Recommendations for Mid-June Not-Crazy-Busy European Destinations

Good European destinations in the summer:

Northern Spain (Basque Country, Asturias, Cantabria, Aragon, or Galicia) - Medium tourists and medium price
or
Southern Poland (Wroclaw, Spa Towns of the Klodzko Valley, Silesia) - Low tourists and low price
or
Norway ( Oslo, Bergen, and Fjord country) - High tourists and high price

Vote for Poland. Very inexpensive, easy to get away with $100 a day. Krakow and Gdansk would be my top two cities.

We explored the Rhine/Mosel river towns in August, a few years back, and did not feel overwhelmed by the crowds or the temperatures. Actually, really feel the need to go back.

I loved Poland, which I visited last summer, but in my experience Gdansk, Wroclaw and Krakow were not non-touristy. Not at all. I'd happily go back to any of them, and I'm sure they're only going to get more crowded, but if you expect to find yourself in an undiscovered city, you will be most disappointed.

Going off of acraven's point, in Poland it will be much easier to find a less touristy smaller town, rather than a big city. The charming town of Przemyśl, for example, is know for its Art Nouveau library, which was originally the only pre WWII synagogue left standing in Poland.

There are a number of places that fit the bill. But since budget seems to be driving the trip, random responses of this is great and that is wonderful are not going to be much help. Where are you departing from? That will impact your options a lot. Chicago to Budapest for those dates is under $900, while from any place in Texas it's almost $1500. Other destinations will have the same sorts of variables. Part of the fun of having a budget is using it to force you to explore new places.

Eastern Europe will be where the tourists are thinner and the dollar goes much, much further; and for my money its a lot more interesting than the West. Places a diverse as Hungary, Ukraine, Croatia have become more enlightened on the issues of sexuality. Some though will be better, some not as good, but outside of Russia, where homosexuality is essentially illegal, I have never head of anyone with unpleasant experiences. Find a starting point with good discount air service. Wizz air uses Budapest for instance so you could do into Montenegro and out of Hungary on a pretty cheap ticket (from the right place in the US)

Give us a starting city and it would be fun to look at options with you.

Thanks for all the great suggestions so far!

@James E - The reason I didn't include flight stuff is I have a bunch of miles to burn so air transport is less of an issue.

But you still need good and efficient flights. I figure it this way, my bucket list is sooooo big, that on each trip I just for the easiest and most efficient to reach. In your case, on American,

So, what I did was look on googleflights where you can get with just one stop from MSP to Europe and then I compared that with some of the local discount airlines and I came up with

June 10, AA from MSP to Athens; returning June 20 from Frankfurt to MSP. $1100.00. Each flight has about a 2 hour layover, pretty perfect actually. Then, both Athens and Frankfurt are served by Wizzair. With that in mind

10 depart
11 arrive Athens 09:15
12 Athens
13 Athens
14 Athens to a Discount Airline nonstop connected city (my choice would be Budapest but there are probably a half dozen interesting choices) on Ryanair (22:30 to 23:30 / 2:00 hours) for about $80
15 Budapest
16 Budapest
17 Budapest
18 Budapest to Frankfurt on Wizzair (14:55 to 16:40 /1:45 hours)
19 Frankfurt
20 Frankfurt to home.

A hundred dollars a day is plenty for these places.

Just to give you an idea of the cost of visiting, the cost index for MSP: is 76.52.
Athens 58.75
Budapest 46.24
Frankfurt 70.89

and as a reference --
Paris 85.42

Rome 71.38

Actually since you are traveling on points, skip Frankfurt. Just do Athens and some place else that you can reach with a discount flight. Personally I would just look for a second city with an efficient flight home.... oh, my!!! Budapest. But seriously, there are a lot to choose from, but if you stay in Eastern Europe you will save a bundle and see some pretty amazing places.

Wow! Interesting itinerary @James E. I'll consider it and open to more suggestions from the crowd!

I would not recommend Athens in mid June or during the other high summer months, one of the hottest most congested cities in Europe at that time and not to mention it will be full of tourists.

I love Budapest but it will be busy in June, not as busy as say London, Paris or Barcelona and it's definitely cheaper than the West. I found Sofia to be an interesting, compact city and even cheaper than Budapest. Also consider Romania, I've been to Bucharest in December so don't know what it'll be like in June, pleasantly warm I suspect, and that, again, is a very interesting city. You'll find less Western tourists in Sofia and Bucharest and whilst I think Krakow outshines both of those cities it's likely to be overrun with tourists in June, particularly hordes of British men on stag weekends.

There are many good suggestions that are on the beaten path, but look at smaller cities and not just the major tourist hot spots you'll find plenty of of towns that can entertain you for a week.

How about:
Tallinn (easy to combine with Helsinki)
Copenhagen (can be combined with southern Sweden)
Aachen
Any part of the Netherlands apart from Amsterdam
Gothenburg and the Swedish west coast.
Bratislava
Hamburg and northern Germany (Lübeck, Kiel).
Trondheim

Slovenia. All of it is great, but check out Ptuj, Maribor, Ljubljana, Piran, Kobarid, Lake Bohinj and the caves.

Can't say thank you enough to the many amazing (and different) suggestions so far! I should clarify that I'm not interested in renting a car so places easy to connect to (trains are fine) are probably more ideal.

Carlos and James had some great ideas.

Also, consider Ireland and Norway.

We are doing a 11 night cruise of Norway that goes up to the Arctic Circle this June.

If you don't have time for that, you can visit Oslo, Bergen, Flam and Stavenger.

I vote for Poland too but if you don't want to go so far, then North Germany....lots of places in eastern and North Germany not visited by swarms of international tourists.

If you think outside the box, you find an efficient flight to Europe, then take a bus for a few hours. not rubbing elbows with tourists in June may mean being rural and being independent on sites and entertainment. many will have 4 of your 5 choices. Or choosing 2nd or 3rd tier cities in some of the countries you have already visited.

Woah. That's a lot of Ukraine to try to see in 7-10 days! I spent 8 full days in Kyiv alone. I think a more typical tourist might plan 4 days there. Getting from anywhere to anywhere in Ukraine takes longer than you would expect; there are no super-speedy express trains. I'd only plan one city-to-city move during a short trip.

Hi,

If you do go to the western Ukraine and eastern Poland, you'll be in the operational area of the blood awful horrific fighting in 1914 i.e., the towns of Przemysl (the famous fortress) and Lemberg (Lviv) as they were known then, especially in the time period covered in the "The Guns of August" when they were the strategic objectives of the Russians and where the Austro-Hungarians were bled white.

Random thought: Sicily? Any ideas if that'd be a good call?

I adore Sicily. It seems everyone on the forum who has been there loves Sicily. And except for Taormina, it's not overrun with tourists. However, you would be at risk of some too-hot days. Take a look at actual day-to-day historical temperatures on timeanddate.com for, say, Palermo and Siracusa to be sure you're comfortable with the recent history. I like to check at least five years' data.

I think your trip is short enough that the potential for hot weather needn't stop you from making a June trip to Sicily. I do discourage July and August trips.

I also discourage short trips to the island, because it really takes at least 2 weeks (and that's with a rental car) to see most of the top sights. With public transportation I had to skip places I hoped to see despite having 18 days. So ask yourself whether you might have an opportunity to spend more time there on a different trip fairly soon. That aside, I think it's good to get there sooner rather than later, since Rick has the first edition of his Sicily guide book due out very soon.

Edited to add: To clarify, I have zero interest in beaches. I have no idea how many people might be lying on Sicilian beaches or walking the streets of Sicilian beach towns in June.

@ Scythian....quite right on the conditions and deprivations of the Austro-Hungarian troops caught in the siege of Przemsyl and losses sustained in those opening battles in Aug-Sept 1914 around Lemberg and in Galicia, from which their officer and junior officer corps never recovered. In the Army Museum in Vienna (HGM) you can see an armored cupola (gepanzerte Kuppel) from Przemsyl with a shell hole.

@. Scythian...Obviously, WW2 is a different story in a war of ideologies between totalitarian systems targeting civilians. Where is the German authorities were just watching away while atrocities were committed against Polish civilians is not the only example in the East where they exploited traditional and indigenous ethnic and national hatreds.

Prior to Antwerp those famous guns from Pilsen were employed at Liege. Yes, Skoda is well known for its car but it was also the site of the biggest armaments factories in Central Europe...all located in Pilsen.

Are you using United miles ? Because there's a special plus for RT tickets whereby you can add an additional stop in Europe for free.

I actually like the Vienna suggestion. It has tourists, sure, but it's a big enough city that it doesn't have that slammed with tourists feeling that Barcelona, London, or Venice can have. June's a nice time there, too. It ticks off everything on the list and has a great gay scene to boot.

Berlin is another option. The heavy tourist traffic is generally confined to one area, and another great gay scene.

It's been a rough week. If I could get away for 10 days right now I would get my fly rod and spend the time in the high country of Montenegro. I found a place with about a dozen cabins in a fairytale setting complete with an amazing little restaurant. All within in a reasonable walking distance of some real fine trout fishing.

Here is a vote for Norway. We went last summer and didn’t find it crowded at all. High prices? Yes. But we had great weather and the scenery was even better than my state!

We spent 3 weeks in Europe last summer 6/12-7/3. We started in Boppard,Germany for 3 nights and there were no crowds. Next was Rothenburg, which is always crowded it seems, but not overly so at that time. Next stop was Salzburg for 5 night with a day trip to Hallstatt (very crowded). Salzburg itself wasn’t too crowded. Then on to Ljubljana, Slovenia (including Lake Bled). No crowds there either. We arrived in Venice, Italy and found massive crowds the last couple of days in June. Walking elbow to elbow crowds, at least until the evening when the tours left. Last stop was Munich, which didn’t seem overly crowded.

I would recommend Slovenia. Lots of gorgeous scenery (mostly free!) and food prices are reasonable. Hotels are reasonable and there are lots of apartment rentals also.

My rule of thumb is to expect very touristy crowds in any cities, towns and villages listed on tour itineraries. If major tours, RS included, have it listed as a stop, it will generally be crowded.

$100 per day for for food and sights for 2? That is all a personal preference. It will be a stretch, but doable. Grocery stores and small markets are cost savers. Hotels which include breakfast saves as well.

Yes, solo trip. But I understand the default is two so happy to clarify!

I was in Switzerland last year in mid July and it never felt crowded. We were in Bern, Murren, and Zürich. Gorgeous country.

I was in Istanbul for a few days at the end of June last year. Tourism is way down and no place was overloaded with tourists. Excellent museums, Hagia Sofia (church, well it used to be a church) is a wow, so are the Topkapi Palace and Süleymaniye Mosque. My other choice would be Budapest and if you want a 3rd city (though those two would easily fill 7-10 days), Vienna is lovely too.