Am I looking for the impossible?

[Tiedbutchorestodo]

I’ve still not booked a summer holiday for our family and it’s starting to drive me crazy! I just can’t find anything I really want to do and I think my criteria might be impossible - hoping someone might think of something I’ve not considered…

It’s for me, DH, DD15 and DD9. We want a week (or more but doubtful for the money) in mid / end of July for around £6k / £6.5k including everything.

We’d like somewhere warm where youngest can swim when getting back for the day but we don’t like to lay by a pool. We like lots of “fun” activities (not just walking / looking at towns although a day of that is fine). Good hotel and non buffet food (either in hotel if multiple restaurants or in area)

Previously enjoyed cruise around Norway (kayaking, cable car in mountains), Disneyworld, USA road trips with living history museums etc, med cruise with top Europe sites like colosseum, acropolis etc.

Feeling uninspired - help!

Can't recommend hotels, as we usually self cater, but we've recently had great teen holidays in the French Alps (Samoens) and Slovenia (Ljubljana and Lake Bohinj). Lovely weather (warm enough to swim but not too hot). I don't sit still on holiday, so always want to be doing something - we did do walking, but also lots of opportunities in both places for things like rafting, canyoning, horse riding, cable cars etc. Also a bit of cultural stuff. I'm not much of a pool or beach fan, but love lake and river swimming, and they're both great places for that. Lovely restaurants. We drove to the Alps and had some great stops on the journey which really added to the holiday, but you'd really want longer than a week to do that (we did two nights each way).

I can't recommend hotels either but we are going to Eastern Europe this summer moving through Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. We are going for just over a month and with flights, all apartments/hotels, car hire and food we'll be spending around 4,000€. Our children are much younger but we will be doing a mixture of towns, beaches, national parks, boat rides etc. There's lots to do in these countries, such as kayaking, horse riding, zip lining etc and its very, very cheap.

We did a small group tour to India last year which was fab. Busy days, great food and most hotels with pools to swim at the end of the day. I'd definitely do it again and there are lots in Europe if you're only looking for a week.

@EnglishGirlApproximately what month did you go in? Can you share the company you used too?

My dd's favourite holidays were the Dordogne - castles, caves, dinosaur parks, prehistoric dwellings, canoeing on the river. Loads to do and see. Nice food. We have stayed in various places - can recommend https://lebanquet.com/en/ which are just outside Les Eyzies. We've also stayed at Les Avits Loisirs and Les Peneyrals with Eurocamp - big pool complexes and onsite activities.

@House4DSwe went at the end of July so it was extremely humid, but that was the only date we could fit it in! If you go outside of summer you can go to Ranthambore too which we unfortunately missed, so we'll have to go again! We travelled with Explore and there were 3 families on our trip, youngest child was 9, oldest 15 I think.

Sorry to hikack but would love a more detailed itinerary for this!

Narrow boat or similar

We were looking for similar a couple of years ago - and ended up going to Koh Samui because it came out at a similar price to Europe!

Send me a DM and I'll send you what I've got so far!