We are a family of four (two young adult children). We would like to visit in late May/early June for about 16 days.
We love combining cities with quieter countryside places - for example: we have been to Tuscany and Rome; Provence and Paris; the Cotswolds and London; Barcelona and the Andalusian countryside. We rent a car for the countryside parts, and those parts of our trips usually end up being our favorite.
We realize that Budapest is a bit of an outlier, but our children would really prefer to experience a big city. We wouldn't mind either.
We prefer to avoid one-night stays. Two nights are much easier! Three are our favorite.
Since we live in a tropical climate and near the beach, beaches and the southern Croatian coast are not our priority.
We will be departing from and returning to Miami. We’ll probably do open-jaw.
Based on that long and lengthy start, and hopefully you’re still with me, here’s our crazy plan so far. We would love to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc. I would also love to hear feedback on the number of nights in each place. We will do day and side trips from most places, at least where possible.,
We are thinking of flying into Zadar, renting a car, and driving to Plitvice National Park.
After a few days, we will continue our drive onto Ljubljana and stay there for a few days.
We will then take a side trip to Lake Bled and maybe even the Julijske Alps.
From there we will drive directly to Budapest.
Please let us know if this is a good or bad idea and why.
The reason we thought of travelling by car is because flights are not direct from any of those places and trains take too long (or are not available) to get to the next destination.
We are aware of the high rental fees when dropping off in a country different from the one you started in. Any insight on how to avoid these costs would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you all so much.