Some idea for a "through the back door" experience in August 2026

Since you will be someplace in Spain, just stay in Spain. The answer would depend on where in Spain the wedding is and how you will be getting around. There are a plethora of off the beaten path locations with few tourists worthy of a few days. A couple smaller towns might work out better depending on what you want to do during that week.

To me, most off the beaten path locations are best visited with a rental car so one can easily take days trips to outdoors sites or other small villages.

Since much of Spain will be hot in August, maybe look at Galicia, Cantabria, Asturias, Navarra, or a place in the mountains.

Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro (especially the high country... but the coast too). Albania also come to mind. These are the new back doors to Europe. With discount airline service it's not expensive and it doesn't take long. I didn't check connections though. The high country of Romania also comes to mind.

Ditto, where in Spain. We can then suggest places in Spain, but more important, you can search flights to places from that location to find the most efficient plan.

How about the north-west corner of Spain, e. g. A Coruña or Vigo? The whole region has its own spirit - also other regions of Spain have.

If I am remembering correctly, the wedding will be in Majorca. That's why I'm not overly concerned about staying in the area, we'll likely have to hop on a plane regardless.

August is absolutely high season in Majorca but you can always find quiet spots away from crowds even there. But if you do want to leave it’ll be easy. From Majorca you can fly to a lot of places throughout Europe because it is such a popular destination for holidaymakers.

What sort of thing do you envision yourself doing? Cities, countryside? Scandinavia might be good because it’s cooler. The cities are relatively quiet in August because locals leave for their beach or lake houses.

Claire, if you want to really think out of the box, here are your non-stop flights from Majorca in mid-August. But check each day of the week because the discount carriers dont often fly the same routes every day. There are some facinating choices. Who would have guessed? And not too expenisve. Nonstop flights to Krakow, Brno, Graz, Kosice, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Timisoara, Sofia, Zagreb: These are some of the best back doors to Europe, Central Europe and the countries they are in.

https://www.google.com/travel/explore?tfs=CBwQAxoqEgoyMDI1LTA4LTEzKABqDAgDEggvbS8wZzUyenIMCAQSCC9tLzAyajl6QAFIAXABggELCP___________wGYAQKyAQQYASAB&tfu=GioaKAoSCTJNAdpT4UhAET_cHnp52jhAEhIJH9IUFcQiREAR_3B76OU7GUA

If you want a backdoor experience, rent a bungalow in a campground for the week and enjoy meeting European families on vacation. Most have a pool, restaurant, activities, and plenty of kids running around. It’s not all tents and RVs these days,,they also have bungalows for your whole family.

What about the Netherlands? There should be direct flights from Majorca, and while Amsterdam would be crowded, the smaller towns would not. It has wonderful train transportation. We finished a trip many years ago in summer there ( with 3 kids) and it was a wonderful way to finish what had been a hot busy trip.( Spain and France before)

While most Europeans are heading south for the warm weather, I would head north where it will be cooler.

Northeast Spain has the great Pyrenees mountains, and Basque Country, which also extends into southwestern France. We stayed in the French part last summer (in Cauterets), which wasn’t completely deserted by any means, but was a more “back door” experience than many places we’ve stayed in Europe.

Most of Europe goes to the Mediterranean for August, so avoid that entirely as well as any large city like Rome, Paris, London, etc.

One of my favorite family vacations in our many years living in Europe has been to the northern coast of Zealand Island in Denmark. We rented a cute house near the beach, but we were also close to museums, castles and Vikings. I mean I rode the bike provided by the AirBnb into the village every morning for cardamom buns passing by colorfully striped beach huts on the way. We had a car which we rented in Copenhagen (also just an hour away for a great day trip). It really was uncrowded and fantastic.

I would head north if you are worried about heat. My thoughts would be northern Germany and Scandinavia. Hamburg, Copenhagen, or Stockholm for larger cities, maybe Helsinki or Oslo. For smaller cities, I would consider places like Kalmar, Bremen, Aarhus, or Bergen.

We did a Copenhagen-Kalmar-Stockholm-Helsingborg trip a few years back during a heat wave, and it was fun--we went swimming with the locals in Copenhagen and enjoyed the slightly cooler weather in Kalmar and the island of Öland.

Here in northern Germany you can get great sea breezes and amazing nature in St. Peter-Ording, cool off on the beaches of the Baltic, get places like historic Lübeck or the Viking village of Haithabu, or visit adorable villages like Glückstadt. These places are all tourist friendly enough to be easy and have some English and offer things to see and do / tourist infrastructure, but off the beaten track enough to not be crowded. All are lovely summer destinations and can be easily accessed from Hamburg, which generally has direct flights from Mallorca.

I looked at that link to the non-stop flights again and I am sort of stunned by the options. The world is yours.

This will get you a very good experience with minimal tourists. Grab a flight on Ryanair. One way to Frankfurt Hahn is about $40. From there rent a car or take a train, or even a shuttle (they do have them) to Saarbrucken. This is a fair size city that does not see a huge tourist crowd. But it's a nice place, very interesting, history, shopping, first class accomodations, etc. But even better, it's a transit hub. You're less than 2 hours from Paris by train. 30 minutes to Metz, an hour to Nancy. The regional trains in Germany will take you down the Mosel all the way to Koln if you want, but let you get off in every little town. (Avoid the popular ones like Bernkastle Kues and go to Zell or Bullay.) Trier is just minutes away. There are over 80 castles within an hours radius. Roman history all over the place. WWI and WWII stuff also. Take the kids up to Saarburg and ride the Sommerrodelbahn and visit the predator park. Or visit the caves in Homburg. There's lots to do locally.

And the weather the past 3 years has been great. Occasionally in the 80's, long cool evenings, a great time to just sit on the square with a drink and watch the world go by.