Canada or Scandinavia?

[Frappe99]

We are looking for a late July/early August two week holiday to a country which can offer a bit of city buzz for teen son but also offer scenery/nature and cycling/horse riding for teen daughter. Southern Europe generally too hot/busy. Canada is most appealing, Vancouver/Vancouver Island and Whistler, nice temperature, loads of scenic nature, sporty stuff and city life. But DH is concerned about how expensive it will be, understandably. But is Scandinavia any cheaper? I doubt it. There is of course the Alps, but we’ve been several times and it just doesn’t feel as exciting and doesn’t offer the same city buzz as say Vancouver or Copenhagen.
Thoughts??

Canada is amazing for a holiday!

Vancouver has some urban problems - homelessness, drug use, street crime. There's also smoke from forest fires in August although it doesn't happen every year. For the city part of your trip, Copenhagen might be better, although Vancouver Island and Whistler would be good for the outdoorsy part. Hotels in Vancouver might be pricey because it's cruise ship season.
Between those two choices, I think I would lean toward Copenhagen.

Quebec city or Montreal with time in the Laurentians?

I'd choose Scandinavia. There's not much to do in Vancouver as a visitor though I expect it's a nice city to live in.

Copenhagan and Stockholm are both great cities but with nature close at hand.

I found them no more expensive than London.

Hi, I priced up Canada for this summer holiday and the flights are £££££.

Whereas last weekend I booked return flights (flying out LHR to Copenhagen; flying home from Billund to LHR) for under £1k for four of us.

We will have 6 nights in Copenhagen - that’s more than we need, but we’ll day trip by train to Malmo in Sweden and by public transport to some of the Viking tourist sites and castles.

Then we hire a car for the second week and have one random night somewhere in Denmark before spending a week on the coast/day-trippable to the Lego house.

I’m a bit worried Denmark will be flat and too similar to the Netherlands which we know very well.

Honestly I’d prefer to do a road trip of Norway or Iceland for my teen’s sake as she would love the landscape, but my dc2 is still young and we thought Denmark offered more for the whole family.

I bought a guide book about Denmark and it has cheered me up a bit.

If you decide to do Denmark: I did notice that you can fly from Billund to Gdansk for about 20 euro - so you could tack on some beach time in Sopot, or there’s an amazingly cheap hotel in a converted submarine factory if you Gdansk itself city. I decided we didn’t need a “third leg” in Poland and the flights home didn’t suit us very well (couldn’t find a direct flight into LHR) but I was intrigued by the idea.

Love your holiday plans, sounds like you’re doing what’s best for the whole family, which isn’t easy, I hope you have a brilliant time!

we had a great trip to northern Denmark - tip of Jutland a couple of years ago. Not mine and DHs choice in terms of destination- it was part of bigger group family holiday but I loved it and the landscape despite flat was beautiful with amazing beaches - so clean and soft sand and wild seas. Costs wise, Denmark didn’t seem much more expensive than England and our flights were an absolute bargain even in August (and danish schools were already back so tourist sights not busy). We got the ferry to Norway which was a unique experience and had 2 days in Oslo. That was incredibly expensive , eye wateringly so, much more so than Denmark!

Another destination to consider could be northern Germany and it may be cheaper than Scandinavia Again a massively underrated coast - I went to the Ostsee side (Mecklenburg) a few years ago, lovely white soft sand beaches that you walk through forest to reach. As for cities, there’s Hamburg which is a fascinating place and I’ve heard lubeck is really pretty

What a beautiful description, I love the sound of this. Thank you.

Flights to Vancouver are always expensive. You need to keep an eye on flights the minute they open.

Highly recommend Scandinavian summer holidays. We've had great holidays in Sweden and Denmark. Cool, interesting cities, beautiful beaches, good transport. It wasn't particularly expensive compared to the UK tbh.

I’d go to Norway for the scenery and the exchange rate is great at the moment so not that expensive.
You can rent a car and or get the train from Oslo to Bergen for example, I much prefer Bergen to Oslo. If you don’t mind camping I would rent a camper van and travel around to different areas: Lofoten, Geiranger, Romsdalen, Jotunheimen, tromso, to name a few, there are so many amazing places. I would just look at the weather and kind of go with the flow!