Best destination for a long weekend away

[MammaKel]

Hi all,

For my 30th birthday that's tomorrow woo I've decided to book a long weekend away but I'm not sure where:

I can do any month apart from May and September but don't have much preference or a budget really.

Just wondering where's lovely for a long weekend.

Thank you

Who will be going? What sort of things do you enjoy doing? Cultural or sitting in the pub all weekend?

But what do you like doing? What's your idea of a 'lovely weekend'? There's no standard best place for a long weekend. Do you like the city or the countryside, the coast or the mountains? Do you want to go abroad? If in the Uk, are you driving or dependent on public transport? Do you like hotels, or would you want to rent a house? Is it just for you, or are you travelling with someone else?

Sorry you're right I should have been more specific.

It's going to be me and my husband, we like exploring and eating good food.

Hotel or Airbnb type house is fine, I'd like to go abroad.

We'd be relying on public transport as we don't tend to drive abroad either.

It's going to have to be your decision really. I have enjoyed most European capitals, I wouldn't go much further for a weekend. I would keep the flight under three hours. I live by Gatwick and use Skyscanner to find the latest flight out Friday fyi it's usually Ibiza ! To limit the time off work. If taking the train Edinburgh is nice, York, Manchester, Birmingham or even Paris might work for two nights.

Barcelona, Seville, Nice and Paris are all lovely for a long weekend and all have good food.

Barcelona, Rome, Venice are all lovely.

Bilbao is great for food.

Also Malaga, Palma, Porto, Dubrovnik, Budapest. So many options!

Depends where you live. I like to go from a regional airport as less stressful than HRW or GTW. Then somewhere with a good link from the airport into town, if you Google extreme day trips there are lists of well linked airports. Copenhagen is cheap and quick to get into as are Malaga and Berlin.

I'd start by looking at your local airport and what destinations they fly to and when - if you're closed to LHR or LGW then you'll probably have quite a lot of choice but from smaller regional airports your options may be more limited if you just want a long weekend or don't want unsociable flight times. All major European cities are going to offer opportunities for exploring and good food so I'd look at flights and prices before picking one place. Also factor in weather as places further south could be quite hot between June and August.

Marrakesh...3 1/2 hours flight with no time difference. Stay in the medina in beautiful Riad, great city, people and food. There are restaurants that serve alcohol. Just don't go in the summer months when it gets really hot.

Stockholm or Copenhagen - lovely for walking, plenty museums, excellent bars and restaurants.

Sounds ridiculous but Cape Town is fantastic and would meet your brief perfectly as the food is amazing and very reasonably priced by UK standards. Yes it's a long flight but usually overnight and only 1 hour time difference so no jet lag.

Agree CT is great but she’s asking for a long weekend which I guess wouldn’t include a longhaul.

@jaimelesoleil I said as ridiculous as it sounds but it is often cited as a long weekend destination especially if you live near a major airport.

Florence, Dubrovnik or Barcelona

There’s a one hour time difference between the end of October and the end of March.

Krakow, Florence, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Malaga, Ljubljana, Berlin

We've enjoyed all of these cities for short breaks

Seville - easy bus from the airport, all walkable in the city, so much to see, delicious tapas. You could easily fill 3 days, but also do a day train trip to Cadiz on the coast.
We went in Feb and it was low to mid 20s.
Fab for exploring in the day. Light jumper needed for eating outside in the evening.

Enjoyed Malaga, Alicante, Rome, Palma, Dubrovnik, Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Valencia, Budapest, Reykjavik, Vienna. Munich next month and Lisbon in January. Any of those?
By far my favourite has been Seville ❤️

Seville is my favourite too. As said by a pp - first look to see flight times and prices from your local airport and narrow it down. I do a couple of weekend trips with my friends every year and we have Malta and Palma on the list but the flight times are awful! You need early flight out and late flight back to make the best of it. In recent years we've done Seville, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Valencia, Budapest, Prague - all of which i would recommend. Next up is Malaga in February.

Venice, but stay in Padua lovely city itself and 30 mins to Venice by direct train.

Or Bologna - best food in Italy, well that's what I think, and has a fabulous lively vibe to it. Can get train to Florence if you want.

For ease of travel though, I agree with others, either Seville or Malaga, both superb and easy to get to.

Porto
Seville
Malaga
Venice
Florence

all great places that I've enjoyed.

By even then quite doable and so
much more interesting than any of the European destinations 😉

Lisbon was the ideal long weekend trip when we went a few years ago - food was great and weather was lovely in April.