Next summer, 2 families with 2 15 year olds

[Holidayqueen1]

Hiya

hoping someone can help! We’re really struggling with where to go for holidays next summer. We were planning Borneo but flight prices are bonkers and we just can’t justify almost £1000 pp🫣.

We’re ideally looking for somewhere with lots to do, we aren’t sit on a beach type families. We’ve just been to Jordan which we loved because of the sheer variety. We’ve also been to Canada together- Vancouver island and Vancouver to Kelowna, California, Portugal and lots of French holidays. We’ve separately done safaris ( which we’d love to do again but bit spendy!), Sri Lanka which we loved and various other parts of Asia.

our ideal holiday would have pools for the boys, stuff to see and do, happy to travel around and food important. Any ideas please? I’m a bit 🤯from looking! Also wondering whether flight prices may drop as I’ve never seen them so high!

thanks

We had Borneo booked for 2020 which got cancelled and flights £500 each and minimal onto Borneo and was going to use the AirAsia credits to do in summer 2024 but yes flights are at least 1k each. I watched prices last year and they didn't fall, the opposite really some went to 2k each in economy. Hotel prices and excursions not finding too bad price wise. I think it's an issue on a lot of longhaul routes post covid. We recently went to Mauritius and that was 1k each for flights direct.

As to other destinations Costa Rica is wonderful for that age with rainforests, wildlife, really high zip lines.

We took ds16 to Lake Garda this year and it was great. So much to see and do, great food. Loads of cycle paths and on water activities. We flew into Venice and hired a car and it was very easy.

The alps? Fly to Geneva and get a car - chamonix for Mont Blanc, annecy, lake Geneva. Loads of outdoor activities.

eating out is expensive but cheaper to get there.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

so sorry about your Borneo trip😬. Are you still planning for next summer?
Costa Rica is on my bucket list and I’d love to go but flight prices crazy and more expensive when you’re there so that’s a no for next year!
Lake Garda sounds good, will take a look, boys would love the food and we have 2 husbands who are mountain bikers! I guess you could also do a bit of a city break in Venice as well.
yes thought about the alps, we’ve been to that area skiing but not in summer. Is there lots to do? I may look at Austria as well I think, if we could find a summer toboggan run, lakes with kayaking etc that may be an option.

Just on the flights - I’m not expecting there to be any significant falls in flight prices for a long time, especially not going east to Asia. The closure of Russian airspace has had a huge impact, many of the Asian airlines are still at much lower capacity than pre-Covid and demand is only increasing. I think I read somewhere that in 2023 there were only about 20% of the long haul flights from Europe to Asia that there were in 2019. I would expect in most instances that prices will only rise closer to departure.

Another vote for Annecy

I am not sure yet if we will go to Borneo next summer or not, it was the last dates could transfer the AirAsia credits to so I moved the flights to summer 2024 but its quite complicated arranging holidays atm as I had breast cancer and have done the treatment but awaiting a reconstruction op which is likely to be next year though probably could move it if that clashes. And son has been in hospital for months and only recently out and we need to see if he is well enough. We are generally booking things last minute and doing 2 out of 4 of us. Though that helps a lot with cost on the plus side. I have a preference for longhaul incase the cancer comes back so I can do it when I am well. I did Maldives, Porto/Azores and Mauritius in last 12 months so I have managed to work around this.

We have done Italy and the Alps in summer, are both very nice.

Oh I’m so sorry to hear that @Silkiebunny, sending huge get well wishes to you both and hope you are both well enough to have an amazing adventure next year.

@cherryassam yes I fear you’re right. We looked at Malaysia for Christmas, missed the boat, flight prices went up by £200 and have now almost doubled!! I think Europe may be best option for us next year! We are at the stage where we’re conscious we don’t have many more summers with our son so absolutely want to make the most of them!

Another vote for the French Alps - we took teenagers there this summer and were totally blown away. There was so much to do and they're begging to go back next year. We drove down, but you could fly to Geneva and hire a car.

We stayed in Morzine, mountain biked in Les Gets, swam in lakes, paddle boarded, went toboganning, huskie sledding, and there were lots of other activities too - paragliding, canyoning, grass sledging...

Naxos in Greece, it's a ferry hub so you can island hop. My teens loved getting in from a ferry at 2am and then going to dinner.

Given the flight prices, I think short haul is likely to be better - unless you go long haul to somewhere with low costs when you’re there.

Long haul:

Thailand Gulf Coast - Koh Samui, Ko Tao, Ko Pha Ngan
Sri Lanka - North / East coast
Cape Town
Mexico
Belize
Bolivia

Short haul:

Turkey - Cappadocia
Albania
Andorra
North Macedonia
Portugal - Porto and the Douro Valley
Spain - Sierra Nevada & Costa Tropical, Cantabrian Mountains

The European Alps are fabulous in the summer. Loads to do. You could get a chalet with sole occupancy. Look for one with a pool and get caterers in to make it more of a holiday.

Lakes for SUP and canoeing, mountain biking, high ropes, rafting, canyoning, paragliding, hiking etc.

Scandinavia has lots of things to do and good food etc. my dc loved Finland and we've done Sweden and Denmark too. You can rent a house by a lake and have boats and swimming and hiking. And then see stuff in the cities too.

@cherryassam yep agree. Looked at many of those places and flight prices high across the board with the exception of Sri Lanka which I was super tempted by but just a bit unsure still on economic situation and what may happen so we’ve decided to leave it for another time sadly.
Albania is def on the list, possibly with Montenegro. Also Slovenia. And now seriously considering the alps! Off to google chalets with pools 🤣

I would love to do Scandinavia but put off ( possibly unfairly!) by the fact I think it will be expensive when we’re there. Am I wrong? If you have any recommendations that would be fab, we have done a bit of Denmark but really fancy sweden or Finland

Thanks Holiday We have done Sweden, Finland in summer and winter, Norway and Copenhagen. Norway is horrifically expensive though we got AirBNBs which weren't too badly priced, flights were cheap, car hire was OK but food and trips and some of the hotels were crazy prices. Spectacular scenery around the fjords.

Finland and Sweden were in the summer similar to London prices so not cheap but nothing out of the ordinary. Flights to Sweden were cheaper than to Finland as we went to Lapland so required 2 flights with Finnair. We much preferred Finland. We went to Arola Bears were you can see brown bears in the wild and stayed there in a chalet and could canoe there. The bear season does and during our summer so we needed to go in end of July and they have all homecooked Finnish food. Wasn't too expensive but need hire car to get there. Only issue is its on Russian border. They used to do trips into Russia as well. We saw 8 bears when there. And went to Ruka which had a summer toboggan and reindeer. We also went white water rafting. It is an area you need to research and there are miles of nothing but was a lovely holiday. Stockholm was interesting though we hit terrible weather, you could get very cheapily to Copenhagen from there too and we went to Tivoli etc there, very nice for a few days. We also hired a car and picked up in Sweden dropped off in Norway with flights into Sweden and out of Norway, was quite a bit of driving though and the Swedish part wasn't that scenic.

Mexico?
Ours were younger when we went but we did amazing ruins, beaches, snorkelling, swimming with whale sharks, manatee watching. There's more that would be good for older DC too. And Mexico City looks fantastic if you have time to move around.