: a river, a bicycle each, and a run of houses too extravagant for children to quite believe were once lived in. All three ask less of the itinerary and more of the destination, which is exactly what August requires.