Summer travel with teens

Perhaps Poland? The Baltics? Northern Spain? Sweden?

You know even in those large touristy cities, like Paris, london, Rome, or Barcelona there are still vast swaths of the city that hardly see tourists.

Not a ridiculous question but its Summer.

Its vacation time. Europe will be crowded.

Summer is when people all over the world travel.

Won’t be Disneyland/DisneyWorld crowded but IT WILL be crowded.

Was in London last July as I went to Wimbledon. I Usually travel to London in the fall. Must say I wasn’t appalled nor inconvenienced by the July crowds in London. Then again I wasn’t visiting “the sites.” Although did go to Chinatown for lunch and to theatre a couple of evenings. No absurd crowds.
Ask your sons about their interests.

What do the teens like?

Shopping? Museums? Music? Art? History?

Travel safe.

If you do want to go to London and Paris, I wouldn't avoid them just because it's summer. It's actually a great time to go, particularly because you have long daylight hours that allow you to fit more things in. We'll be in London in July for just this reason. We've been before at this time, and while it's busy, it's no worse than any other big city.

It's also when you tend to get popular public events. Other than Wimbledon, there are music festivals like BST in Hyde Park, the BBC proms concerts and the Hampton Court Garden Show, so plenty to do.

If you're wanting to get out of London for a few days, it's a lovely time to visit the Yorkshire Dales, for example.

Europeans often have holidays in August, so if you can go in July it might be slightly less crowded.

Vacationing with 14 and 16 year olds maybe consider cities with old fashioned amusement parks like the Tivoli in Copenhagen or the Prater in Vienna. If they're active then renting electric scooters to get around would be an option. Vienna was full of scooters when we were last there in late 2019.

Denmark could be good as in addition to Copenhagen there is also Lego land and your boys are not too old to enjoy that. And Viking ships at Roskilde were lots of fun. You can do a Viking rowing trip where you row a Viking boat around the harbour.

I love some of these alternative ideas - please keep them coming. Copenhagen sounds great!

This would be my kids first visit to Europe so wherever we go, we would probably want to hit up some of the "sites" of that city. Also, my kids haven't been to a lot of big cities.

I think we want to see some historical sites, a museum, and learn about the culture/history of a different country. They would like to walk/bike to cafes and restaurants. One of them lives for going out to breakfast. They would probably enjoy going to a farmer's market or an interesting outdoor market. They do not like traditional shopping (i.e. the mall or anywhere for clothes).

Definitely hoping that wherever we go, it will not be as crowded as the time we went to Disneyland :)

Another thought if you're looking for a continental European city to visit is Amsterdam - lots to do, easy to get around etc. A few highlights for us:
1. Canal cruise
2. Rijksmuseum
3. Anne Frank House

Amsterdam is very walkable and easy to navigate, and nothing like the scale of London.

Mom of teens here with experience traveling in Europe at that time (summers off from school), and it's crowded everywhere. Yes there are, maybe, better and worse places, but in general it is very swarmed. That said, I loathe amusement parks and dont find the experience comparable. I would choose where you want to go simply based on ... where you want to go. And then I would try to get out of the hotel by 8am. Truly the most magical time of day for me is between 8a-10a, or sometime all the way to 11. I have walked around Paris starting at 8am in July and the streets are so quiet and you get to feel like it's all for you. I always get the first entry into museums and you feel like you have them to yourself (this dissent work as well with the Louvre, but with the d' Orsay, it felt like a few of us had the place to ourselves for 40 minutes). I would skip the first-thing sit down breakfast and just wait to eat or grab a piece of fruit and get going. Then, when everyone else starts pouring out of their hotels, you have had a few hours of peace, and can now stop for a leisurely brunch or late breakfast at 10-11, and then continue for a few hours until a late afternoon rest, and then plan to be out walking late. Timing can help a lot.

What cultures are they interested in? My teens have wonderful memories of all the places, so one isn't necessarily better. And they can just have a 'vibe' about which place they want to see. WE have planned all our trips just based on some ineffable lure, without much study beforehand. Shrug

If you want to go to London and Paris , then go to London and Paris. As stated above, every place will be busy/crowded, but you can still have a great time.

One approach is to stagger locations where large number of people are anticipated with a walk or activity that should give some respite. An example for me is to do the Tower of London first thing when it opens in the morning (see crown jewels first, then the rest) and follow it up with a Thames river cruise to Greenwich right from Tower Pier. At Greenwich there are several options including the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian which involve a walk up through a park. I usually eat lunch in Greenwich as well. I then return to Central London for my next "busy" spot.

If you are still at the Tower when you want to eat, the Wagamama's located about a block away is a great place to eat with teens.

If you are truly looking for another option, consider Croatia. It will still have tourists, but it is quite easy to separate from the crowds outside of the major cities.

Big cities + July/August = high number of tourist....................... but.............
You can plan a journey to diminish the impact of crowds.
For the purpose of an example lets pick staying in London.
Next, put the teens and husband to work investing in their OWN ONLINE research for what is of interest to them. Be sure this is their research and not yours, make them invest into the trip planning. Part of their research must include determining ability to pre purchase on line tickets for preferred times so you can skip the line. This tactic is a great way to make more efficient use of your time without the need to bake in a line during the summer heat.
Add time for researching fairs, concerts, markets and local events occurring during your stay.
Plan on spending time for picnics in the wonderful parks prevalent throughout London.
Task someone with becoming the Prince of Knowledge for learning how to use public transport.

London is a huge menu of opportunities and there are so many interesting places to experience that are well beyond the typical well known tourists sites.

Too hot or encountering rain? Do some interior window shopping within department stores (also great place to use toilets).

Be sure and extend your day into the summer evenings, you will be there during the longest daylight days of the year.

Suggest a train trip for a two night stay in York.

A full day trip to Windsor.
Get out on the River Thames to view another perspective of London.

Highly recommend renting an apartment in lieu of hotels. Benefits is a kitchen, more room to spread out (separate bedrooms) and a great apartment host serves as a liaison for local knowledge. Be sure and query about effectiveness of the AC and how quiet is the environment (think street noise impacts)

Is everyone’s heart set on a big city? My boys always did better with outdoor activities such as hiking and bike riding, kayaking or canoeing, and enjoyed more rural areas to do those things when traveling as opposed to cities. But if you really want to go to a city I would suggest Amsterdam, because it is more laid-back than a lot of cities in Europe and you can rent bikes.

I'm going to push back on the idea that Paris is more crowded in August. 50% of Europeans go on vacation in August. The people who go on vacations tend to be the people who have money, and they tend to be people who live in metropolitan areas. They don't go visit big cities, rather they visit vacation destinations like beaches and mountains.

So there might be a lot of foreign tourists in Paris in August, but some portion of the locals have left. I've traveled to Europe on 14 summer trips, and have not really felt like Northern European big cities are highly overcrowded. Amsterdam maybe gets overwhelmed.

In the south I think it's a different story, Italy in summertime feels like a mob seem to me.

Also, If you haven't been to Europe before, or you haven't been much, then there's a lot of pull to go to the most massive cities.

But smaller cities I think overall tend to be as good or better experiences. You could stay in charming lively university city Utrecht for example and easily and quickly visit all kinds of cool places in the Netherlands from there, including Amsterdam.

Or Ghent over Brussels for sure I think.

I think it comes down too how much you are going to consume. Have a good friend who lived in Manhattan for a long time, and then move to Portland Oregon. I asked him if he missed having everything Manhattan could offer. His reply was that there is so much that you can't possibly access it all, and then Portland has enough that for him materially he doesn't notice a difference or miss anything.

If you need the opera, or need to go to the big national galleries, or need to feel the energy of the mega city, then Paris is a must. But if you just want an awesome French city Lyon and Tolouse work great without many downsides.

With two teens, I'd head to Madrid and Barcelona--two great cities. Maybe take a side trip to Granada to see Alhambra and the gypsy Flamingo dancers in the caves.

We found Spain to be surprisingly inexpensive. The museums are great and the people are absolutely beautiful.

Of course everybody here will come up with a different idea and therefore I would let your kids choose.

Do they want to go with Parisian elegance, with historic Rome, with swinging London, or buzzling Berlin? And so on.....

And forget about the crowds :-)

What is the draw of big cities?

My first thought was Slovenia. Ljubljana is a beautiful (if not huge) city with lots to see. The surrounding area has tons to offer. You could rent a car and explore Lake Bled, Postojna Caves, Kobarid, Trieste. It’s about 2 hours drive to Venice.