Holidays for older teenagers

[Shouldgetupearlier]

Trying to plan a holiday for next year - likely to be our last family holiday, so would like a memorable one . Need one that they would be happy going on with us, options to laze around and be active , preferably with some culture too. Any ideas/suggestions of what’s worked well for you?

Florida, Keys etc and Universal Studios was a winner with our teens last year.

I'd suggest an apartment in a European city, then you can relax at the apartment, just go for walks or do anything cultural you feel like.

A cruise! There’s so much to do onboard and you get to experience lots of different countries.

We did Boston and New York with a couple of days road trip in Massachuttes inbetween last year. It was a mix of 16th and 50th birthdays and GSCE celebration.

I found that DD didn't really enjoy resort holidays anymore, we have more success with a mix of city breaks and a week somewhere a bit more quite but still things to do.

For her 18th birthday + A-Level we are looking at Iceland but that depends on how the volcanos behave.

Greece worked well with my four teens. Bali and Australia also. They are all keen to go to Italy next.

We’ve booked New York, my dcs much prefer city breaks to sitting round a pool.
My nephews recently enjoyed a cruise.

Sunsail in Greece/Croatia? USA (mix of city and coast), SE Asia (but not sure that weather would be great in summer months).

Thailand

LA - SO much to do, fabulous weather. Neither of us or ds are big on lazing as we get bored quickly but we enjoyed the hotel pool party and a chill in the pool.

With our late teens we had a few nights in Las Vegas then hired a car and headed to the Californian coast . We drove from Santa Monica along the Pacific highway up to San Francisco .We all loved that road trip.

We went Interrailing on our last family holiday at dd's request. Prague, Bratislava, Budpest, Vienna, Tirol and Munich. Loads to do and see. Not so much relaxing - though I did nap on the train.

Tour of Costa Rica, either arranged through an operator or DIY. Plenty to see and do, with the option of a few days flopping on the beach at the end.

Definitely a cruise with older teens - either Royal Caribbean or NCL. We've taken our teens 3 times on NCL and they loved it. Perfect combination of relaxing and things to do.

If you also want culture, look at doing a Mediterranean cruise, perhaps starting/finishing in Rome, Athens, Barcelona or similar.

Thank you all! Think I’m going to have so a shortlist and we can have a vote on it.

I took mine on a RC cruise. It turned out to be expensive as they wanted to carry on coming with us well into their 20’s if we went on such great holidays.