Best Beach Toys for the Whole Family
The best beach toys for a family day at the beach are easy to pack, waterproof, budget-friendly, and can hold up to strong gusts of wind from the shore.
When we’re packing up the car for a day at the beach as a family, there is always room to throw in a few essential beach toys to keep us all entertained.
As newbie beach goers, we used to wait till we got to the beach town for our visit and then stock up on overpriced, utterly flimsy, plastic junk at the local beach shops.
After just a couple visits, we soon figured out we were better off finding better priced and better made items online at home and making room in the car for them.
We simply store them in the garage and use them again and again for each beach trip.
The Top 3 Essential Beach Toys
You truly don’t need a lot of beach toys to keep the kids happy. Keep in mind the classics that keep the focus on the beach itself:
- A solid beach pail
- A sturdy shovel
- A sand sifter
If I had to pick just 3, those would be the beach toys I would pack in the car no matter how old my kids are.
They can be repurposed for both play and practical activities:
- Building sand castles
- Digging and collecting shells
- Scooping water from the ocean for easy rinsing of our other gear or feet
- Digging holes for our beach umbrella
- And so much more.
Toys for All Ages
My list of beach toys starts with the top 3 essentials and then progresses by age level.
As our kids have grown up at the beach, we’ve upgraded our gear from simple pails to more interactive toys that are super fun for the teens and adults in the group to play together, too.
Even if you’re heading to the beach with a group of all adults, don’t underestimate how much more fun you might have with tucking a cornhole set or bocce ball set in your beach wagon!
While you’re making your packing list, don’t miss my list of the best beach gear for a family trip, too.
Best Beach Toys to Buy Before Your Trip
Of all the beach toys we've tested over the years, this particular set of sand sifters was the most useful and popular with my kids.
The wide open, shallow flat surface is perfect for skimming water in a tide pool and catching the tiny fish swimming there for a closer look before releasing them again.
It also works great in the shallow edge of the ocean where the waves push up shells and small crabs in the wet sand.
My girls could sit for ages with just this one beach toy and be utterly entertained.
From building sand castles to burying each other in the sand to digging for shells and crabs, a solid plastic shovel is a must-have beach toy for the family.
My husband will use these to dig the sand for our umbrella pole, too.
Many plastic shovels that come with a pail set are flimsy and small and take forever to dig a decent hole. These long handled scoopers are far more effective and sturdy.
One part shell bucket, one part sand castle mold. We've loved these sand castle mold buckets with a handle for toting things too and from the beach.
Tuck a long handled plastic shovel inside and your kids will be ready to play for hours.
While most sand bucket sets are not worth your time, this adorable set from Melissa & Doug is the exception to the rule.
Perfectly designed for smaller hands, the shovel and rake are sturdy and the measuring cup scoopers are perfect for busy sand play for little ones.
I've always loved the turtle sifter on top and the blue bucket is one we still have in our toy pile long after my kids outgrew the other elements of the set.
If you've got kids under 8, this is an excellent beach toy starter set.
My kids were absolutely obsessed with these skip ball toys at the pool last summer. The balls soak up just the right amount of water to give them some heft and make them super fun to toss and catch.
They'd be a great beach toy for the whole family, get them wet with ocean water and toss them on the beach back and forth.
You'll get a little splash of water every time you catch one, which is super refreshing on a hot beach day.
This beach toy is so essential to our beach trips I also listed it on my list of best beach gear.
With a simple boogie board in our list of beach supplies, my kids can be busy for HOURS in the ocean waves.
They started using these lightweight boogie boards when they were about 5 or 6 in the more shallow parts of the water. Their tiny kid bodies fit perfectly on the boards and they had so much fun riding the waves towards the shore.
Now that my kids are older, they still love their boogie boards but have to go out a bit farther into the water. Don't wait too long before introducing this fun beach toy to your kids!
The beaches on the East coast where we go each summer tend to be very windy. A kite would be a most excellent beach toy to bring for kids of all ages.
If you're heading to the Outer Banks, you'll find lots of beach shops selling kites nearby. But for beaches anywhere else along the coast, you may want to bring your own and be prepared.
Blow up beach balls are an absolute joke on a windy beach. If your family wants to toss a ball back and forth while playing during your visit, you need a ball with quite a bit more heft.
This volleyball can be played with traditional bump style or for younger kids is a great size for just throwing back and forth.
BONUS: It would take a much bigger gust of wind to lose this ball than a flimsy plastic one.
Another great beach toy that battles the gusty winds at the shore is this velcro paddle ball set.
The grippy paddles stick to the balls and make it a fun way to play catch at the beach with younger kids.
We saw a group of teens having the time of their lives with this spikeball game set at the beach last year. It's a super fun game for outdoor play with a group.
I'm pretty sure competitive adults would be more than happy to get in on the action!
This waterproof lacrosse set would be another fun catch game to play while standing in the waves at the beach.
Fun for both kids and adults but you may want to hunt down some extra balls to bring, just in case!
This waterproof football is absolutely perfect for playing with at the beach. Let the kids run wide for the perfect game of catch.
Bocce ball is one of my favorite backyard games to play at home, why not bundle it up and bring it to the beach?
This is such a fun, laid back game to play with both kids and adults. I love that this set comes with such an easy to pack carrying tote.
Cornole and summer go hand in hand. My family is obsessed with this backyard game but we wouldn't want to drag our wooden set with us on a road trip.
This packable cornhole set is just perfect for playing at the beach. It is waterproof and sturdy and comes with a convenient storage tote for easy packing.
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