Where to go in August, exciting, not too hot, not too expensive?

[whiteroseredrose]

I'm 60 in August and it also happens to be a time when DH can get time off work and adult DC might be available too.

I'd love to go somewhere a bit exciting for a week or two as a whole family. Somewhere medium haul that we haven't been before. Both DC are students so can't pay for themselves.

But where? None of us like heat.

If it was just DH and I I'd be looking at Western Canada to see bears or Brazil for the Amazon and waterfalls.

If it wasn't August I'd love to go to Jordan (FCO permitting) or Dalyan in Turkey.

Does anyone have any ideas???

Thank you

How about bear watching in Romania? The mountains are beautiful, there's a lot of history and the food is delicious.

Austria? Very beautiful

@RealHousewivesOfTaunton Bear watching in Romania sounds like a brilliant idea. Bears without the long haul.

Austria is very beautiful. The plan is to get a camper van when we retire in a few years so hope to cover most of Western Europe then.

Iceland?

I was going to say Austria, but will throw in Bavaria and Switzerland too

You're asking for something impossible because you've specified medium-haul, you've excluded North Africa and the Mediterranean due to heat, Western Europe due to other plans and everywhere else is long haul.

We had a lovely holiday in Slovenia last year, beautiful scenery, lakes, mountains, waterfalls. Would definitely recommend.

The Alps are stunning in the summer - plenty of waterfalls and loads of activities like canyoning, white water rafting etc if thats your version of exciting. Stunning lakes to swim in / hard or easy hikes etc.

Stunning ski resort chalets are also very cheap to rent compared to winter - also very high quality accomodation.

Weather is lovely in the mountains - blue skies feels fresh like air con ....

To add options to the bear theme, we saw bears in Finland, the place was called Wild brown bear, it's about half-way up but very close to the Russian border, though looking at the website seems like it's still operating. We started our trip in Lapland for midnight sun and then worked out way down on the train once we got to Rovaniemi. It was a really nice holiday, lots of variety, but I would think you probably need to combine with something else to really push it into the 'exciting' category.

You could go for polar bears in Svalbard. The best time to see them is between June and September. Much Better Adventures do a summer trip combining bears with kayaking and hiking - looks great!

www.muchbetteradventures.com/products/10044-adventures-arctic-wilderness-adventure-in-svalbard/

Stick with west coast of Canada. Bears, whales, Whistler summer activities, Vancouver Island. Look up cheap flights with Icelandair which halve the cost if you have a couple of nights on Iceland.

Why not canada? we did it last summer - exceptional holiday for that age.

My teen dc loved Iceland.

We went to Iceland in 2020 and it remains my favourite holiday ever.

I am going to research bears in Romania and possibly Finland too.

By medium haul I meant beyond Spain or Italy for example so I probably used the wrong terminology. Also, somewhere none of us have been before, so Eastern Europe or Northern Europe would fit.

We would love to go to Calgary and Vancouver etc but it is just too expensive when paying for 4 adults.

Oooh. Svalbard! Will look at that too.

@TeamGeriatric your Finland holiday is what I'd think of as exciting. Doing something different.

Not exciting to us is a beach holiday.

I'm by no means a cruise person but I've seen some cruises around the fjords advertised that looks interesting.

Go to Canada, we went couple of years ago with our daughters. Involves driving and watch out for forest fires. We flew to Calgary and went to Banff, Jasper and drove icefield parkway. Combined this with Vancouver island for bear and whale watching. If you decide to go to Canada , book the accommodation and car rental asap. We used Canadian affair and would highly recommend them.

As Dalyan in Turkey is on your list go for that. It will be hot but doesn’t slightly cool down towards the end of August. There are so many good excursions to do in that area, I always find Turkey works well with teens.

A Baltic or Norway cruise?

What about the very north of Scotland and the remote islands? People seem to rave about it and actually it's supposed to be pleasantly warm, probably because of the gulf stream?

Thank you for all of the suggestions. I've got a bit of research and pricing to do!

I’d do the Canadian Eastern seaboard. The places where European settlers landed. Fabulous scenery, history, food and wonderful people.