Winter break vacation - europe

[ohgillian]

I'm having absolute analysis paralysis. Partly b/c this trip is going to be so much more expensive than I anticipated. But we want to go, kids are only young once, we *can* afford it, etc. 

Anyway. Where would you go/have you gone in western europe from the east cost for about 8 days over winter break? We did London last year but would happily go again. Kids will be 12 and 14.

[mrsGreeko]

We did Portugal over spring break a couple years ago. We also did Croatia over spring break one year, but that’s not Western Europe, highly recommend it though.

I feel like the obvious answer is either Finland for Lapland stuff or Germany or Austria for Christmas markets though.

[joy]

We went to Finland in Dec 2023 - Helsinki and Rovaniemi. We took an overnight train up Rovaniemi. It was beautiful, fun, full of activities and Santa.

Recommend.

[dragon's breath]

I selected my last location by going to kayak.com, selecting my home airport, and "explore". Then I chose a location I had not been to before with a cheap flight. With specific dates it will be a little more restrictive, but worth checking out.

Cheapest flights when I did it were Dublin, Paris, and Stockholm (went to Stockholm since I'd been to the other two). I've also found cheap flights to Japan this way (but couldn't go that year).

[bee20]

I've done the same thing dragon's breath, has, it has brought me to Istanbul and Milan. Both are easy to get around as an English speaker, have plenty of food kids will recognize if they're picky, and are very walkable. For Milan you could take a train to another city pretty easily. For Istanbul honestly there is so much to do there you could spend all week.

[Jalapeñomel]

Some place warm like southern Greece or Italy. (Maybe that’s not Western Europe though so then Portugal or western Spain).

[dcrunnergirl52]

We did Paris and Strasbourg last December break, including visiting the Christmas markets in Strasbourg. We had so much fun. Here is our trip report:

docs.google.com/document/d/1evsKqPL280QUwcAQp7dZdldWBQQJ9lQcZEQTfbuW2qk/edit?usp=sharing

[dcrunnergirl52]

Apr 26, 2024 20:27:43 GMT -5 joy said:

We went to Finland in Dec 2023 - Helsinki and Rovaniemi. We took an overnight train up Rovaniemi. It was beautiful, fun, full of activities and Santa.

Recommend.

Did you see the Northern Lights while you were there? it's on my bucket list and hoping to see them this year.

[loira]

Apr 27, 2024 7:55:41 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

We did Paris and Strasbourg last December break, including visiting the Christmas markets in Strasbourg. We had so much fun. Here is our trip report:

docs.google.com/document/d/1evsKqPL280QUwcAQp7dZdldWBQQJ9lQcZEQTfbuW2qk/edit?usp=sharing

I was coming in to recommend this! 😃

I would not recommend London over Christmas if you care about doing anything on Christmas Day. Absolutely nothing will be open. Yes, it's a huge global city but they close everything including public transport on Christmas Day. But since you've been to London anyway, it's probably not your first choice.

[waverly]

It’s so hard to choose. We just did Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne.

We probably have a few more trips in us but will wait a few years. Thinking Ireland/ Scotland, Sweden/ Norway and Austria/ Italy for our next trips. Greece would also be on the list.

It depends on if you want northern lights vibe, Christmas vibe, or Southern getaway experience imo.

We chose Paris because DH had never been and flights were cheapest at about 3-4 airports Paris being one of them. Normandy and Amsterdam were the highlights. It was spring break and a bit chilly but warmer than Chicago. I’m not really a huge fan of Christmas and Christmas markets so I’d either go far north or far south at Christmas.

[joy]

Apr 27, 2024 7:57:04 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

Apr 26, 2024 20:27:43 GMT -5 joy said:

We went to Finland in Dec 2023 - Helsinki and Rovaniemi. We took an overnight train up Rovaniemi. It was beautiful, fun, full of activities and Santa.

Recommend.

Did you see the Northern Lights while you were there? it's on my bucket list and hoping to see them this year.

Sadly, no. But it was because it was cloudy all three nights we were above the Arctic Circle. The day after we left started to have high probability! Naturally.

[SusanBAnthony]

We just did a spring break Europe trip with 14 and 16 year olds. We flew into amsterdam, then used train (and tram/metro) transport. We stayed in Brussels as our home base, and took day trips to Paris, Brugge, Mechelen, Leuven, Ghent. Then spent a day in Amsterdam before flying home.

It worked great and we loved it.

I can recommend a specific hotel in Brussels that had a family suite with a queen bedroom, a 2 twin bedroom, and a living room and kitchen- hilton garden inn city center. It's a 10 minute walk from the Zuid train station and the hotel was great. It was 400 a night when we stayed there. We were going to have to get 2 hotel rooms otherwise and they all ran 200+ a night, so it was a super good deal to get basically a whole apartment for that price. And the breakfast was amazing- get the hilton CC with free gold status and breakfast will be free. Much cheaper to get the CC for a ~50$ annual fee than pay for breakfast.

[wanderingback]

Apr 28, 2024 7:52:51 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

We just did a spring break Europe trip with 14 and 16 year olds. We flew into amsterdam, then used train (and tram/metro) transport. We stayed in Brussels as our home base, and took day trips to Paris, Brugge, Mechelen, Leuven, Ghent. Then spent a day in Amsterdam before flying home.

It worked great and we loved it.

I can recommend a specific hotel in Brussels that had a family suite with a queen bedroom, a 2 twin bedroom, and a living room and kitchen- hilton garden inn city center. It's a 10 minute walk from the Zuid train station and the hotel was great. It was 400 a night when we stayed there. We were going to have to get 2 hotel rooms otherwise and they all ran 200+ a night, so it was a super good deal to get basically a whole apartment for that price. And the breakfast was amazing- get the hilton CC with free gold status and breakfast will be free. Much cheaper to get the CC for a ~50$ annual fee than pay for breakfast.

I don’t need it for now but can you share the hotel please!

[dochas]

I would love to go to Germany in the winter.

[longtimenopost]

Denmark and Sweden

[georgeglass]

More Northern than Western, but we had a spectacular trip to Iceland that our kids loved. Easy flight, too.

[pittpurple]

Europe will be cold / rainy everywhere in winter so for me it would depend on how you feel about cold weather. Personally I'd just go all the way cold and look at Germany / Austria and see if you can find places with markets over the winter break (assuming you mean in between Christmas and New Years when lots will be closed)

I live in Edinburgh but never recommend Scotland in winter - it's so dark and not cold enough to be fun for those reasons.

Those weeks are crazy expensive for flights so I'd start with flights as well - see where you can get for anything resembling reasonable costs and build out from there.

[midwestmama]

In the summer of 2023, we took a family trip to Europe, with our main stops in Munich, Frankfurt, and Strasbourg. We also did a day trip to Salzburg. Our favorite places were Strasbourg and Salzburg, and I would 100% love to visit them again. (If we ever get back to Germany, I would like to visit a few of the smaller towns, such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber.) I have been to Krakow for work a few times in the last few years, and I really like it. It seems that for people near Krakow, a popular vacation spot is Zakopane, Poland, which is a bit south of Krakow.

A coworker went to Lapland, Finland around Christmas last year with her family and they loved it.

[majesty318]

I loved the Christmas markets in Berlin, so I would say Germany.

Or if you want nicer weather, Spain.

[SusanBAnthony]

Apr 28, 2024 9:05:21 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Apr 28, 2024 7:52:51 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

We just did a spring break Europe trip with 14 and 16 year olds. We flew into amsterdam, then used train (and tram/metro) transport. We stayed in Brussels as our home base, and took day trips to Paris, Brugge, Mechelen, Leuven, Ghent. Then spent a day in Amsterdam before flying home.

It worked great and we loved it.

I can recommend a specific hotel in Brussels that had a family suite with a queen bedroom, a 2 twin bedroom, and a living room and kitchen- hilton garden inn city center. It's a 10 minute walk from the Zuid train station and the hotel was great. It was 400 a night when we stayed there. We were going to have to get 2 hotel rooms otherwise and they all ran 200+ a night, so it was a super good deal to get basically a whole apartment for that price. And the breakfast was amazing- get the hilton CC with free gold status and breakfast will be free. Much cheaper to get the CC for a ~50$ annual fee than pay for breakfast.

I don’t need it for now but can you share the hotel please!

Hilton garden inn, "city center" location.

[neeps]

Apr 29, 2024 3:45:38 GMT -5 pittpurple said:

Europe will be cold / rainy everywhere in winter so for me it would depend on how you feel about cold weather. Personally I'd just go all the way cold and look at Germany / Austria and see if you can find places with markets over the winter break (assuming you mean in between Christmas and New Years when lots will be closed)

I live in Edinburgh but never recommend Scotland in winter - it's so dark and not cold enough to be fun for those reasons.

Those weeks are crazy expensive for flights so I'd start with flights as well - see where you can get for anything resembling reasonable costs and build out from there.

This. Winter in Portugal is technically the rainy season - and not like the Caribbean rainy season, these rains are cold, cloudy and last most of the day. That has varied the last two years here though - two years ago it rained every day of October and January was beautiful. This past year was much more typical, with the rains starting in late November. You could get lucky, but don't count on it.

We went to Germany in December and it was fantastic. We were there when there was record breaking snow in Munich that closed the airport for two days and it was still a fantastic trip. 

Edited to add that we've also done Nice in December and enjoyed it. It was cold, but at least not rainy.