Visiting Study Abroad Student

Why not see Spain? It's a huge country and interesting.

How many nights will you have in Europe?

Weather will be milder in Andalucía and probably also in Barcelona than in Madrid and surroundings. However, Easter is a peak travel period for Andalucía, so you'd need to start looking immediately for lodgings in that area. In addition, if Granada is a target destination, you should check on tickets for the Alhambra as soon as you have a tentative schedule worked out; it tends to sell out early.

However, I'm guessing your son will have a lot of opportunities for quick trips around Spain, so you might prefer to go elsewhere in Europe. There are wonderful destinations in every country. Has he given you any idea about what places he might try to visit on his own? You haven't mentioned any special interests that might make certain destinations more appealing than others to you or your son.

If you're interested in art and/or history, a destination with a lot of top-flight museums would be attractive at a time of year when the weather north of the Alps may be chilly and wet. That could mean London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin or Vienna, just to give some examples. If you're more interested in wandering around in cute foreign towns and would rather see some sunshine, you might consider Puglia or Sicily, parts of Italy that I'm guessing you haven't yet seen. Either works well as a road trip if you don't want to be limited by public-transportation schedules. Sicily deserves quite a bit of time, though, so if you only have 5 to 7 days, I'd probably opt for a different destination. Those are just a few examples, not intended to be limiting.

You can use skyscanner.com to check availability of non-stop flights from Madrid for your son. If you can avoid destinations requiring him to make a connection, you will save money and reduce his travel time. I prefer Google Flights for investigating transatlantic options, but you may already have a preferred website. It varies by origin, but some destinations may be a lot less expensive than others when you're flying from the US or Canada. For example, I find Frankfurt and Munich usually quite a bit cheaper than Berlin and Vienna when flying from Washington DC.

I'm not a skier and am not certain about the weather to be expected in late March. You wouldn't want to plan a skiing vacation and find poor conditions on the slopes, though I know many resorts have snow-making equipment. I imagine that ski resorts with reliable snow cover are already pretty booked up for the Easter period. Switzerland is extremely expensive even if you're not visiting ski resorts, so if money is a consideration, Austria and the Dolomites in northern Italy could be considered.

We lived in Germany and did ski vacations in Austria and Germany, Switzerland was just too expensive.

Late March is a poor time to ski. Since your son is already in Spain, I suggest taking an Iberian trip, including the Madrid area (Toledo and Segovia), the down to Granada, Cordoba and Seville.

Then over to Portugal, visiting Lisbon and that area, then moving up to Porto (stopping in Sintra, Cascais, Obidos then Porto, the Douro River (at least go to Regua).

Then either continue up the valley, going to Salamanca, Spain as well as Avila, Spain ending your trip.

OR, if you have more time, continue north to Vigo and Santiago de Compostela, Spain, then over to Bilbao to the east, the Basque area of Spain.

Barcelona is great if you have more time continue east to Barcelona.

Although I share geovagriffith's appreciation of northern Spain, to me that's a destination better appreciated in the summer when the rest of Spain tends to range between hot and terribly hot. It's also an area where you often spend a fair amount of time traveling to a modest-sized place with only about one day's worth of sights (Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela being the most obvious exceptions). So I like it more as part of a longish trip or as a mid-summer escape hatch.

In the absence of specific information from nhawkins, I'm guessing that the family is not planning a 3-week trip--possibly not even a 2-week trip. Is the length of the trip limited to what I assume is the fairly short spring break their son will have, or are the parents planning to spend some extra time in Europe?

Thank you for the ideas, we will cross Switzerland skiing off our list and focus on Austria or Spain. So many options, so little time! Parents will visit for a week, my son will explore on his own.

The last week of March is Semana Santa - expensive and crowded in Andalucia but well worth seeing the celebrations. If you are in Spain between March 15-19, consider spending 2-3 days in Valencia for the unique festival of Las Fallas.

And if you decide to include Valencia, I can recommend a day (ideally also one night) in Cuenca, which is on the AVE line between Madrid and Valencia. It has an atmospheric historic district (nothing like Madrid), hanging houses along a ravine and two small but worthwhile modern-art museums.

You'll save a lot of money on any long-distance high-speed train tickets by buying them shortly after they go on sale, before others have bought all the promo-fare seats. There will probably be a big rush to snag those tickets if you're traveling around Easter, so stay on your toes.