Salzburg, Budapest, Vienna

Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen

Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Brussels, Bruges

I love Scotland. Go see Edinburgh, St Andrews, and the Scottish Highlands, especially Skye.

NP - I went with Edinburgh Black Cab tours and they did a wonderful job on my last trip.

https://edinburghblackcabtours.co.uk/

Slovenia, especially Lake Bled

Montenegro, especially Queens Beach, Kotor and lake skadar

Cyprus, especially beaches on southeast, winery regions, and touring northern Cyprus

Norway, Switzerland, Iceland

Austria in winter is so pretty

Berchtesgaden, Germany area (basically that far far southwest corner right by Saltzburg). Tons to do in summer and beautiful

Also loved the Dolomites in Italy in summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scotland - 10 days to tour all over. Simply magical.

Can you share which tour operator ?

NP. You can drive yourself. Get a Historic Scotland pass and go exploring.

While I loved Rome and Florence and smaller cities and villages in those areas, I really loved southern Italy and Croatia as well. I prefer being on or near coasts.

Anonymous wrote:Scotland - 10 days to tour all over. Simply magical.

Can you share which tour operator ?

Barcelona! Now, to be fair, this was in 2006 so I'm sure it's gotten more crowded / popular since then.

But the food, Park Guell, the waterfront. All of it was really great.

Scotland - 10 days to tour all over. Simply magical.

Austria

Some places I love:

-Madrid & Valencia in Spring (with my kids in elementary school)

-London (with my young kids for a whole week but not just doing the most popular attractions but checking out lots of fabulous playgrounds with cafes, child-centric museums, awesome little bakeries, markets, ect.....very different experience than when I went as a young adult tourist, MUCH better!). Honestly one of our absolute favorite trips ever.

-Copenhagen, Denmark & Hamburg & Bremen , Germany before Christmas. That area of Germany does not get as many American tourists but everyone was incredibly friendly, markets were terrific and it was a beautiful area & it was very affordable. All of those places were super child friendly.

-Heidelberg, Germany at Christmas....probably almost anywhere in Germany at Christmas TBH.

Train trip- Prague- Vienna - Budapest
Croatia
Northern Ireland
Montenegro
French Riviera

Ghent was a very nice surprise. Bruges was very touristy whereas Ghent felt very authentic and not touristy.

Cornwall
Hungary (few days in Budapest and the a road trip to smaller towns)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which trips did you absolutely love? Summer/spring, not the usual Rome, London, Paris

Rome, London and Paris were great spring trips. Why are you explicitly excluding Rome those incredibly popular destinations? They’re popular for good reasons.

DP: because once you have done those, many of us (myself included) find that we prefer to explore the areas outside of Large tourist destinations. For example, in Ireland, IMO all you need is 1-2 days in Dublin (cannot drink beer, and it just didnt' appeal to us), but we loved Kinsale, Dingle, and a few other smaller towns, where you can spend 3-4 days each and truly explore the countryside