5 daughters from 16 to 21, elderly mother in law and two of us

Berlin. One of the most diverse cities in Europe. Very safe neighborhoods, really neat clubs and coffee cafes etc. Maybe Mark K will jump on. Knows much about Berlin.

A lot of options. Each of us will tell about what they know, me included .... so.

Adults: theater, opera, ballet, refined jazz clubs, amazing food, history and endless amazing architecture.

Daughters: clubs from huge movie set looking dance clubs to live music venues to neighborhood wine or beer bars. All the best high end shops and lots of one off local shops.

Both, amazing walks thru stunning architecture, great food, wine, pedestrian and fun trams. All very affordable. Much less than most any other EU major city. Safety, as good or better than anyplace in the EU.

Location: Budapest

Direct flights from Israel.

Thanks for nice intro, Lifetime travel.

Berlin is a high-percentage match in terms of safety, shopping, culture and food offering but I want to introduce Copenhagen as an alternative. Copenhagen is - as all Northern countries - little bit further in equality of the female gender. This is no general problem in Berlin but we have people from 190 nations with different values and habbits - Ukraine influence was growing. Copenhagen has also nice events at beginning of August and is located at the Baltic sea which promises lower peak temperatures. In high summer Berlin can have also day temperatures up to 36° C and more than 20° C in nights but I guess that people from Israel and California are somehow used to this. Both cities offer low language barreers in the center areas.

Of course the offering of shopping, culture, food and nightlife is much larger in Berlin which has 10x the area of the city of Copenhagen and 6x the number of people. So for sure you will find enough places to have fun and also time and peaceful places to get together. If money plays no major role hotels "Das Stue" or "Hotel de Rome" are excellent places. You can enjoy river tours in the evening or just stroll along East Side Gallery or around Kurfürstendamm. I do not want to forget the Potsdam palaces inviting for visits on sunshine days. If it rains Berlin has around 170 museums, over 400 galleries and over 30 malls. Week markets on Saturdays and flea markets on Sundays. So visiting Berlin is a decision where you can find something for nearly every taste and interest. By the way: we have also a strong community of young people from Israel in Berlin and by tradition of decades the US American community is here as well.

For the young ladies the perfect event "Rave the planet" (somehow follower of the famous love parade) happens on August 17. People of all ages are dancing through the streets. But they will have enough offerings in various clubs without any time limit. When I start buying things on Saturday mornings some of the party people rave out from places like YaaM, Kater Blau or famous Berghain.

Of course I am open to help with some more tips and recommendations if OP decides towards Berlin.

Heads up: Hungary is listed in last 3 of EU Gender Equality Index in 2022; survey period in 2020.

A daughter of a German friend studied in Budapest and dropped out of her studies there for the reason how she was treated as a young woman. They are living in Berlin and she realized it as too remarkably different.

Thank you so much for the advise

Not really sure what's being measured and doubt it has anything to do with tourism.

But like I said, with your sort if question you are going to get a list of everyone's favorite places. Most of them will be good options if they speak to your interests.

One thing you were correct to be concerned with regarding young adults is safety. You can go here and plug in various cities and see the results. But even this is a bit subjective and probably suffers from a limited data set. But it's something to consider https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Germany&country2=Hungary&city1=Berlin&city2=Budapest&tracking=getDispatchComparison

You want a low crime number and a high safety number.

Who i hope chimes in is TexasTravelMom, she spends her life traveling Europe solo. She will have a pretty good woman's perspective.

Another source that comes to mind is Conde Nast. They just published some articles on recommendations for good places to travel this year. I suspect there is some commercial motivation behind the lists, but they claim they are from reader polls. The lists are pretty diverse and might give you some new ideas besides the typical RS responses (mine included). Interesting reading at worst.

and doubt it has anything to do with tourism.

I think it plays a role in tourism how women are seen and treated in various destinations - especially if you travel with 5 daughters and ask for safety.

btw: Numbeo data about crime and safety have nothing to do with real data / statistics.
"About Crime Indices At This Website
The data in this section is derived from surveys conducted by visitors to our website. Questions in these surveys are designed to be similar to many scientific and government surveys."

For Germany and Berlin we have very detailed numbers in annual crime statistics, also map-based crime atlas down on district and in Berlin on neighborhood level.
In general western and mid European countries show higher crime numbers because they are just more attractive to criminals (more wealth). All major tourist spots there are affected by professional thieves and burglars organized in groups coming from eastern and southeastern Europe.

The crime warning by Swiss authorities for travellers to Hungary provides several serious issues (see "Kriminalität"), e. g. significant number of cases tourists robbed at nightclubs or credit card fraud and data stolen in restaurants. The police of Budapest published a warning about "thieves specialized on foreigners around ATMs".

I do not want to make Budapest a general bad destination but these topics need to be mentioned in this thread since it was part of the orginal request.

Bilbao might be a good place to take a look at.

Spain in August can be hot, but in the north it is generally cooler than the south. The city meets your requirements. It is a safe place, there is culture, and shopping can be done too.

Good food and wine is very easy to find there. The beach is always an easy option.

There is also things for history buff and Game of Throne fans.

A search on the boards will show that many people prefer Bilbao over San Sebastian, and you can get a lot of good ideas for day trips from the city.

Since women’s safety has come up, here is some reading. Since you seem to be open-minded as to your final location I looked for sources that list multiple locations. Sure, I have a favorite place, but not everyone is me. Interesting exercise as I learned a lot.

We can find flaws in anything so subjective, so I would look for overlapping good ratings and think where there is smoke there must be fire.

Also remember that country wide data can be misleading. As an example, the city I live in is very liberal, while the country it exists in is very conservative. So when you can find city specific information, that might be more accurate for the quest. But again, these are pretty subjective, but women specific.

https://travelladies.app/ranking/safest-places
https://usebounce.com/blog/women-travel-safety
https://usebounce.com/guides/budapest/is-budapest-safe-to-visit - I added this city specific link because I can not find an index in the main site for individual city reviews, but they do exist. I discovered that if you replace the city name in the link with other city names you can get to those reviews, if they exist; “barcelona” in place of “budapest” in the above link, for example.
https://wayaway.io/blog/article/three-ways-wayaway-helps-keep-travelers-safe#2

This is disapointing, you only got three recommendations and some arguing LOL.

Since you have so many traveling from Israel, I would think a non-stop flight location would be worth considering. If this link works it will get you to a map of the non-stops out of Israel on August 1:

https://www.google.com/travel/explore?tfs=CBwQAxoqEgoyMDI0LTA4LTAxKABqDAgDEggvbS8wN3F6dnIMCAQSCC9tLzAyajl6QAFIAXABggELCP___________wGYAQKyAQQYASAB&tfu=GioaKAoSCacBbKFkDExAEQAAwJ0160NAEhIJjTQL7xSkQUAR_P__I6bwC8A

I like the idea of Paris or Amsterdam or Nice (or you know, that other place). I think they fit the bill. Paris is always good. I know it sounds like a cliche, but there is a reason for that. I love Paris.

Oh, a final thought then I will quit hogging the thread. Since you have 4 coming from Israel, you might look for cities that have not had large Palastine rallies or related or simillar disruptions. Or exploding ATM's. That might rule out at least one of my suggestions in this post. And I dont know if its a point of interest or not, but you might look at cities with strong history and Jewish culture ....

How can somebody recommend Paris during Olympic Games weeks?

For all the hard sell on Berlin in this thread the city does not feature on any of these safest lists.

Looking at the places with direct flights Krakow and Amsterdam do. And if Krakow has direct flights then both Warsaw and Gdansk are easily reachable by train from Krakow.

Also interesting that Edinburgh features as number 2 in one of the lists- in August (if looking for culture and clothes shopping) that could be a good idea.

Budapest may not be on the list, but Vienna is. It's hardly as if the two cities are far apart.

Find a city which is easily reachable from both Israel and California.

My 2 cents is what isn31c said. Find a place with the best flights for both parties. Many cities would provide what you ask for. If hot weather would matter to your mom, you might consider that.

I travel solo most of the time and find that most cities are safe if you exercise common sense. My daughter (in her 20’s and early 30’s) has traveled both solo and with friends in many European locations and safety has not been an issue.

I am not sure what the pushback is against Budapest - it is a lovely destination for what you want. However it isn’t always easy to reach by plane. You might look at London, Stockholm, Budva, Edinburgh, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, or a dozen other locations.

Flights would be my decider.

TTM, as usual .....

If the OP has no particular desire but just wants a good place to reunite, then maybe the answer is Amsterdam. Direct flights from Israel and from LAX and from SFO. I have gone to worse places to spend time with family. And Amsterdam does tick most of the boxes. And the Kwaku Summer Festival and Gay Pride Parade are that week.

Many wonderful advises and points of view, appreciate all of them. Really do.

Hey there, welcome to the forum! I might look a bit further north, where the temps (might) be cooler and everyone is outside enjoying the fine weather and late nights of sunlight! Both Copenhagen & Stockholm would work, I also like Oslo but personally prefer the beauty of all the islands in & around Stockholm. You can hop a ferry to the gorgeous archipelago & I hear shopping is reasonable in Stockholm, though it's not my thing. Unless you're talking about 'Scandinavian Modern' in which case it's pretty fabulous. This seemed like an interesting thread about night life - https://usebounce.com/guides/stockholm/things-to-do-at-night-stockholm

Ohhh I'm glad Texastravelmom mentioned London, that would be easy & meet all the criteria, except perhaps the wine but hey you can find wine bars anywhere!

And although you're coming from hot places, I would still consider the average temps in Europe, as it has been getting warmer the past few years. And make sure that where ever you stay, that you have air conditioning. Sounds like a fun trip, please let us know how it develops!

TTM, as usual .....

Trailing 12 months (TTM) is a common term referring to a way to measure the performance of a company over time. It is also used to calculate financial ratios, such as the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and return on equity (ROE).

I suspect Mr E wasn't referring to investment in that reply, but he has left me 'confused'
( The other search result was The Three Musketeers)

joe32f, you aren’t making fun of me, are you? Lol.

Signed,
Your friend TTM whose username is probably too long

wouldn't TexasTravelmom be TTm, not TTM?

LOL, Nigel….. just to make you happy, I fixed it.

Lively crowd, huh? I always think of Munich, Prague, Vienna and Amsterdam for young folks.

But now my favorite lively place is Budapest. It has something for all ages. And the place is so beautiful too.

One of the best things is Budapest is actually very reasonably priced place to visit.

There are three airlines flying from Tel Aviv to Budapest too.