Suggested stops for Summer 2016 Northern Europe/Scandinavia trip

If you are buying a roundtrip London Stockholm ticket, do be careful about skipping the London-Stockholm leg and still being able to use the return from Stockholm to London. They could cancel the whole ticket if you don't take the first leg. I think that is what you are proposing. Or, if this is all one ticket, they could cancel everything after the segment you don't use.

My son also wanted to visit Scandinavia and we too flew into Stockholm. We arrived early one morning and stayed 2 nights in Stockholm. We had time for the Vasa Museum, Skansen, City Hall, the armor museum and lots of walking around. We loved Stockholm.

Then we took the train to Oslo where we stayed 2 nights and visited the Kon-Tiki Museum (you should read the book first - it's great), the ice breaker museum across from that, the museum with the Viking boats and the open air museum. We also saw a WWII occupation museum and did a lot of walking around. The museums were great, but Oslo was my least favorite city of the three and you might prefer to head into the countryside to do the Norway in Nutshell or something else more outdoorsy. I kind of wish we had but our trip was pretty quick and we really wanted to see the Kon-Tiki.

We left Oslo by taking the overnight boat to Copenhagen. He swam in the pool and we had the big smorgasboard dinner. It was an adventure for him - he was almost 12.

We spent 3 nights in Copenhagen and saw Rosenborg Castle, had a day at Tivoli Gardens, and did a lot of walking to see things like the Little Mermaid. We also did a day trip to LEGOLAND, but your boys are probably too old to find that exciting. It was a full day including train and bus each way to get there.

From there, we flew to Paris and continued on to Lauterbrunnen Switzerland and Munich, but you could go to Amsterdam. I have not been to Amsterdam in 30 years, so I will let someone else comment.

It's not clear from what you say, but it sounds like you are booking round trip flights from Chicago to Stockholm via London (i.e. four legs). If you do that and you don't use the London-Stockholm segment or the Stockholm-London segment, they may cancel the remaining segment(s), including London back to Chicago. That would be much worse than what Linda mentions. You will probably be forced to use all four segments, meaning you will have to fly back from Stockholm to London. That limits you, since wherever you go, you have to get back to Stockholm.

If you haven't already purchased your airline tickets, consider this carefully before you do. If you have, check with the airline to see what their policy on this is.

I asked about that specifically. Virgin Atlantic said that as long as we take the 1st flight we will be set. So we would take the Chicago to London leg, then skip the London to Stockholm leg. On the way back we plan to use both. I haven't bought the tickets yet so I will double/triple check again when I call to finish the booking.

So to be clear.

Fly Chicago to London and arrive July 1st via Virgin Atlantic.
If no issues with not using the London to Stockholm ticket then we will take the Eurostar to Brussels.

Fly from Stockholm to London on July 15th via British Airways
Fly from London to Chicago on July 17th via Virgin Atlantic.

Also to add summer 2013 we visited London, Paris, Lucerne, Florence, Rome, Venice and Vienna.

To make it even more odd.

So I called Virgin Atlantic back and they suggested just dropping the flight from London to Stockholm. That ends up getting 4 tickets for our flights for $4200 dropping the price $130. Now the weird thing is if we said drop the flight back from Stockholm to London doing that would cause the flights simply from Chicago to London and London to Chicago to jump to just about $6000.

Assuming it works out that way, when you get to Brussels you have lots of options. I'm actually going to be in Belgium in May, and based on my research and from following the discussions around here, I'm spending 3 nights in Ghent and 2 nights in Antwerp. I figure I'll see whatever else I have time and inclination to see (such as Bruges and Brussels) on day trips.

From there, the logical next steps on the way to Stockholm are Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. With 15 nights, I wouldn't try for anything more than that, skipping Belgium might be your best option. I don't think you want less than 4 nights each in Amsterdam and Stockholm, minimum 3 nights Copenhagen and 2 nights Hamburg. That gives you 2 nights to play with, and you could do those in Ghent or Antwerp or Bruges or Brussels or Delft, or you could add a night each to Amsterdam and Copenhagen.