Where have you been that you loved? 2 week summer family holiday - adventurous, not too hot and not too expensive...!

[MockCroc]

Hi

Inspired by some of the threads on here I am hoping for recommendations for this summer. Family x 5 - kids bottom end of secondary / top half of primary. For context our best holiday ever was Slovenia - mountains, hiking, pony trekking, white water rafting - followed by a more relaxed week in Croatia (sea + Romans).

I am feeling really unenthused about what to do with our holiday. The dream would be something like Canada / African safari / Costa Rica but they are too expensive for x5.

I don't like really tourist hotspots which puts me off some of the Swiss / German / Italian mountains options where you see photos of queues of people hiking up mountain paths. Equally we haven't been to these areas for a summer holiday so I may be being overly sensitive and just need good suggestions about where to go. And we have had a couple of summers when the kids were smaller in Menorca where the temperatures went above 40 which was too much.

Happy to fly (and hire a car), but also to drive in Europe. Briefly flirted with Central Asia but it looked a bit complicated. Wondered about Poland / Albania (although that might be a bit hot)?

We're not bothered by luxury. We often mix cheap basic Air BnBs with a nice villa for variety and to spare the budget.

Help! If you've been somewhere and loved it, tell me about it!

Brilliant thread, thanks OP. Your previous holiday sounds like a dream. Is it straightforward to organise the various activities? I love the idea of boating in Lake Bled, hiking etc but I feel overwhelmed wondering how to figure these things out. I'm put off I suppose by the way so much has to be precooked and arranged now post Covid and spontaneity seems to be gone!

Hi @mikado1 you catch me on the thread checking out all the marvellous recommendations - thank you everyone.

Slovenia is super easy to navigate. Things like rowing you can just book by approaching the people at the lake. We found out the earliest they opened and went first thing the next morning and had the lake and island to ourselves pretty much. Then the first group arrived...!

You can book lots of things online in advance or in person when you are there. I booked the pony trekking (Posetvo Blata), white water rafting (Soca Splash) and Predjama Castle / caves tickets before we left just because I like to have structure and know that we have things organised. I used companies recommended on Trip Advisor and they were great.

Hiking was easy from Soca - the tourist information had rip out paper maps for free that showed all the local walking routes, graded by difficulty and with the distance marked. You could buy books there if you were more serious about it but we were with the kids, so a 10km circuit along the river was our limit.

Essentially countries with tourist infrastructure try and make things easy for tourists! I always google and see what blogs and recommendations I can find but then I organised our own flights and did AirBnBs (apart from in Ljubljana where I found a great but slightly whacky apartment on Booking.com)

I'm looking g at the Azores (portugal) Ryanair fly direct in summer. Love to hear any tips if anyone has been!

When I saw you title I was going to suggest Slovenia and lake bohinj in particular...
Otherwise I'd suggest alpine.... Perhaps a Southern germany/Austrian road trip combining ng Munich ( which is a great city in the summer) and the a trip to neuschwanstein Castle and lakes?

Thank you - I am loving all these recommendations and am leaning towards somewhere in Europe we can drive to from the UK. Flights are so expensive the Chunnel is appealing! From what people have said so far I think we are particularly interested in any recommendations for the top 1/2 of France, Germany and Austria. Iceland looks amazing and I have definitely added it to the list for future planning. And I am tempted by Poland but a bit more anxious about finding nice places and getting the bookings right.

@Stickortwister - agree Lake Bohinj is just breathtaking (literally for the children, who swam in it after the storms and it was FREEZING - I sat nearby and enjoyed the view with a beer 😂)

I think this might meet your criteria: Our favourite beach in the world is on the Baltic coast, it’s a small island (you can drive onto it) divided between Germany and Poland. Uznam island. We stay on the Polish side of the island to keep the cost down, the town is called Swinoujscie. It’s beautiful, the sand is like flour and the weather is perfect in the summer. You can walk and cycle back and forth between Germany and Poland.
we’ve done it twice and are doing it again this year.
lot’s of places further up the Polish coast that I can recommend to you if you are interested, including the Polish Lake District, desert-like sand dunes, Hel peninsula for surfing lessons, Malborg castle. Very easy to drive , cheap we are closing in 3k this year and the kids prefer it to our more exotic holidays. I’m like you I dislike the hot temperatures of the south but to be fair the beach there is better than anything we’ve experienced in Europe.

@Snowmanscarf do you mind me asking about Annecy please? It sounds great for us if you have any suggestions? Places to stay? We're 5 as well

Oooo, @40somethingme this looks very intriguing. Can you give me some tips on accommodation? We normally self cater. Do you do hotels? Is Airbnb the way forward? It looks like it offers lots of apartments and it is hard to tell how nice they are

Sorry, while I am at it, what route do you take from the UK? Is there a convenient ferry route or do you Chunnel it and drive?

We’ve been twice to Annecy in last few years. Last time, We stayed in an air BnB in Doussard right by the lake, but there’s lots of campsites, hotels, eurocamp -type places in Annecy or the villages around.

We drove via the tunnel both times. We stopped at Troyes (lovely medieval town), Dijon or Reims (nice cathedral) travelling there and back (one place per journey, not three stops on one journey).

If you want to fly, then fly to Geneva and catch a bus, train or hire a car from there (about an hour).

Activities we did-
Swim in the lake - it’s one of the cleanest lakes around, and there are ‘green beaches’, ie grassy banks around the lake. Lovely.

Cycle around the lake

Parascending

Day trips to Chamonix, Geneva, and other towns (who’s names escape me)

Lots of lovely restaurants and cafes and icecream

Explored Annecy

Went to International Animation festival exhibition

Went up mountains

…and just generally explored and relaxed

Sounds amazing. I've never been abroad so I love these threads and envisage myself there with my gorgeous husband.

Sounds superb, I love moose. One of my top ten favourite animals.
Got any pics of it?

Have also been to Annecy and must say it is beautiful. However, it is essentially a ski town but out of season so not very exciting.

The restaurants from what I remember close early in the evenings and they're stricter than most on breakfast and lunch windows. If you eat outside of them for whatever reason you can go to a coffee shop. We know as we were turned away enough times (2pm!)

@theworriermum Sorry, have to disagree either way you there. We loved Annecy and the area around and found lots to do, which is why we went back bc a second time.

A few years ago we did Pompeii - stayed near Salerno and went here which the kids loved https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aquafarm/@40.5974607,14.5444571,10.9z/data=!4m10!1m2!2m1!1swaterpark+near+salerno!3m6!1s0x133be69aa97c2b4d:0x22d8ffd22776173b!8m2!3d40.559691!4d14.9052032!15sChZ3YXRlcnBhcmsgbmVhciBzYWxlcm5vWhgiFndhdGVycGFyayBuZWFyIHNhbGVybm-SAQp3YXRlcl9wYXJr4AEA!16s%2Fg%2F1ptzm0j7r?entry=ttu&gep=EgoyMDI1MDExNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

*edited to say I think they actually preferred the one next door, Isola Verde Acqua Park

Sorry! Wrong thread!!!

The hotels are very nice, we go with apartments though as they are equally lovely but cheaper and bigger. If you decided to go there, go for an apartment close to the beach and promenade area (there are hundreds of them) not in the town centre. Booking com is a good source, never used Airbnb so can’t comment. Cleanliness standards are very high there, we never had an issue.
everything is walkable, rarely used the car. Cycling super easy and you can hire bikes without even signing anything. Very chilled atmosphere.
they also have European bison there if you wanted some nature experience

We go Dover to Calais ferry or the tunnel and then we drive through Germany over the top in one go all the way to the border. North past Hamburg.
or you could fly to Berlin , hire a car and drive up

Sweden was one of our best. Two weeks under £2k family of 4 Flying to Copenhagen hired a car drove to oland. Had a house with a pool.

or Canada but that was around £6k

Judgejudy- here is a moose pic, as requested!

Depending on food budget Copenhagen would be a good shout. Roskilde viking museum was brilliant and meant to be great in summer. We also liked the around the sound train journey which was cheap as chips and stopped at interesting places. Cafes and restaurants were not cheap though!

The auvergne region of France - just beautiful. There's lakes and mountains everywhere. We have driven there from north west England.
Also we've driven to the Dordogne, the Black Forest and just past Salzburg in Austria. All places are stunning (can you see we're a lakes and mountains type family ?!).

Atlanta, Tennessee and Nashville

I’d look at Sweden or Finland. If you don’t drink much the food prices tend to be comparable to London. Or used to. My friends went to Copenhagen, Malmo and the Swedish Riviera a couple of years ago, which sounded amazing. And Finland has more lakes than most countries and is very easy to get around in. You could head up to Lapland or stay in the south. Or combine it with a ferry to Estonia and explore more lakes and islands.

Caveat - I haven’t done this with a family but have travelled independently in Finland before and wouldn’t hesitate to go with kids.

Finnish trains are very cheap compared to the UK and the long distance ones have play areas for younger children.