If we loved Slovenia, Cape Cod and the Dordogne…..

[LaChienneDesFromages]

…. where might we think about for our family summer holiday this year? I am normally full of ideas but am a bit stuck. It’s a funny year for us with lots of little trips away, not always as a whole family, and quite a few trips to see family overseas, which are lovely but a different type of holiday. But I’d like to get one solid week away as a family.

Kids are DD16, DD15 and DS 12. They enjoy active experiences (hiking, ziplining, lake swimming) but also history and culture.
DH and I love the above, plus good food and wine.
We are going to Ireland at Easter, Paris in June, Belgrade and 2x trips to the French Alps this year, so maybe not Alpine or France. DS and I are off to Finland and Estonia for a few days.
We’ve got 7, max 9 nights.
We don’t tend to use a travel agent, prefer to organise everything ourselves and travel about independently by car or train.
Villas with a pool have worked well, but non-resort hotels or apartments are also fine.
Slovenia and Cape Cod were perfect climates for me- any hotter and I whinge and get lazy.
We are quite well travelled, reasonably adventurous. Happy to try somewhere a bit different.
Budget about £10-12k

We’ve talked about Portugal, Croatia or Germany but I don’t know the countries that well so don’t really know where to start ( I do love Bavaria.)

Any ideas of destinations we might like would be great.

I'm a bit biased but Eastern Slovakia and the Tatra Mountains? Though it might be roughing it a bit for your sort of budget 😁

Biased because my mum comes from the area and my parents have a house there - you only tend to see British people there is they have a family connection. But it is stunning, you've got mountains, lakes, beautiful scenery generally and lots of ancients towns, villages and castles. There's fun activities for older kids like a massive water park (Tatralandia) and indoor skydiving (near the water park) - lots of good stuff within 2 hours' drive of the mountains.

Summer weather usually hot and dry but not boiling - every 10 years or so you might get unlucky and hit a grey British-style summer, but that's unusual.

You can fly to Poprad (at the foot of the mountains) or Kosice (about an hour away) from London airports.

Austria seems a logical next step, MTB, rodelbahn, hiking, Kaiserschmarrn etc etc

Croatia. Without a doubt :)

Yes yes to Tatras! Absolutely stunning!!!!

Personally I wouldn"t go near Russia this year,
Alaska cruise? Tofino and Vancouver

Iceland would tick a lot of your boxes.

Echobelly and Daveandroger thanks for the suggestion of Slovakia. DS and I had a couple of days in Bratislava last year and we really liked it. BIL and his family live in Serbia and so they might even be able to join us- although having driven from Belgrade to Mostar a couple of years ago, I know it’s easy to underestimate quite how large that part of Europe actually is!

I don’t suppose you have any recommendations for towns or accommodation in the Tatras area?

Croatia does look beautiful and I hear nothing but great holiday stories about that area. I wonder if you have any thoughts about towns or islands that are good for an active family?

Porto and the Dauro Valley.

@LaChienneDesFromages - if you want nice hotel accommodation you'll find it in the mountain resorts. On your budget you may be able to afford to Kempiniski at Strbske Pleso, a lake which is one of my favourite places on earth. The Kempinski looks stunning, I've not been in but I think my parents enjoyed a very good meal there once.

https://www.kempinski.com/en/grand-hotel-high-tatras

We had an enjoyable trip to Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. We hired a car and covered quite a lot of ground easily.
We based ourselves outside Dubrovnik, which while beautiful was my least favorite spot, being over run with cruise ship visitors.

We love Split and Hvar, Korcula is also lovely and Dubrovnik :-)

Nova Scotia. Easy flight, easy driving once there, lovely folk, still quite olde worlde!
Iceland is amazing in the summer (just take a good anti-midge).
Crete has great gorge walks, down to secluded coves, but deffo too hot in July / aug, some of the walks are quite challenging (think huge boulders to scramble over), and you need the agility of a mountain goat on some of them!

Croatia as several hve said is beautiful but I have genuinely never been as hot as I was in Croatia and I love the heat! We went to Dubrovnik, Split and Brac at the end of June and the weather in the day was hot, as you would expect but the evenings were stifling! Only mentioning to be helpful and I did absolutely love it, but it was HOT.🥵

The mountains of North Carolina are absolutely gorgeous, and they have everything your family would love. Asheville is wonderful, and it's a fairly short, breathtaking drive into Tennessee to see the sights there, including Dolly World, which is a lovely theme park and great for kids. The hiking, fishing, star-gazing, food, everything is just amazing.

I agree with this post. Croatia is gorgeous but it will be hot. It is likely to be cooler in Istria (which is gorgeous) but we went there in May half term and it was already mid to high 20s.
You could try the Italian lakes but again they had a heatwave the last two summers.

I think Northern Spain would be a good choice, much cooler than the rest of the country. Fly or sail into Bilbao or Santander. Amazing food, lovely rugged beaches, Picos de Europa National Park, Unesco World Heritage Sites....

Thanks for all of these ideas. So many brilliant places I wouldn’t have thought of. I think we’d love Croatia but it will be too hot. Maybe May half term for us.

But there are some great ideas here. I’m going to research them all (it’s my hobby/favourite procrastination task.)

Dollywood has long been on my to-do list and I love the East Coast (we lived in Boston for a couple of years but only managed down as far as VA.) Similarly, Nova Scotia after watching Race Across The World.