Tips for long trips?

[Poppy]

I am dreaming about spending most of next summer break abroad. Thinking England and/or Scotland.

We've never done a vacation longer than 2 weeks or so. Do you have any tips for extended trips? Is there a better way to book a longer stay than the Airbnb/hotel search that I am more used to? It would be fun to move around and explore but I'm worried the cost will be exorbitant to book in 5 day chunks or whatever.

I have never been to those countries, either, so if you have any tips on where to focus our time, please chime in with that as well.

[plutocherry]

We've done this twice now. First a month in Europe in 2022 where we moved every 5-7 days, and then for 6 months in 2023 around Europe, Central America, SEA, and Australia.
I always just compare the cost of Airbnb v. hotels. Usually, Airbnb is significantly cheaper for what we need (4 people, kitchen, living space, washer/dryer). I've only found that hotel chains provide what we need in the US (Hyatt is the best one).

Both England and Scotland are amazing. August is festival season in Scotland if that is interesting to you. England is such a blast.

We're slow-ish travelers also. I highly recommend staying somewhere for at least 7-10 days, if not more. Allows you to slow down and soak it all in. We did 10 nights in London in 2022 and we could have done a lot more. We also don't try to pack a million things in a day, especially if we're going to go for longer periods of time. We also like to find hubs where we can do reasonable day trips. Our kids were 5 & 9 in 2022, and we aimed for 1-2 big activities a day, along with rest time, park time, meals in, etc. We get burned out if we do more than that for an extended time period.

Best experience ever. Do it and don't look back.

[emilyinchile]

You may already know this, but some places have month discounts for Airbnb can make it cheaper to book the full month rather than only 25 days or whatever, if you end up deciding to base in one place the whole time. Ditto week discounts even if you only need 6 days.

[cheekywife]

May 23, 2024 15:37:15 GMT -5 emilyinchile said:

You may already know this, but some places have month discounts for Airbnb can make it cheaper to book the full month rather than only 25 days or whatever, if you end up deciding to base in one place the whole time. Ditto week discounts even if you only need 6 days.

this is what we did last year. we spent four weeks in brussels. our airbnb was like $1900 including all the fees, etc. we did day trips and spent a few nights each in london, antwerp and strasbourg. we used points and some gift cards from H's company to book those hotels. 

you could base yourself in edinburgh or glasgow, do day trips then take longer a few longer trips to the highlands and places further afield. 

we considered london for that trip but the airbnb options were more expensive. maybe look into oxford or cambridge for easy day trips to london and then take a longer trip to cornwall or the cotswolds.

[pittpurple]

I think fewer stops / longer time for an extended trip is much better so you don't feel like you're just constantly packing / unpacking / finding a shop. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland - just remember the weather will be horrible lol.

And a note that public transport and sometimes shops are few and far between on Sundays so try and avoid moving on a Sunday if you can!

Personally if you're talking about 2 months I'd do 2 weeks in 4 locations and move either up or down the country. Edinburgh is worth avoiding / targeting in August depending on how you feel about festivals!