My husband and I are older parents of a teen girl with autism. We love to travel as a family, planning trips that are sensory-friendly for our daughter G and fun for all of us.

Our posts are useful for any family traveling with children, especially if someone in your family doesn't like waiting in line or being around loud noises. We share extra details about sensory and safety considerations at popular destinations so you know what to expect and can prepare in advance.

Our favorite beach destination in winter is Puerto Rico. We’ve been three times, and are already planning our next trip back.

For G, the perfect day in Puerto Rico includes several hours on a sandy beach with warm water, and plenty of time for a swim in the pool too.     If the water is wet, she will be in it.    She seeks out waves that will send her crashing into the sand, but isn’t a strong enough swimmer to handle the undertow.     For our family, a sheltered beach with calm water is the best choice.

From a parent’s point of view, convenience is (almost) as important as safety. When deciding where to stay in Puerto Rico, start by finding the beaches that fit your family’s swimming needs—then pick a home base close to those beaches. The rest of your itinerary will fall into place naturally.

Best for: strong surf swimmers, sunbathers, people who like wading at the water’s edge, and families who’d rather swim in a beachfront hotel pool.

Condado is a busy urban beach, conveniently located close to the airport.    Most of the beach has a very strong undertow, requiring strong surf swimming skills for everyone in the family, and arm’s-length supervision by parents, even at the shoreline.   

For kid-friendly, safer swimming in Condado, you can go to Playita Condado at the far western end.   The beach opens onto the lagoon, not the ocean, so undertow isn’t a major concern.   There are no lifeguards, so be prepared to supervise your children closely.     If you want to go swimming while looking at the beautiful Condado Beach and Atlantic waves, the pool at an ocean-front resort hotel is a great place to spend a few hours.

When we went to Condado Beach, my husband couldn’t help but notice that the bathing suits were much smaller there than at typical family beaches.   This wasn’t a problem for him, but it might be worth considering for your family.

Best for: families who want calm, sheltered water and a quieter beach, and swimmers of every ability

In Puerto Rico, a public beach is called a balneario, offering facilities appropriate for people who want to spend a full day at the beach.    Expect lifeguards, restrooms, changing facilities, food vendors, and a large paid parking lot.   Across Puerto Rico, parking costs vary by municipality, but are generally in the $4-6 range.     

Seven Seas is a crescent-shaped beach sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by a coral reef.  We’ve been here half a dozen times in January and February and never thought it was crowded, but that might not be the case on a major holiday or in summer.  On a sunny day, expect calm water with very slight waves – a low stress place for both swimming and playing at the water’s edge.   We never experienced any undertow, but check with the lifeguards if you’re not sure about water safety on the day you visit.    

When you enter the beach from the parking lot, you’ll notice machines to pay for your parking ($5 here, ticket needed for exit) right next to the restrooms and changing rooms.   Up the hill to the left, you’ll find a couple of rustic food stalls selling traditional Puerto Rican foods and tropical fruit smoothies.    We haven’t seen any chair or umbrella rental at the beach, so plan to bring your own.

As you walk along the beach path, there are palm trees between the path and the shore, and you’ll be tempted to grab a spot under the first good tree you come to.  Resist that urge. The beach section closest to the parking lot has a lot of coral under the surface of the water.   It’s rough and uncomfortable, with very uneven footing.     Get about 2/3 of the way to the end, and you’re in a perfect sandy spot for swimming without water shoes.  

Best for: families who want calm, sheltered water with plenty of services nearby, and don’t mind a livelier crowd.

Luquillo Beach is a large, sheltered crescent-shaped beach on the northeast shore of Puerto Rico.  La Monserrate is the public beach area, or balneario, within the larger Luquillo beach.

If you come early in the morning, when the beaches are empty, Luquillo and Seven Seas seem almost identical.    Later in the day, you’ll notice that Luquillo is livelier, with a lot more services and a lot more people.   

When we arrived at La Monserrate, there was an attendant at the parking lot, where it cost $5 for the day.   Multiple vendors rent chairs and umbrellas, and then set them up for you.   When we visited, prices for this varied somewhat between vendors, roughly $10 per chair and $15 per umbrella, paid in cash.    While we were setting up our spot, employees from several food and drink stalls brought us printed menus with QR codes, so that we could place orders right from our phone.   

On the day of our visit, the water was warm and smooth, with no noticeable undertow, plenty of lifeguards, and no need for water shoes.  It’s a great place for swimmers of all levels, but if you have questions about water safety conditions on the day of your visit, make sure to ask a lifeguard.    There’s a jet ski rental service at the far end of the beach.    G hates loud noises, so we didn’t even consider doing that.   We did enjoy watching the jet skis in the distance, and the sound didn’t reach us on the beach.

As the day progressed, the beach filled up with families ready to have fun.   Some of them played fairly loud music.  Fortunately, none were very close to us, so that didn’t become an issue.  

One not so bright spot in our day – the public bathroom.    On the day of our visit, the free restrooms were clearly heavily used, lacked TP in several stalls, and seemed generally unsanitary.    We decided to purchase wristbands for access to the paid facilities, which were much cleaner, with showers, dressing rooms, and plenty of toilet paper.   From my point of view, the extra $2 per person for the day was money well spent!

The Luquillo Kioskos are located right on Luquillo beach, about a 10-minute walk from La Monserrate Balneario.    The beach behind the kioskos is open for swimming, but without lifeguards.     If you’re looking for dinner after the beach, there are lots of restaurants to choose from, and you’re already in the right place.   If this is your plan, get dinner early.   The Kioskos become party central after dark.

On our first trip, we were traveling with extended family, and rented a large condo in Fajardo. On our second trip, it was just the three of us, so we booked a hotel room at a San Juan resort.

Our experiences in San Juan and Fajardo helped us understand what matters most when choosing a home base. Here's what we learned from each.

We stayed at the Caribe Hilton, right on the ocean in San Juan. We were thrilled that we arrived by cab less than 30 minutes after walking off the plane.

We ran into an unexpected problem at check-in. We arrived a little after 9 PM when a dance party was in full swing in a club right of the lobby. The noise was way too loud for G, and she was upset. It would have worked out better if we had come on an earlier flight, or contacted the hotel in advance to request alternate check-in arrangements.

The Caribe Hilton is a full service resort, right on the ocean, which has a small beach with no surf. That was a nice option, but honestly, the pools there had better views of the ocean, so we spent more time in them than at the beach. We were perfectly happy with this.

The resort had several good restaurants, with additional options just outside the gates of the property. We took a cab to visit Old San Juan. On another day, we reserved a rental car from Enterprise, which operates a rental desk at the resort, and used it to do some exploring.

Our room had a nice balcony with a view of the lagoon, which gave us a place to sit and talk after G’s bedtime, and a small fridge in our room to hold a few snacks and drinks.

We had a very positive experience at the Caribe Hilton. We haven’t had a chance to try out other four star hotels in the immediate area, but I would expect a similar overall experience from those as well.

Would we stay at a big hotel in San Juan again? Absolutely, but not for more than 3-4 days at a time.

We learned something about our family’s travel style on this trip. The balcony was nice, but if the weather had been bad, space would have been tight. We also realized that staying well regulated for three sit-down meals a day for a week straight is a lot to ask of G. If we plan another week-long stay in San Juan, we might do better in an extended-stay, suite-style hotel.

We’ve stayed in two different condos in Fajardo. On our first trip, we rented a four-bedroom condo with extended family in a complex with a great pool. The big win was having one comfortable space where the whole family could be together, with room to eat, talk, and relax as a group instead of splitting up across hotel rooms. The pool kept everyone happy when we weren’t at the beach.

For our most recent trip, it was just the three of us, so we chose a small two-bedroom in a high-rise overlooking the harbor. The view was spectacular: 270 degrees of harbor, ocean, and small islands. G loved standing on the balcony in the breeze, and it gave all of us a calm place to unwind. The community pool was great too.

Fajardo is an outstanding home base in northeastern Puerto Rico. It’s home to Seven Seas Beach and the Laguna Grande luminescent bay, with a great selection of boat tours available in the Fajardo harbor. Luquillo Beach and El Yunque Rainforest are each about 20 minutes away.

The drive from the airport to Fajardo took about an hour after we picked up our rental car. That’s longer than the cab ride to the Caribe Hilton, but since we would inevitably be out in the area at some point in our trip, we consider the drive to be a sunk cost in terms of vacation time anyway.

The key difference from the hotel was that our daily schedule felt easier and more comfortable. We didn’t need to get dressed before breakfast, and didn’t need to wait for everyone to be ready before eating. Most days we ate lunch at a restaurant and had a simple dinner at home, which gave G a break from restaurant noise and waiting. The in-unit washer and dryer was a bonus too, since wet swimsuits and beach clothes add up fast when someone spends most of the day in the water.

The trade-off was having to plan meals and shop for them. That’s a task I’d rather avoid on vacation, but since we would shop for snacks and drinks for the room at the hotel too, the difference wasn’t a big deal.

Staying in Fajardo also means living in a real community, not in a resort bubble catering to americanos, which is what locals call visitors from the mainland. Many rental condos are in gated complexes, but when you head out for groceries, you’re shopping alongside local residents going about their daily lives. Some of them won’t speak much English, and I speak very little Spanish. Usually, hello, goodbye, please and thank you, with a smile, is enough. For anything complex, Google Translate works great.

If you’d like tips on finding and booking a vacation rental through a site like VRBO or Airbnb, check out our guide to booking a vacation rental, How to Find the Best Vacation Rental for Your Family

A Third Option: A Resort Suite with a Kitchenette

If I couldn’t find a condo in Fajardo that met our needs, my next choice would be the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve in Río Grande, about halfway between San Juan and Fajardo. We haven’t stayed there, so this idea is based on research rather than experience. It’s located about 20 minutes from Luquillo beach, so if the resort beach isn’t right for your family, you have another great option nearby.

This could be a good middle ground between a hotel room and a condo. Their one-bedroom suites come with private balconies or terraces, and include a kitchenette with a dining area. That’s enough for breakfast, snacks, and a few simple meals. As with anywhere outside San Juan, you’ll need a rental car.

When you travel with kids, you will eventually find yourself shopping for food, whether it’s groceries for a week, or snacks to tide you over for a few days in a hotel.

The supermarkets I’ve visited in Puerto Rico had a familiar layout, with produce, a meat counter, a deli, and frozen foods in the places you’d expect. We don’t have much Puerto Rican or Hispanic food at my local supermarket, so I had no idea of how I might use a lot of the produce and meats. Puerto Rican brands labeled in Spanish dominated the shelves in the grocery section.

It was a little overwhelming at first, but once I adjusted, I checked out the specialty aisle and found a good selection of ordinary (to me) American foods. The store carried many of G’s favorites, including Kraft Mac and Cheese and microwave popcorn, so we were covered on the essentials.

We decided to leave Puerto Rican cooking to the experts, and enjoy the Caribbean cuisine in restaurants at lunchtime. For meals at the condo, we found a good selection of prepared foods ready to heat and eat in the deli department. We combined these with tropical fruit and salads, so we were able to eat well without too much extra effort.

Start with the beach, then choose a base that makes the rest of the trip easy. For our family, that has meant calm water, a quiet place to retreat, and a daily routine G can count on. A San Juan resort works well for a short stay, a Fajardo condo gives us room to relax over a full week, and a suite with a kitchenette sits comfortably in between. Whichever you choose, the right place is the one that fits what your family needs to feel comfortable. We’ll keep going back to Puerto Rico, and we’re already planning the next trip.

Why We Keep Going Back to Puerto Rico

A Sensory-Friendly Day in Eastern Puerto Rico: El Yunque & Bio Bay

A Culebra Day Trip: Flamenco Beach by Ferry and Golf Cart

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