It might still be a little rough around the edges but Margate’s hipster renaissance has catapulted it from derelict dump to “fourth hippest place to live” and “best seaside resort in Britain” in the seven short years since the opening of its Turner Contemporary gallery. Beside ourselves at the promise of sand, sea and soft play, let alone an art gallery we’d never been to, we skipped merrily out the door at 7am on a Saturday and hurried down to St Pancras to catch the high-speed Southeastern (which, despite travelling at speeds up to 140mph still takes more than 90 minutes, because Margate is basically the moon).

I’d carefully planned our itinerary the night before, aiming to hit that delicate balance of doing all the stuff we really wanted to do without trying to shoehorn in additional crap for the sake of it and all needing a nap by lunchtime. We decided against Dreamland because rides. Me and Babu are both extremely vomity people and we didn’t need that on our day out at the seaside, so we stuck with its separate Octopus’s Garden play area, the intriguingly named Shell Grotto and the Turner Contemporary, with plenty of time left over to construct some sand-disasters and suck in some sea air on the beach.

GALLERY: Turner Contemporary

By far my favourite thing about Margate, and kind of my entire reason for wanting to visit, the Turner Contemporary is a visually striking, hangar-like space celebrating the town’s association with JMW Turner. It’s ridiculously family-friendly thanks to its top-notch facilities, including a stylish cafe serving healthy, child-compatible meals and snacks; a cool shop selling amazing toys; a huge lift and nice baby-change; and, crucially, a big, airy kids’ area on the main landing with Vitra elephant seats, tables, colouring, books and – when we visited – elaborate animal masks to try on as part of the current Animals & Us exhibition. We particularly loved the immersive, fabric-strewn pod in the gallery’s entrance but were sad to miss Paula, the life-sized polar bear puppet who’s been roaming the gallery all summer. If we ever move to Margate we will come here every day.

Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate CT9 1HG

PLAY SPACE: Octopus’s Garden, Dreamland

I’d heard good things about Octopus’s Garden, Dreamland’s separate soft-play cafe, and while the pictures completely sold it to me, I wasn’t actually that struck by it in real life. In theory it’s a great play space, with a medium-sized climbing structure and slides, plus plenty of seaside-themed buildings to play in, but I couldn’t help finding the whole situation a bit depressing, as soft play tends to be, and if you looked beyond the facades of the cute little beach huts and shop fronts there wasn’t actually that much to do. On the plus side it was so quiet in there that Babu felt brave enough to tackle the entire climbing structure on her own, without either of us having to succumb to a sweaty bum crack clambering after her.

Octopus’s Garden, Dreamland Margate, 49-51, Marine Terrace, Margate CT9 1XJ

MUSEUM: Shell Grotto

I don’t know why but I imagined the Shell Grotto to be in a cave on the beachfront. I was wrong. It’s actually about a 10-minute walk away, on Grotto Hill, behind a modern facade and down a lot of steps (but it’s ok, you have to leave your buggy upstairs anyway). I kind of loved this place for being so weird and creepy, which was exactly the reason Babu hated it and immediately wanted to leave. While the staff are lovely and the Friends of the Shell Grotto have done their best to make it toddler-friendly with a colouring table in the mini museum room, there is definitely a vibe down there (I mean seances used to be held down there, for crying out loud). I’d have loved to have stayed a bit longer to stare at the mosaics and ponder why the hell anyone would dig a passageway 70ft underground then fill it with 4.5 million shells, but then again Babu’s bloodcurdling screams were quite a good reason to chicken out of hanging around to soak up any more creepy.

Shell Grotto, Grotto Hill, Margate CT9 2BU

TIPS: Take the high-speed train from London (various stations) and don’t worry about transport on arrival – you will just need your legs. If we ever do Margate again we’ll likely be giving the Shell Grotto and Octopus’s Garden a miss because I didn’t think either was that incredible, though I’m glad we saw them both anyway. If you have some extra time there’s also the Tudor House, which dates back to 1525 and which we didn’t bother with, despite it being on the same street as the grotto.

We ate at the busiest, dirtiest-looking takeaway fish and chip shop we could find in the hope that queues equalled quality, but they didn’t and it was a bit shit. In fact it was so unmemorable I have absolutely no idea what it was called, but it definitely wasn’t Peter’s Fish Factory and that seems to be the frontrunner as far as reviews go. In terms of ice cream, Melt Margate‘s gelato parlour wins the public vote.

We didn’t have time to do much shopping but we did pop into super-cute gift shop Little Bit, where I wanted to buy all the planters with faces, and on another trip I’d love to check out the Mar Mar cafe-bar-shop with its lush foliage, and minimalist coffee and brunch spot Storeroom by Curve.

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UPDATE: We returned to Margate almost a year to the day after our initial day trip for a long weekend, and managed to fill in all the gaps in our itinerary and then some. This is everything we did during round two.

AMUSEMENT PARK: Dreamland

Oh my God we loved this place, which somehow manages to be really beautiful and not feel at all tacky and despite it being an amusement park on the seafront in Margate. We actually loved it so much we went two days in a row, which was perfectly doable since there’s no entrance fee and you only pay when you actually want to go on something (you can buy a day-pass wristband or load up a pay-as-you-go card). We bought a wristband for Babu (£12 online for 90cm-1.2m) on both days and one for Adam (£15 online for over 1.2m) on the first day so he could accompany her (some rides are free for accompanying adults and some aren’t) and then everything else went on the card – including my Big Wheel debut, which scared the shit out of me. Babu’s favourite rides were Born Slippy (pictured), Jumping Star (drop ride for little ones), the Speedway carousel, the Soaring Seagulls pedal ride and the Counter Culture Caterpillar rollercoaster. All rides require kids to be taller than 90cm and most require those between 90cm and 1.2m to ride with an adult, although some smaller rides don’t (check the website, which lets you filter rides by height). You can pay more to do Octopus’s Garden and the Roller Room, and there’s also a diner and arcade hall inside the complex. We loved Cafe Barletta, which can also be found within Dreamland.

Dreamland Margate, 49-51, Marine Terrace, Margate CT9 1XJ

SHOPS

There are some truly brilliant independent shops in Margate. For books we loved The Margate Bookshop in Market Place, which has a small but expertly curated kids’ section and comfy armchairs, and Book Buoy, on Hawley Street, which is visually stunning with its wall-to-wall displays and well-chosen children’s-book and local-author edits. For prints I was really feeling Kill Me Now on the High Street, not just because it’s one of my favourite shop names ever but because I wanted to buy so much art there. For gifts I really liked Margaux on Hawley Street (mostly quirky kids’ bits), Little Bit on Broad Street (colourful homeware and accessories) and Mar Mar on Northdown Road (plants and stationery. The junk and antiques shops were great for a wander too, particularly Fort Road Yard (on… erm… Fort Road) with all its batshit fairground paraphernalia, and for lovely clothes I can’t really afford I liked the look of Ruskin Clothing and WerkHaus (both on the High Street) and Albion Stores (Fort Road), plus if you’re into vintage then Peony (King Street) looks pretty cool. The Turner Contemporary shop (Rendezvous) is great too.

FOOD:

We ate so much food on this trip it was borderline grotesque. The fish and chip shop we ate at last year has since closed down, which says it all, because it was shit. This time we tried out Peter’s Fish Factory, which was bloody amazing and absolutely my top dirty-food rec. Also on my child-friendly hit list is GB Pizza Co, which might have a blah name but offers really exceptional pizza of the super-thin, melt-in-the-mouth variety. One of the topping options was pear and stilton, which I still regret not having. The space is really cool and the service was excellent, despite the nondescript exterior and the mixed reviews I’d been given beforehand. If you’re doing what we did and spending a couple of nights there with babies I’d say grab a bag of chips from Peter’s and eat it on the beach on the first night then do GB on the second, but if by some miracle you manage to wangle a babysitter then I have it on good authority that Angela’s and Dory’s – both fish restaurants, both owned by the same people – are amazing. We toyed with the idea of taking Babu to Angela’s but it’s a bit fancy and cool and I just know she wouldn’t have eaten a single morsel, so we’re saving it for the solo trip that will probably never happen. Coffee-wise my top picks are Mar Mar (that plant shop on Northdown Road) and Storeroom by Curve (Union Row), where we also had a stupidly delicious brunch consisting of chia-seed pudding, shakshuka and chilli-cheese toast. I’ve also heard good things about Po’ Boy “The Creole Fish Hut” (Royal Crescent Promenade) for takeout, and Melt Margate (Marine Drive) for ice cream, though we had a really good one from a stand in one of the amusement arcades on Marine Terrace.

ACCOMMODATION

I can thoroughly recommend our Airbnb, which is owned by a really friendly South London couple and located just off Northdown Road. It’s close to the Shell Grotto, Mar Mar, the Viking Adventure Playground (which tbh I didn’t really rate), the Insta-famous Pink House and Dane Park, which has a little playground, and a short walk to literally everything else mentioned on this page. The house itself is beautiful – smallish but spacious with high ceilings, minimalist decor, a well-stocked kitchen, a garden and terrace, and the all-important travel cot (a lot of the other Airbnbs we looked at weren’t suitable for children).

Babu and Mummy explore the main sands at Margate Beach.