Things to do with Toddlers in Bahrain’s Heat

Enjoy Bahrain’s nights

We have been enjoying the Persian Gulf with our family reunited for a few weeks now, and have all felt Bahrain’s summer heat quickly ramping up. For the past few days temperatures have hit 104-108 degrees (40-42C), and it has been much more difficult to go on outdoor adventures (our usual family activity).

Some ways we have been trying to beat the heat and have fun despite the weather include:

1. Taking advantage of indoor playgrounds and playrooms. These play spaces are everywhere, probably because of the heat. They can be found in every mall, many restaurants, and a lot of apartment buildings, too!
2. Enjoying covered pools. Many hotels and apartments across Bahrain have covered pools, providing much needed shade when the sun is high. They include big pools for swimming, shallower kiddie pools, and sometimes covered water play areas as well.
3. And the biggest one….Arabian nights! Once the sun begins to set the weather becomes much more manageable. It gets briefly more humid around sunset, but even that subsides quickly enough, and the culture here seems to be organized accordingly. Restaurants and parks come alive with families after dark; families will picnic in parks well into the night, enjoying these public spaces much later than in the United States. Later bedtimes and more outside time in total is something I am totally okay with. Milo has even started running to get his shoes after dinner, saying “Baby shoes on” or “Let’s go” because he has gotten used to our post-sunset adventures! It is still hot at night, but without the sun beating down the difference is huge.

Our Favorite evening activities:

1. Bahrain Dino Park: This costs about $1.50 USD (900 Bahraini fils) for all three of us to enter, and has multiple playgrounds, carnival rides, picnic tables, fountains, food shacks, and colossal moving and growling dinosaurs. We love picking up Shawarmas and picnicking under the dinosaurs before playing.
2. The Souq: This outdoor Bazaar has great shopping, trinkets, carpets, cheap clothes, toys, and food. There is an indoor mall section, but the majority of it winds through narrow alleys near the Manama Financial District. Milo absolutely LOVES going here and getting one of Bahrain’s many juices while checking out the lights, trinkets, and enchanting shops.
3. The Beach: Some beaches to check out in Bahrain that are great for families include:

-Al Budaiya Public Beach

-Al Jazaer Beach

-Arad Fort Beach

-The Beach at the Art Rotana

-Marassi Beach

Forever beach Bums… exploring these beach locations continues to be one of the best evening activities around.

4. Playgrounds at night

5. The Tree of Life: This is simply a big, beautiful old tree in the desert. But the experience for Milo was pretty incredible. He loved the rocks, dirt, and shrubs, and he had free reign to run around and explore the vast expanse of rolling, car-free desert.

Milo’s Favorites:

1. High Fives at the beach!
2. Seeing his doggie friend on nightly walks. Milo misses our dog Sebastian, and I think seeing dogs in general. However he has made one good dog friend, and looks forward to visiting on his nighttime strolls to give infinity pets and kisses.
3. Feeding kittens at Dino Park. Milo seems to find the animals wherever he goes, and had a flock of kittens following him on our last visit to this night time wonderland. It helped that he was carrying a fistful of french fries around with him, too.

Bloopers:

1. Staying a bit too long at the Tree of Life: The Tree of Life is located in the middle of the island, and takes a while to venture there and back. Time got away from us! We stayed well past sunset, and then were in a crunch to find dinner….so we wound up having goldfish crackers as an appetizer and a wild dinner at Papa Johns on the way home.
2. Trying to start our Bahraini evenings too early. As we’ve been figuring out the heat here we initially started our evening adventures too soon, when it is still way too hot. Some water and venturing to nearby air-conditioning usually helps but if you want to avoid profusely sweating I would start outdoor adventures after 7pm during July.