Best flight options from LAX to and from Adriatic tour next May

I have no particular flight suggestions but what I do suggest is plan to get to Europe at least 1 or 2 nights before the tour departure date. This enables you to get over jet lag and be ready for your tour. If you’re able to, also try to spend an extra night or two at the final destination city because there is never enough time to see everything!

You can get there promptly on British Airways changing planes at Heathrow.

The return flight will be lengthy with long time connections. But there are faster flights making connections at some European gateway airports and they're relatively expensive airfares..

LAX to LHR. Then fly to Slovenia.

Believe you can fly from all 3 of LONDON airports: Heathrow, Stansted, and Luton.

I also used BA from LAX to LHR then to Ljubljana. Coming home I took Croatia Air from Dubrovnik to Zagreb and then BA from Zagreb to LHR to LAX. It all worked out fine. I have also used Air France from LAX to CDG to Ljubljana and that worked fine too. I highly recommend Go Opti for a shuttle from the Ljubljana airport into town. They are great.

Hi '3ddana'

I live in the East Bay of San Francisco and I'm leaving for the RS Adriatic Tour September 1st, in 10 days time. I am flying on a United ticket from San Francisco to Munich and connect to Air Dolomiti from Munich to Graz, Austria. I am spending 3 nights in Graz to get over some jet lag, Graz sounds delightful and the best thing is it has an OBB train service that runs directly to Ljubljana where the tour starts. The train takes 3.5 hours and I understand is a very scenic and relaxing journey. I have 2 pre tour nights booked at Hotel Mrak which is the tour hotel.

After a lot of research I found this connection to be what suited me best and the least expensive. I'm looking forward to exploring Graz, Austria and the train journey.

I am returning from Dubrovnik via London, Heathrow, on British Airways, the connection means I have to spend a night at the Sofitel, not ideal but I am using miles on both these airlines and it's what worked the best. I'm also originally from England and maybe can do a little shopping while I'm there! Anyways, I hope you find a way that works for you, certainly if you have time up front I'd recommend a few days to overcome jet lag, this is my 7th RS tour and I know I certainly need the extra time to adjust. This tour looks amazing, I can't wait...good luck!

1) use matrix.itasoftware.com to see what your flight options are.

Once you learn how to use this website, you can figure just about everything out for
yourself.

2) please provide a little guidance on what "best" means to you. It could be cost, # of
connections, time of departure/landing, options for stopovers, favorite airline/frequent
flyer plan, lots of things.

From LAX you will have lots of options. If you like to spend time on planes, you could
even consider going in the reverse direction.

3) either you are going to end up with an open jaw ticket, or you'll fly round trip someplace
and take a short connecting flight to get back to the point of return. A good place to see
what options you have are the airport websites, as they show the airlines and cities you
can fly to from there.

4) Zagreb is a middle ground option, as it's about 2 hours from Ljubljana and 5 hours from
Dubrovnik (by bus, or a quick flight). Plus it's a nice city to spend a day in. That would
be a good option for a RT ticket city.

For the return, also check flights out of Podgorica, Montenegro. Its a few hours from Dubrovnik. Best is if you plan in a few extra days to visit Montenegro. Beautiful country. Sort of like Croatia before the tourists came en masse and the prices went up.

You are going to spend a lot of money and time just reaching Europe, so make the most of it in time and experience while you are there.

Thank you all for your responses, that helps. I have been on a RS tour before, so I know to be there at least one night ahead of time.
I think the flights in and out of London are the most logical for me, especially since I have a good friend in that city and I can hang at her place before I take a connecting flight.
I appreciate all the information you have given.

I ended up finding that the best route with the least layover time was on Lufthansa through Frankfurt. It definitely isn't easy getting back to the west coast from Dubrovnik.
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, it helped a lot.

One of our tours ended in Lake Bled, Slovenia and the option was to fly out of Venice. We took a Flix bus (which was actually a small van) to Venice from Ljubljuana, maybe a 3 hour ride. Easy peasy.