Experience the Dolomites the way we've always wanted to share them on our Family Runcation in the Dolomites — a running vacation built for parents who love the trails and refuse to choose between big mountain mornings and family adventure. Each day starts the same beautiful way: kids head off to dedicated, professional childcare steps from your door (one easy drop-off, no logistics, no guilt), while you join our guides for runs through the most dramatic limestone scenery in the Alps. We're proud to be the first running tour company to offer childcare on our trail running tours, and we're so excited to bring this type of Runcation to the Dolomites: mornings for runners, afternoons and evenings for families — and the in-between handled by a kids' kingdom the little ones may refuse to leave: a forest adventure playground with its own stream, alpacas to feed at the petting zoo, and activities tailored to our group of kids. Afternoons are for everyone: meadow playgrounds at the top of cable cars, wildflower valleys with creeks made for dam-building, and rifugio kitchens that believe every hike should end in strudel.

As for the running: this is the trip where the postcard comes to life. We'll run high grassy ridgelines along the old Austrian–Italian border with rock walls filling the horizon, thread wild car-free valleys to storied rifugios where the espresso is earned, and — on the big day — climb into the Three Peaks Nature Park itself for a head-on meeting with the Tre Cime from its quietest side. Every run offers something different: a high meadow, an open ridge, a quiet valley, and high alpine mountain passes, so in just a week you'll get to experience all the magical types of running this region of the Dolomites has to offer.

Our first Family Runcation with Childcare ran in the Swiss Alps in August 2026. The Dolomites are the next location we're bringing this experience to. Same idea: parents run in the morning, kids in a supervised childcare program, families together for afternoons and evenings. Different landscape — the dramatic limestone peaks of the Dolomites, South Tyrolean mountain culture, and everything from Tre Cime views to speck-and-cheese lunches at the end of the day.

Trip Difficulty:
Level 1/2 (Learn More at https://runcation.org/which-trip-is-right-for-me)

Trip Requirements:
This trip requires a minimum of 8 adult runners. Please do not purchase flights until confirming with the retreat organizer.

All transport mentioned on the daily itinerary, including cable cars, train, funiculars, lifts, and gondolas.

Childcare during the running portion at a top notch facility with trained and experienced professionals

Trip logistics of route planning, lodging, and transportation reservations

Double accommodation in 4-star hotels throughout and flexible to fit your family needs

Breakfasts included daily including a special buffet breakfast on the top of a mountain!

Knowledgable expert mountain guide and running coach along the entire route

A 8:1 ratio of guide to participants

Flexible family-friendly afternoon activities to join, or receive suggestions for alternate activities in the region!

Trip packet with detailed info including packing and weather resources

Access to a personal trip WhatsApp group and community

Knowledgable mountain running guide and running coach along the entire route

International airfare

Alcoholic beverages and meals 

Travel Insurance

Dinners and lunches

Extra optional side activities such as massages or activities outside of itinerary

Extra expenses due to a change in itinerary or in case of you having to shorten the day or trip as a whole (including personal return trips to the airport/next destination/etc.)

Trip Difficulty: Level 1/2

More Info Here on Trip Levels: 

https://runcation.org/which-trip-is-right-for-me

Passport:

Must have a valid passport valid through 6 months upon date of travel.

Travel Insurance:

Must have travel insurance prior to start of trip. 

Fitness/Pacing:

This is a LEVEL 1/2 trip. While there are guides to accommodate a variety of paces, the guided trail running portion of this trip requires running participants to cover the mileage and elevation gain as described in the itinerary. While uphills are hiked, the flats and downhills must be jogged or run (no pace requirement). This trip still takes place in a mountainous environment where you may be exposed to sections of technical trails (think rocky, rooted, or steep with loose rock) or unfavorable weather conditions. We can accommodate different paces, photo and snack stops, and taking time to soak up and enjoy the route and your vacation. We cannot, however, accommodate people purely hiking on this running trip.

Optional 12-week training package available from an experienced running coach to ensure you're trained and ready to go for this adventure of a lifetime! This option is available as an add-on when booking.

Options for Non-Runners to Join: There are plenty of great and accessible hiking options from town if a partner is joining that it not a runner! We are happy to provide maps and suggestions for parents that want to take advantage of the childcare portion of the day, but aren’t interested joining for all the trail runs. These hikes are unguided.

Age Requirement for Childcare: Childcare is included for all children ages 3 and up — from an experienced, professional childcare team (fluent in English, Italian, and German). Care is dedicated exclusively to our group on run mornings, with one easy drop-off steps from your apartment, and the program is tailored to the ages of the children in attendance. Activities include time in an outdoor adventure forest, feeding the alpacas, rabbits, and sheep at the petting zoo, or painting, crafts and group games in the indoor play world. Younger children get their own gentler pace in a separate little-kids zone, so toddlers aren't swept up in big-kid chaos. If you're traveling with kids under 3, you're very welcome — they won't be old enough for the supervised care, but if you're traveling with a partner you can always switch off for the guided runs, and there are wonderful runnable trails right out the door if you'd like to get your own miles in during the afternoon.

Weather:

Although the weather in late summer is often ideal, weather in the mountains is variable and trail conditions are subject to change on an hourly basis! Route subjective to change based on the safety of conditions and climate of the trail.

Understanding Our Pricing

Non-Running Partner Discount (–10% off adult rate)

Partners who join the trip but don't participate in guided runs receive a 10% discount. They still enjoy all trip amenities: hotel, spa, sports center, childcare, mountaintop breakfast experience, and trip organization

Early Bird Pricing

Available for the first families to sign up before the trip is sold out, or through February 1, 2027 — whichever comes first.

Childcare (included)

Professional childcare during guided run windows (children age 3+). Parents cover children's medical care needs and provide any required travel insurance information. If you have a child age 2 and up that is on the fence with the age requirement, please reach out!

IDM Südtirol-Alto Adige — Manuel Kottersteger, Harald Wisthaler, Thomas Grüner, Manuel Ferrigato, trickytine. Additional images courtesy of our partner resort and © Runcation Travel.

Tucked into a quiet valley beneath the famous "stone sundial" of the Dolomites, your home for the week is a 4-star family-run gem. Settle into your design apartment — separate kids' room, mountain-view balcony, a rooftop hot tub staring straight at the peaks — and let the little ones discover the adventure hub for kids while you unpack. This evening we meet to look at the week ahead. The trails start tomorrow; tonight is for arriving and settling in!

• Accommodation in a design apartment at a 4★S family resort included, with daily breakfast, separate kids' bedroom, and full access to the 2,000 m² panorama spa, pools, saunas, rooftop hot tub, kids' adventure pool, and play areas.

After enjoying breakfast at our hotel and dropping kids off with our private childcare service, we ease in the best way possible: a cable car does the morning's first climbing, and then it's pure, grassy ridgeline running along the old Austrian–Italian frontier — the kind of high, open singletrack trail runners dream about, with the Dolomites' rock towers filling the southern horizon. Meanwhile, the kids are minutes away in the care our trips are built around. We'll stop for a cappuccino mid-run to soak up the fact that we're in the Dolomites, and by early afternoon we're all back together heading to a hut in the high meadows — big views for the adults, room to run wild for the kids, and gondola windows that turn the ride itself into the day's first story. First day, and everyone — runners and kids alike — come home happy-tired.

• Mileage: ~6 miles, +/- 1,500 feet elevation gain/loss

• Accommodation in a design apartment at a 4★S family resort included, with daily breakfast, separate kids' bedroom, and full access to the 2,000 m² panorama spa, pools, saunas, rooftop hot tub, kids' adventure pool, and play areas.

• Roundtrip transport (short bus and cable car) to run included

• Childcare included: the program is tailored to the ages of the children in attendance of our group. From playing in an outdoor adventure forest, feeding the alpacas, rabbits, and sheep at the petting zoo, or painting, crafts, and group games in the indoor play world.

This morning's run leaves straight from the front door: no vans, no transfers, just a wild valley that funnels you gently, then dramatically, into a cirque of 3,000-meter walls, with a storied rifugio waiting at the top for espresso. Runners choose their distance; everyone earns the same view.

After lunch the whole crew sets out together on the week's family hike — a stroller-friendly wander up a car-free valley where the trail keeps company with a cold, clear mountain creek, and kids are free to to play and hang out in the meadow. The finish line is a century-old hut run by one of the valley's great mountain families, where the negotiation is simple: hikers who make it get first pick between apple strudel, Kaiserschmarrn, and hot chocolate. After enjoying our rifugio stop, we'll head back to the hotel to enjoy an evening as you please!

• Mileage:

  Kid friendly hike option: ~2.5miles, +/- 450 feet feet elevation gain/loss

  Run mileage: ~4-7 miles, +/- 900 feet elevation gain/loss

• Accommodation in a design apartment at a 4★S family resort included, with daily breakfast, separate kids' bedroom, and full access to the 2,000 m² panorama spa, pools, saunas, rooftop hot tub, kids' adventure pool, and play areas.

• Transport to family activity included

• Childcare included: the program is tailored to the ages of the children in attendance of our group. From playing in an outdoor adventure forest, feeding the alpacas, rabbits, and sheep at the petting zoo, or painting, crafts, and group games in the indoor play world.

Every Runcation has its big day, and this is ours: a full morning in the heart of the Tre Cime Nature Park, climbing past alpine lakes and lonely high huts to a view that has launched a thousand postcards — the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, head-on, from the quiet side. On this loop we'll have a little of every type of running: mellow grades in the valley to technical and rocky mountain passes that the Dolomites are famous for. Care for the kids runs into the afternoon today, so there's no clock-watching at the hut lunch — just one of the great trail-running days in the Alps, taken at your pace. In the afternoon choose from plenty of family friendly activities provided in your trip packet, or relax at the hotel.

• Mileage: ~11-12 miles, 4,000 feet elevation gain/loss

• Accommodation in a design apartment at a 4★S family resort included, with daily breakfast, separate kids' bedroom, and full access to the 2,000 m² panorama spa, pools, saunas, rooftop hot tub, kids' adventure pool, and play areas.

• Short transportation to the start and from the end of the run included (~10 mins)

• Childcare included: the program is tailored to the ages of the children in attendance of our group. From playing in an outdoor adventure forest, feeding the alpacas, rabbits, and sheep at the petting zoo, or painting, crafts, and group games in the indoor play world.

The farewell run is a traverse: a lift floats us up to the spectacular rolling high meadows that make this region of the Dolomites famous. We'll set off for our run beneath an impressive peak, and from there we thread our way along the flank of the range — flower fields, larch woods, echoes of century-old history in the rock — to a mountain pass on the Italian border, before turning for home on a different line and descending all the way back to the hotel on foot. We'll cover 10 miles in a runnable and totally different fashion than yesterday and arrive back with time to relax and hang out before picking up our kids. In the afternoon, the families gather to explore South Tyrolean food and drink culture — think local speck, mountain cheese, gelato, and a well-earned Aperol.

• Mileage: ~10 miles, +1,500/-3,000 feet elevation gain/loss

• Accommodation in a design apartment at a 4★S family resort included, with daily breakfast, separate kids' bedroom, and full access to the 2,000 m² panorama spa, pools, saunas, rooftop hot tub, kids' adventure pool, and play areas.

• Short bus and cable car fees to the start of the run included

• Childcare included: the program is tailored to the ages of the children in attendance of our group. From playing in an outdoor adventure forest, feeding the alpacas, rabbits, and sheep at the petting zoo, or painting, crafts, and group games in the indoor play world.

One last alpine breakfast and one last look at the sundial peaks and we'll have you on your way with transfer connections handled and another week of memories for the whole family.

• Breakfast included

*Please note, exact mileage and ascent/descent info each day subject to change based on weather and trail conditions, but this is a good guideline*