Summer holiday with teens

[Sefty1]

I'm hoping for some words of wisdom here. I'm wanting to book a lovely family trip this summer for my husband and two teenage kids. As teenagers they get bored on beach holidays and they are both quite adventurous and keen to explore. In the past we have been to the Rockies and toured around (booking everything ourselves) and last summer we went to Sri Lanka and toured the whole island and loved it, especially the 5 days at the end by the beach. All apart from one thing....they are too old for a family room and so my husband and son shared a room in most of the hotels (which made it very expensive), but also they just rubbed each other up the wrong way! So I'm keen to avoid the hotel situation again.
It's my 50th this year and I suspect it will be the last year my daughter will want to come on holiday with us so I want to make it special. Ideally we have a really lovely budget of about 12k. I'd love to go to Costa Rica, but have been really put off by the weather in kids summer holidays and also how would I do that if not in hotels?
Other places I'm interested in are Vietnam, Thailand but again put off by weather.

Where else could we go. I've thought of Greek islands but isn't that just beachy? Also thought of combining Lake Como with something else, but not sure what.
I'm a bit overwhelmed and no idea where to start. HELP!

why don’t bro and sis share?

How about Costa Rica ? Lots of interesting things to do and see for teens

Sorry just seen you had that on your list. Canada or USA Road trip combined with adventure (hiking/white water etc

My friend rented a camper van (in Germany) and did a tour of Scandinavia. They found so much to do - they are a really active family.

if son and father rub each other the wrong way….

Because she's 17 and he's 13 and she doesn't want to change around him etc and he takes pleasure in winding her up! It's fine in like adjoining rooms or something where I can mediate, but otherwise ends up escalating! Sad but true. They used to love spending time together so I'm hoping this is just a phase!

Sounds lovely. We used to do lots of caravan tours, but now they are older it just seems they need more of their own space so the campervan tours will probably have to wait until it's just the two of us. Teenagers 🙄

Island hopping in Greece? Book rentals where you have multiple rooms. Road trip around Europe is another great option for teens, Germany went down particularly well with mine but you still have the room problem unless you can find 3 bed apartments each stop (2 and a sofa bed at a pinch).

Another thought is to rent a big camper van - many have a double room at the back, a double bed above the cab and the table converts too. I would recommend Alaska if you can bring it in on budget - it's about $3k to rent for a week then I recommend seeing if you can take a ferry down the inside passage, you used to be able to sleep on deck/ in the solarium solving the teen bedroom issue, book a cabin for yourselves!

Following as also planning probably our last big family holiday with teens and restricted to college summer holidays. We also like to book everything ourselves.
The last 2 hols have been Costa Rica and Thailand. Don’t be put off by the rain. Both places we had the occasional shower but it didn’t spoil the holiday. And the upside is as it’s off season, everything is less crowded and cheaper. In Costa Rica we had an entire hot springs to ourselves.

Possible itineraries:
Costa Rica. Fly in to San Jose and spend a few days there, head to Arenal for volcano and hot springs, Monteverde Cloud Forest for wildlife and zip wire (we did encounter some rain here but it is a rainforest!) and Jaco for a more touristy beach end of holiday. We drove to these and a few other places.

Thailand- Bangkok, night train to Chiang Mai for temples, elephant sanctuary and street food market, fly to Koh Sumai and boat to Koh Tao for beaches and train back to Bangkok. Those islands have less rainfall. Although we risked it and flew to Phuket which is meant to be wet in summer and were lucky before going to islands.

Not sure what to do for our big final holiday. Torn between a US road trip but will be more expensive or Safari. Love the sound of Sri Lanka but think we would like to do something a bit different to temples this year.

Also been to Indonesia. Flew to Jakarta, stayed in a few places on the mainland to see temples then flew to Bali for beaches, monkeys etc. That might actually be a better option if you want to be sure to have no rain. Can let u know our itinerary if that appeals?

Oh and we’ve done Greece too when we had less time or money. Island hopping sounds fun but you are right, it’s mainly beaches. We did mainland Greece first so went to the acropolis in Athens etc before flying to one of the islands. Another option and would certainly come in under budget.

Consumed with jealousy 🥲

A cruise? My kids loved these when they were teens. Perhaps the med on one of the big ships, with lots of ports of call to explore. Larger ships, especially Royal Caribbean and NCL, have so much to do on board as well

Hope jealous of OP and not me. I’ve just lost my job so our final big trip might not happen 🙁

Lots to do in morzine, france in the summer. Houses are cheap (compared to the UK), so just eat out every day.
Could combine with an Italy trip if take the car??
Or we are going to Croatia this summer. Lots to do there and everyone seems to do a road trip apart from us who plan on sitting in the beach!

Twin centre holidays worked well when I had teens.

We went to

Rio/Iguazu Falls staying on the Argentine side.

Cape Town

Many cruises with either a city break or beach break before or after. For example Rome before for a few nights or a week at a Turkish beach resort afterwards.

Florida with Universal Studio and some other non park stuff followed by a Caribbean cruise.

LA Disney followed by a cruise to Pacific coast of Mexico.

Mexico could work for you but be careful where you book because of the seaweed.

Costa Rica in the summer always seems to get good reviews on here.

We always booked two rooms or cabins.

Places we've either done or are considering as summer trips:

• California road trip (can be done using hotels, motels or Airbnbs)
• South Africa
• Tenerife (brilliant with teens - particularly Siam Park)
• Borneo
• Vietnam

Costa Rica we did in our winter as we can't stand hot & humid weather

@Sefty1
Costa Rica was no more wet than Sri Lanka or Borneo for our school summer holiday trip.
Two rainy days in 3 weeks, fabulous overnight storms.
Great time to travel.
Teens of similar ages loved it.
We travel low budget, so mostly share 1 room.
If we have 2 rooms, kids share.
Can your son not hang out with you while DD gets changed?
Many people use air B+bs in Costa Rica - maybe a 2 bedroom apartment so you have a living room?

Why not just rent some beautiful villas on a road trip? Sicily would be awesome. Take the cable car up Mount Etna, exolore Taormina and Isola Bella before taking the fast ferry over to the Aeolian Islands and stay on Stromboli where you can take an easy hike up the volcano which is just awe-inspiring, it erupts constantly!

Lake Annecy is also great for adventures. Rent a villa in Talloires with direct lake access for swimming. I can't recommend Activ Annecy enough, we used them for a private plane tour and to go hang-gliding, they were absolutelly brilliant. The teens will love it!

https://www.activ-annecy.com/family-activities-annecy/

Yeesh that's bad news. I'm so sorry. Sending 💐
and I hope other opportunities open up to you soon - I'm sure they will.

We similarly enjoyed a three week tour of Canada a few years ago which was brilliant.

This year we are planning a summer tour of the Alps! We are driving via the eurotunnel, stopping for a night in Luxembourg, 2 nights in Stuttgart (to see the Porsche/Mercedes museums), 1 week on a resort in the Austrian Alps (we have a suite with adjoining bedrooms and it is AI). 5 nights in Grindelwald in Switzerland in self catering house and a final night in Reims. We might extend by a night or two. In the cities we have opted to stay in hotels (1 double room and 1 twin - teenage boys who won’t share a bed but will a room). The alps seem to offer loads of outdoor activities - lake swimming, water parks, white water rafting, walks, mountain biking as well as all the sightseeing.

I was also coming on to suggest a cruise, in my experience they are ideal with teens. Choose your cruise around the ports they’d like to explore and it can be a really enjoyable holiday.

Thank you so much for this, it's really helpful. I was really worried about the climate and if you spend all that money you really want it to be amazing.
I hope you find a fantastic trip for your family too. Sri Lanka was very different.....there are temples of course, but we did quite a few safaris at various locations, blue whale watching etc and also ended up with 5 days at the beach which was bliss. We travelled around pretty much the whole island, but we did use a driver which I was resistant to because we've always been independent travelers. However, having seen what the roads are like I'm so glad we did and he helped us book up safaris when we felt we wanted to do them at much cheaper prices. It was so cheap too, he was literally on hand all the time if we wanted him and then made himself scarce if we wanted family time. Happy to share details if you're interested.

That's really good to know. We found the rain in Sri Lanka wasn't too obtrusive.
Could you share a rough itinerary of where you went? Did you self drive?

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope travel is on the horizon for you soon.