Fun in the sun! How the Royal Family have spent their vacations, from the Queen to Prince Harry

By Zach Harper, with files from Kristine Ryall
How are you enjoying your summer? Have you been on vacation? We hope so, even if it was a staycation.
Just like us, the Royal Family enjoy their time away from duty at home, and have been big fans throughout the decades of escaping to far-off places, from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean coast of Africa!
Click through the gallery or keep reading (if you're on mobile) to see how royals from the Queen and Princess Diana to Prince Harry and Prince William have spent their holidays through the years!
Photos: © James Gray/Daily Mail/Shutterstock, News (UK) Ltd/Shutterstock and Reuters

Last week, royal watchers were thrilled to see Prince William and Duchess Kate go head-to-head in the King's Cup regatta off the coast of Cowes, Isle of Wight!
The race was held in support of eight charities the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hold dear to their hearts, and was won by wilderness and wildlife TV star Bear Grylls, who was competing on behalf of conservation charity Tusk.
William, who was racing for Child Bereavement UK, came in third, while Kate, who was competing for The Royal Foundation, finished dead last and was given the wooden spoon!
But Kate and William aren't the only royals to enjoy a good afternoon out on the waves! Plenty of other family members have enjoyed a good sail through the years, and they've also spent lots of time at Cowes, too!
The seaside town has been a favourite of members of The Firm since the days of Queen Victoria, who called Egypt Point one of her most beloved places to visit.
Her grandson, King George V, also loved Cowes, and presented the inaugural King's Cup trophy there in 1922.
His granddaughter, the Queen was also a lover of the quaint Isle of Wight travel destination when she was younger. Here, she can be seen with Prince Philip at the tiller of his yacht Bluebottle on the Beaulieu River opposite Cowes in 1949. At the time, Elizabeth was still a princess and her father King George VI was still on the throne and Elizabeth and Philip had just welcomed Prince Charles the previous November.
It must have been quite nice for the couple to enjoy a getaway at the end of the '40s, given the War had only ended four years before.
Photo: © Historica/Shutterstock

While she spends most of her time close to home at Buckingham Palace, at Windsor Castle, Sandringham and in the Scottish highlands at Balmoral in the summers these days, the Queen also enjoyed her getaways to warmer climates when she was younger.
In the photo to the left, she can be seen standing on a beach with the Royal Yacht Britannia pictured in the background in the 1970s. Check out the flares she's wearing!
Her Majesty enjoyed many trips on the former royal yacht, which served the monarchy from 1954 until 1997.
On its inaugural voyage, the ship carried Prince Charles and Princess Anne to Malta in April 1954 so they could meet Her Majesty and Prince Philip in Tobruk, Libya, where they were finishing the end of their massive Commonwealth Tour.
Britannia later ferried the Queen to Chicago in 1959, and Charles and Princess Diana took their honeymoon cruise on the ship in 1981.
The yacht took the Queen and various members of the Royal Family on 696 foreign visits and 272 trips in U.K. waters.
Photo: © Reuters

In the 1960s, Princess Margaret and her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowden enjoyed waterskiing at the Sonning Works in Oxfordshire.
The unique attraction is an artificial lake called the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake that's a former gravel pits that contains sailing and waterskiing facilities, along with places to fish.
Margaret is shown here waterskiing in 1963.
Photo: © Donald Price/Daily Sketch/Shutterstock

Plenty of us know Prince Charles was very into sports when he was younger. The Prince of Wales once said he would go "stark staring mad" if he couldn't play polo. He had many injuries on the field, and stopped playing in 2005.
But did you know Charles also liked to windsurf? The sport became very popular in the '70s, which was when the Prince of Wales took it up. He even did a photoshoot for LIFE magazine in Australia in 1978 while windsurfing! The photo to the left shows Charles enjoying the sport in the Solent - the strait that separates the Isle of Wight from England - that same year.
Photo: © James Gray/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

Charles was also a keen scuba diver and sailor in his youth.
Charles was the president of the British Sub-Aqua Club before handing it over to Prince William in 2014, and once even went diving in the Arctic! Of course, he also enjoyed diving and swimming in much warmer climates while on vacation, as he can be seen doing here while in Barbados on a holiday in October 1970.
Photo: © David Cairns/Express/Getty Images

Princess Diana, just like Prince Charles, was also hugely into water sports, and she and Charles made sure to pass their love of swimming on to their sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
Diana was known for her swimming talents and her diving ability in school. She liked swimming so much that she did it every day to destress, even on vacation.
Here, Diana can be seen with Harry, getting him used to the waves while on vacation at Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands in 1988. The island is owned by Sir Richard Branson and in addition to hosting the royals, has welcomed everyone from former US President Barack Obama to stars like Mariah Carey.
Photo: © News (UK) Ltd/Shutterstock

Princess Diana and her children also visited Necker Island with her mother, Frances Shand Kydd (pictured right), in 1990, along with Diana's sisters Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale and their children.
Photo: © Tim Graham/Getty Images

Princess Diana returned to the Caribbean in 1993 for a vacation at Indian Castle Beach on the island of Nevis in St. Kitts and Nevis. She also liked to bring Prince William and Prince Harry there.
Photo: © Paul Richards/AFP/Getty Images

In the summer of 1996, Princess Diana brought Prince William and Prince Harry (pictured) with her to holiday in St-Tropez, off the French Riviera. She would return there the next year for her final holiday with the boys and then boyfriend Dodi Fayed before she and Dodi passed away in a car crash in Paris.
Photo: © Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

Duchess Kate, like many other members of the Royal Family, is also a big fan of water sports.
The Duchess of Cambridge is an avid rower, and can be seen here taking part in a training session with the Sisterhood cross Channel rowing team on the Thames in August 2007.
Perhaps her Mustique vacation routine included a spin in the Caribbean Sea on a paddleboard!
Photo: © Indigo/Getty Images

Prince William inherited his father's love of scuba diving, along with the presidency of the British Sub-Aqua Club, as previously mentioned. He and Duchess Kate love scuba diving and snorkelling while on holiday on Mustique every year, and we hope the two got in some good time under the waves this past July while they celebrated Prince George's sixth birthday there! He's just the right age to learn how to dive, too.
Photo: © Justin Tallis/Getty Images

In 2016, Prince Harry returned to Nevis, where he had been with his mother Princess Diana and brother Prince William on vacation as a boy. He also visited the sea turtle conservation project on Lover's Beach and can be seen here helping a baby turtle into the ocean there.
Photo: © Samir Hussein/Getty Images