San Fermín is famous for things that don’t exactly scream family vacation. Thanks to Ernest Hemingway, most people’s first association with Pamplona in July is his version of it — days of drinking, chaos, and a genuinely dangerous bull run through the middle of the city. All of that is real. You will see it; you will not be doing it with your kids in tow. But after spending the tail end of this year’s festival there with our 12-year-old son, I can tell you there’s a real, rich, family-friendly way to experience San Fermín — you just have to know which days to show up for and which parts of the nine-day party to build your trip around.
Go at the end and stay just outside of town
We arrived on the second-to-last day of the festival and left the day after it closed, and that timing turned out to be perfect for us. Locals told us plainly: the opening days and any weekend inside the festival are the rowdiest, since that’s when the Chupinazo — the opening rocket, launched from the City Hall balcony — pulls in the biggest crowds of twenty-somethings from all over Europe for one specific kind of trip. By the last day or two, a lot of that crowd has already headed home, and what’s left feels much more like a town celebrating together than a nonstop street party.
Location of your hotel matters as much as timing. As tempting as it may be, skip a hotel in the old town. The center of Pamplona stays loud well into the night for the entire festival — Spaniards already keep late hours on an ordinary weekend, and San Fermín takes that several notches further. We stayed about eight minutes outside the center by car and had zero festival noise when we wanted to sleep, while still being a short drive from everything during the day.
Watch the run from a balcony
If you want to actually see the encierro with kids, skip the street-level barriers. We rented a balcony spot on Calle Estafeta — the longest straight stretch of the route, at about 300 meters — which meant a clear, sustained view instead of the few-second blur you get from the ground. We were let into the apartment around 7 a.m. for the 8 a.m. run, handed coffee, and given a short history of the tradition before heading out to watch the street fill in — every balcony around us packed with people dressed head to toe in San Fermín white and red. Those 45 minutes of watching the city get ready were honestly as memorable as the run itself.
Let’s be clear: this is still a real bull run, and real risk comes with it. From our balcony, at a safe distance, we did see a man go down under one of the bulls. It wasn’t traumatic for our son — it happened far below us and fast — but it’s worth knowing this isn’t a sanitized spectacle. A balcony puts real distance between your family and that risk; standing at the barriers does not.
Giants, big-heads, and a fire bull
One family-favorite daytime activity is the Gigantes y Cabezudos parade, which runs through the streets most mornings. Towering giant figures and oversized-head characters wind through the old town while kids chase them and get bopped on the head with foam weapons by the cabezudos. It’s silly, harmless, and exactly the kind of thing that makes a kid feel like part of the fiesta instead of a bystander outside a bar.
Then there’s the Toro de Fuego — the fire bull — which was a unique balance of terrifying and funny at the same time. A runner carries a bull-shaped wooden frame rigged with fireworks through the old town streets at night, shooting sparks in every direction, while the crowd runs away from it and immediately turns around to chase it back. It would never be allowed back home. It was absolutely hilarious, and our son still brings it up.
Skip the bullfights, don’t skip what happens after
San Fermín has bullfights every night, and that was not for us for us, but we learned that we could still experience the bull ring in a different way. After the last bullfighter leaves the ring on the final night: the peñas — Pamplona’s neighborhood social and music clubs — march onto the bullring floor, bands and all, and basically throw a party on the sand. You can walk right in with them. They take turns playing while the crowds sings along (or pretends to in our case) and dances. From there, the bands spill back into the streets and keep playing. Add nightly fireworks at 11 p.m., and you’ve got a built-in evening activity that has nothing to do with a bar.
End on exactly the right note
If you can only catch the tail end of San Fermín, you get a bonus: the Pobre de Mí, the festival’s closing ceremony, held at midnight on July 14th in the Plaza Consistorial in front of City Hall. Everyone gathers with candles and sings — mourning the festival’s end for a verse, then celebrating that it’ll be back again next year. It’s one of the most community-feeling moments I’ve experienced at any festival, anywhere, and a lovely, bittersweet way to close out a trip.
San Fermín will never be a soft, easy festival, but build your schedule around the giants, the fire bull, and a balcony instead of the bar crawl, and it becomes something rare: a wild, famous, once-in-a-lifetime festival your whole family can actually be part of.
If a trip to Spain’s festivals — San Fermín or otherwise — is on your family’s list, I’d love to help you plan it. Contact me at kristin@familytravelsandadventures.com or (408)533-0080, and let’s figure out which days, which balcony, and which traditions are the right fit for your crew.
