Suggestions for European travel

Sharing your interests and also not-interests would help to do relevant suggestions.

Inspiration: https://visiteurope.com/en/

Welcome to the forum!

How tolerant are you to heat? August in Spain, Portugal or Italy or any of the more southerly parts of Europe would be non-starters for me.

I'd head north to Orkney and Shetland, hahaha! I can usually count on them being cool.

Is hiking an interest? Switzerland might be a good August location.

Odds of moderate August temperatures are pretty good in Belgium and the Netherlands. That's where I spent much of last summer. Distances are short, so you can easily visit a lot of places without too many changes of hotel. The Eurostar provides convenient transportation from London.

As already mentioned, it seems you would be best off with a multi-city airline ticket, flying into the first city you want to visit and home from London. This is not two one-way tickets, which would be more expensive.

I'd say you've done the southern areas--now maybe try something different. My instinct would be to say Copenhagen to Stockholm or maybe Belgium / Netherlands. Both are different from what you've already done. While there is always more to see in places like Italy or France, these are sufficiently different while still being VERY cool places and not quite as hot as Spain and Portugal. But that's me.

I’d choose Ireland unless you are adding it to your time in the UK.
Next choice would be Copenhagen to Stockholm or vice versa.
Or Vienna to Salzburg to Munich.

I agree with the open jaw flight suggestion. Fly into your first city and home from London so you are not backtracking and wasting time traveling.

That time of the year I always loved to be in Norway and Sweden, doing a road trip.

Poland would be an awesome choice, too. Very different from the UK. Lots of interesting history and delicious food, and great cities such as Krakow. I saw Rick's show on Poland a few nights ago, and he visited Gdansk which looks very pretty and interesting. We only had time to visit Krakow, and it's one of my favorite cities. The Weiliczka Salt Mines are nearby. You have the option of visiting Auschwitz if that interests you. Poland wouldn't be as hot as southern Europe.

If it wasn't August, I would highly recommend Spain or Portugal. Does the heat bother you? I don't enjoy sightseeing when it's in the 90's or higher. If you consider Spain, then possibly northern Spain, such as Burgos, Leon, etc. or Barcelona, Costa Brava or the Pyrenees. Stay away from Andalucia in August. Temps are typically in the high 90's and/or over 100 degrees.

Even though I haven't been to the Scandinavian countries, they would be good choices in August for cooler weather. And I would imagine very different from the UK.

We did a Baltic road trip in August last year that was really nice. Moderate temperature, moderate prices, interesting culture and architecture, some surprisingly nice beaches..,

Okay, so this a if YOU were to find yourself in London with your three cousins whom you haven't seen in 27 years and they asked to go with, where would you take them question?

Easy. I would take a discount carrier to Budapest. Well of course! What did you expect me to say with no parameters on the question. Geese, relax. Its been 27 years and I dont know a thing about them except they have never been here. This city has a great RS support network, so planning and executing is a snap. Call Texas Travel Mom or Mardee or anyone of a dozen others. Let's see how brave they are. I know a guy that does aerial tours in a WWI biplane. Its a hoot buzzing fields and houses. Then a little spelunking. There aren't many lawyers here so the rules are more relaxed. One of my cousins is a lady of standards so we do a few wine events and a world class rooftop restaurant with a view of the castle. Ching $ ching $ ching $ but worth it. Tge rest of tgr city is more economical than Kansas City ..... a heck of a lot safer too.

But wait, it gets better. After maybe 4 full days in the most beautiful capital city in Europe we would fly Wizz to Podgorica. Well yes, you knew that was coming too. We would do about a week along the coast. You gotta see the coast, August or not and with the sea, its not terribly hot. We go from Kotor to Ulcinj with wineries, prosciutto houses, cheese makers, olive Plantations and maybe the oldest producing olive tree in Europe.

But it is August and a little altitude sure wont hurt so up to the Ostrog Monastery and then a few days later the Tara River Canyon. Lets not forget the ancient hillside village winery along the way. You havent lived until you've zip lined over the deepest canyon in Europe then rafted it and swam the waters.

Time to move on to Mostar, Jajce, Travnik and my secret riverside luxury hotel with 15 rooms in the most beautiful part of BiH. Then we end it with 4 full days in Sarajevo. The beauty pageant, the Sarajevo Roses. No place is more moving or memorable once you learn its history.

Finally, Wizz or Ryan back to London.

Wait, wait!!! How would I possibly plan such a remarkable trip? .......... ohhhh, yes, of course!

While I'm a big fan of Budapest, I would not make a special effort to go there in the middle of the summer. Like Prague and Vienna, it can be quite hot then. It's such a gorgeous city, I wouldn't want to go there with a plan to spend nearly all my time indoors, avoiding the heat. Why do that to yourself when there are places much more likely to have pleasant weather at that time of year?

Thats hard to argue with. A little balance though is most days are under 30% humidity and thanks to the river there is always a breeze so the comfort index her at 89F is about the same as 80F in San Antonio Texas. Being from San Antonio, this weather is heavenly. But if you are from a cooler place it might be a problem. No worry, we skip Budapest (mistake) and head straight for Montenegro and replace the time in Budapest with 4 days on the Valbone River in the Albanian Alps. Now that's cool (er).

I will jump on the Scandinavia bandwagon. And, if you are not locked in to all four weeks in one go, spend first two weeks in UK ending in Scotland. Off to Scandinavia and then back to London.

Consider Ireland, you could easily spend two weeks there.
Also, Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugges (Belgium and Netherlands).

Have you been to the UK before?
If not, I'd do a week in Wales, 2 weeks in Scotland (don't forget the SW part of Scotland), a week in London, and another 2 weeks in the rest of England---in whatever order makes the most sense for the activities, and events you want to capture.( For example, the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, is during August). You can get a VERY diverse set of indoor and outdoor activities.

Oh, my, I am SO envious!!

Also, if you feel you must go elsewhere, Ireland would be great (take a boat from Ireland to UK?) or Scandinavia.
I recommend you check the schedule for events in areas of interest asap.