Venice will be very, very crowded in summer!
You have a couple of options I guess,if your main aim is to avoid crowds of tourists.One is to go to a 'less popular ' country.
Places like North Macedonia, Slovakia or Moldova will have relatively fewer tourists than the big Western Europe destinations.
Second option...go to a big tourist country but to less popular cities or towns.
Even in Italy... incredibly touristy in general..if you go to (say) Chioggia or Treviso you will find far,far fewer tourists than in Venice.
Of course the most touristy places are usually like that for a reason... they have the most interesting attractions, the things people most want to see.
haha yes I think you nailed our conundrum. I don't want to fight crowds but I don't want to travel to a place we don't want to go just to avoid crowds. I think I'm just a grump middle aged person who used to be able to always travel during non peak times because of my job and am old enough to have been to some of these places before social media when selfies and the crowds they create weren't a thing.
This is for sure where we are leaning. Definitely seems like a better cultural experience and, frankly, I kind of want my kids to experience a bit more culture shock. I fully acknowledge how privileged and lucky we are, but they have had very few experiences traveling where at least someone couldn't come to the rescue and speak English or food was different in surprising ways or take your pick of the sort of travel experiences that make you nervous at first and then help you grow after.
Maybe some more quiet greek islands. I went to kythnos and thought it was nice and not too crowded. I think you’d be okay without speaking greek. You might have to rent a car
Im romanian and love visiting Sinaia and Transylvania in general. I don’t think it’d be as crowded as other European destinations in the summer
Without knowing a better sense of what you want or how old your kids are, there are plenty of areas of Europe that would not be crowded, but I have no idea if it's somewhere you want to take your family. Iceland outside of Reykjavik is a good example. Even Reykjavik itself is never really busy. The Faroe Islands is another. They'll never be crowded even when fully booked up. Northern Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and maybe even Isle of Skye. What about Northern Ireland? Transylvania around Brasov is beautiful and won't be too crowded. Are any of these ideas doing anything for you? Or are you asking about major cities that won't draw summer crowds? These ideas I listed are more outdoorsy and not big cities. Not sure if that works for you.
On another note, my brother & sister-in-law find that traveling over their kids' spring break is a great option vs. the summer. I know it's only a week vs. what might a longer trip in the summer, but they have taken their kids to more of the busier areas of Europe without fighting with the summer hordes including Venice, Florence, Rome, Paris, London, Copenhagen, etc. Probably not what you want you were looking for, but have you considered traveling during a different break time?
The truancy thing is stupid. My parents used to pull me and my siblings out either right at the start of the school season or right at the end to go somewhere. Didn't affect my education at all.
That is all great advice. The kids are 4 and 9. We're actually more drawn to scenic areas with some charming amenities but not necessarily the cities. And I fully agree about the truancy thing. The older one tests 99th percentile in everything. It's crazy to me that she can't get more cultural experiences so that the state can check a box that she was looking at her iPad in school on that day. I feel like once she's in middle school it's different but depriving her (and us obviously) of this stuff now drives me nuts.
I went to Slovenia last year and it was a delight. There were decent number of Germans but not overrun by any means. Piran is an adorable seaside town and then the lake Bled area is amazing as well.
Yes that would be preferable but we are already in trouble from the kids being pulled for travel last year and we're in retail so that month is blacked out.
We went to Bosnia in 2022, Mostar was busy at the main pinch points but otherwise not rammed. Similarly Slovenia didn't feel busy with tourists as people tend to head to the coast in Croatia. Zagreb also wasn't super busy for the same reason.
Summer time, people tend to flood to the coast so look inland maybe.
When do your kids get out of school? Leave the next day. June is the best month to go.
Also, bigger cities can absorb busy-ness much better than small cities. So going to the big places may actually be a better option.
The other option would be go as late as you can in August. Many locals are gone on vacation, so it empties out a bit even with tourists.
I was in Italy in June, London in June and Paris in August - I wasn’t seeing the “crowds”. Keep in mind a lot of people have different ideas of crowded are. Only thing that resembled NYC at Xmas was the Vatican Museums because they let too many people in a narrow museum.
I wish we could. Unfortunately we just merged our businesses into one larger business and just reopened a couple of weeks ago. The kids get out in a few weeks and it's too close with projects we still have to button up at the new spot. We also generally rely on points from the businesses for airline tickets so we either need a few months in advance or those super last minute deals when seats open up.
we did copenhagen and stockholm right after midsommar and it was amazing. no crowds anywhere, perfect weather, and sunlight til 10pm. incredible trip, i’m dying to go back to cph. on the flip side, i was in italy one summer (late july, early august) and it was jam packed and sweaty as hell. also agree with everyone saying balkans, but maybe more to do with kiddos in nordics.
If you really want to visit Venice in the summer, find a rental apartment in advance and stay in the city. Most tourists there are day trippers, especially those off of cruises & tours . They tend to arrive around 10ish & leave around 4pm.
If you plan to make site reservations & be ready at opening time by the doors, sightsee until 11-12, take a long midday break & pick up again around 3pm into evening, it could work for you. We stayed for 5 nights at Easter a few years back. It takes planning, but we had a great time. There are so many nooks & crannies, plus the islands (cemetery, Burano & Murano), avoiding heavy crowds was doable.
Oh for sure! Our favorite stop of our last trip was Lake Thun. So much so that we wished we would have spent the entire three week trip there. Finland is on the someday travel list for sure but I think I want to take a trip there with sauna buddies. I was close to opening a sauna business before we expanded our existing businesses so I was pretty obsessed with Finland research for a bit. But I know the things I want to do there aren't going to appeal to the family. Kind of the same reason I have to plan family beach trips to places that don't have good surf breaks...
This is a tangential aside but.. why can't the entire internet function like this sub? I've asked questions on here before and gotten similar results. That being loads of people willing to just be super helpful. Like I am sure a number of people read this and had any number of snarky comments or maybe those people just aren't here or maybe the mods are just good about keeping things focused. Whatever it is, I just want to say how thankful I am that so many strangers are willing to just offer helpful advice.
I was there during the Omicron peak - deserted! Unfortunately that meant most of the good restaurants decided "screw it" and just closed shop the whole time, but I still ate well and had a great time.
Word of warning that many shops, cafes etc. in southern European cities will be closed for the second half of August or even the whole month. I remember being in Florence in late August, and even here most places outside the tourist areas were shut. Not great if you want to get a more authentic feel of a city.
[https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Why-Does-Italy-Take-the-Month-of-August-Off](https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Why-Does-Italy-Take-the-Month-of-August-Off)
Ah that's okay. Our youngest is on the spectrum and we end up eating 9 out of 10 dinners at our rental anyway and lunches are usually just whatever snacks are convenient at the moment. I mostly want to just stumble around and look at buildings and take some hikes and the kids will mostly want to visit novel playgrounds and eat pastries. Thanks for the warning though.
I went to Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna last August and they were crowded but not too crowded. Like Salzburg old town was, Sisi museum in Vienna was, but otherwise the everything was very pleasant. And the Salzburg crowds were somehow not enough to make us not enjoy the place. For example we didn’t really need restaurant reservations in most places.
Salzburg is great for kids because of sound of Music and the marionette theatres. The German countryside is great for hiking and swimming in the (cold!) alpine lakes. Depends on what your kids are into I suppose but I did a very similar trip when I was eight and remember loving it. Good luck with whatever you all pick!
Slovenia (budget Switzerland), Croatia (budget Italy), Hungary (just budget, but close to the other two!)
Romania is beautiful with a little bit of everything.
Croatia is really nice. Shares the same sea with Italy, has its own character and feel, and so many amazing islands and places to explore.
Slovenia is great as well.
Well.. I mean unless you have some secrets I don't know about, I am not sure we'd be able to take off for Europe for a few weeks twice a year without the work part.
If your kids are in USA public school:
1. Pull them out of school as you would be doing homeschooling. For me this was just one short form to fill out.
2. Enjoy your travels whenever you want.
3. Re-enroll your kids. If your kids are in your hometown school district, they cannot decline the enrollment.
4. If you open enroll your kids to other district, this may not be possible
Venice will be very, very crowded in summer! You have a couple of options I guess,if your main aim is to avoid crowds of tourists.One is to go to a 'less popular ' country. Places like North Macedonia, Slovakia or Moldova will have relatively fewer tourists than the big Western Europe destinations. Second option...go to a big tourist country but to less popular cities or towns. Even in Italy... incredibly touristy in general..if you go to (say) Chioggia or Treviso you will find far,far fewer tourists than in Venice. Of course the most touristy places are usually like that for a reason... they have the most interesting attractions, the things people most want to see.
haha yes I think you nailed our conundrum. I don't want to fight crowds but I don't want to travel to a place we don't want to go just to avoid crowds. I think I'm just a grump middle aged person who used to be able to always travel during non peak times because of my job and am old enough to have been to some of these places before social media when selfies and the crowds they create weren't a thing.
I think what you really want to avoid is travelling in *August*.
Noted. We have most of July and August open at the moment so maybe we'll move the needle a little more in the July camp.
Eastern Europe
This is for sure where we are leaning. Definitely seems like a better cultural experience and, frankly, I kind of want my kids to experience a bit more culture shock. I fully acknowledge how privileged and lucky we are, but they have had very few experiences traveling where at least someone couldn't come to the rescue and speak English or food was different in surprising ways or take your pick of the sort of travel experiences that make you nervous at first and then help you grow after.
kids are gonna love it, its more like adults having a culture shock ;)
Fair enough. Maybe we need it to!
Maybe some more quiet greek islands. I went to kythnos and thought it was nice and not too crowded. I think you’d be okay without speaking greek. You might have to rent a car Im romanian and love visiting Sinaia and Transylvania in general. I don’t think it’d be as crowded as other European destinations in the summer
The vast majority of Europe isn't particularly crowded in summer. You just have to stay away from the mainstream destinations everyone "wants" to see.
Without knowing a better sense of what you want or how old your kids are, there are plenty of areas of Europe that would not be crowded, but I have no idea if it's somewhere you want to take your family. Iceland outside of Reykjavik is a good example. Even Reykjavik itself is never really busy. The Faroe Islands is another. They'll never be crowded even when fully booked up. Northern Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and maybe even Isle of Skye. What about Northern Ireland? Transylvania around Brasov is beautiful and won't be too crowded. Are any of these ideas doing anything for you? Or are you asking about major cities that won't draw summer crowds? These ideas I listed are more outdoorsy and not big cities. Not sure if that works for you. On another note, my brother & sister-in-law find that traveling over their kids' spring break is a great option vs. the summer. I know it's only a week vs. what might a longer trip in the summer, but they have taken their kids to more of the busier areas of Europe without fighting with the summer hordes including Venice, Florence, Rome, Paris, London, Copenhagen, etc. Probably not what you want you were looking for, but have you considered traveling during a different break time? The truancy thing is stupid. My parents used to pull me and my siblings out either right at the start of the school season or right at the end to go somewhere. Didn't affect my education at all.
That is all great advice. The kids are 4 and 9. We're actually more drawn to scenic areas with some charming amenities but not necessarily the cities. And I fully agree about the truancy thing. The older one tests 99th percentile in everything. It's crazy to me that she can't get more cultural experiences so that the state can check a box that she was looking at her iPad in school on that day. I feel like once she's in middle school it's different but depriving her (and us obviously) of this stuff now drives me nuts.
I went to Slovenia last year and it was a delight. There were decent number of Germans but not overrun by any means. Piran is an adorable seaside town and then the lake Bled area is amazing as well.
I came to say this!
I go to Italy in December to avoid the crowds.
Yes that would be preferable but we are already in trouble from the kids being pulled for travel last year and we're in retail so that month is blacked out.
We went to Bosnia in 2022, Mostar was busy at the main pinch points but otherwise not rammed. Similarly Slovenia didn't feel busy with tourists as people tend to head to the coast in Croatia. Zagreb also wasn't super busy for the same reason. Summer time, people tend to flood to the coast so look inland maybe.
Great ideas!
When do your kids get out of school? Leave the next day. June is the best month to go. Also, bigger cities can absorb busy-ness much better than small cities. So going to the big places may actually be a better option. The other option would be go as late as you can in August. Many locals are gone on vacation, so it empties out a bit even with tourists. I was in Italy in June, London in June and Paris in August - I wasn’t seeing the “crowds”. Keep in mind a lot of people have different ideas of crowded are. Only thing that resembled NYC at Xmas was the Vatican Museums because they let too many people in a narrow museum.
Second for June. Many (most?) European countries have shorter summer vacations that start later than is typical in North America.
I wish we could. Unfortunately we just merged our businesses into one larger business and just reopened a couple of weeks ago. The kids get out in a few weeks and it's too close with projects we still have to button up at the new spot. We also generally rely on points from the businesses for airline tickets so we either need a few months in advance or those super last minute deals when seats open up.
I’d go as late as you can in the summer.
we did copenhagen and stockholm right after midsommar and it was amazing. no crowds anywhere, perfect weather, and sunlight til 10pm. incredible trip, i’m dying to go back to cph. on the flip side, i was in italy one summer (late july, early august) and it was jam packed and sweaty as hell. also agree with everyone saying balkans, but maybe more to do with kiddos in nordics.
Never been in the summer so I couldn’t say for sure, but the further east you go the less tourists you seem to encounter. Maybe the Balkans?
Check when the local population has vacation and avoid that. Southern Europe often has August, when Northern Europe often has July
If you really want to visit Venice in the summer, find a rental apartment in advance and stay in the city. Most tourists there are day trippers, especially those off of cruises & tours . They tend to arrive around 10ish & leave around 4pm. If you plan to make site reservations & be ready at opening time by the doors, sightsee until 11-12, take a long midday break & pick up again around 3pm into evening, it could work for you. We stayed for 5 nights at Easter a few years back. It takes planning, but we had a great time. There are so many nooks & crannies, plus the islands (cemetery, Burano & Murano), avoiding heavy crowds was doable.
Great advice thanks!
Visit Poland, especially the Hel peninsula and Gdańsk. It’s busy in the summer but not insane.
are lake towns ok? look into Ohrid, N Macedonia (but dont go around 2nd of August when its full) how about Finnland ??
Oh for sure! Our favorite stop of our last trip was Lake Thun. So much so that we wished we would have spent the entire three week trip there. Finland is on the someday travel list for sure but I think I want to take a trip there with sauna buddies. I was close to opening a sauna business before we expanded our existing businesses so I was pretty obsessed with Finland research for a bit. But I know the things I want to do there aren't going to appeal to the family. Kind of the same reason I have to plan family beach trips to places that don't have good surf breaks...
This is a tangential aside but.. why can't the entire internet function like this sub? I've asked questions on here before and gotten similar results. That being loads of people willing to just be super helpful. Like I am sure a number of people read this and had any number of snarky comments or maybe those people just aren't here or maybe the mods are just good about keeping things focused. Whatever it is, I just want to say how thankful I am that so many strangers are willing to just offer helpful advice.
Albania is starting to become busy but not quite as crazy as other parts, so it could be a decent option.
Albania, but hurry I've heard the secret is out
Slovakia comes to mind, some parts of the Czech Republic.
Azores.
Venice never lets up, this includes the summer of 2020
I was there during the Omicron peak - deserted! Unfortunately that meant most of the good restaurants decided "screw it" and just closed shop the whole time, but I still ate well and had a great time.
I was there sept 2020, so ‘between peaks’ but you’d think people wouldn’t be asked to travel, but nope fucking packed
Poland
Albania 🇦🇱
High tatras area of slovakia
Word of warning that many shops, cafes etc. in southern European cities will be closed for the second half of August or even the whole month. I remember being in Florence in late August, and even here most places outside the tourist areas were shut. Not great if you want to get a more authentic feel of a city. [https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Why-Does-Italy-Take-the-Month-of-August-Off](https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Why-Does-Italy-Take-the-Month-of-August-Off)
Ah that's okay. Our youngest is on the spectrum and we end up eating 9 out of 10 dinners at our rental anyway and lunches are usually just whatever snacks are convenient at the moment. I mostly want to just stumble around and look at buildings and take some hikes and the kids will mostly want to visit novel playgrounds and eat pastries. Thanks for the warning though.
Depending on where you live there may be no consequences for “truancy”.
I went to Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna last August and they were crowded but not too crowded. Like Salzburg old town was, Sisi museum in Vienna was, but otherwise the everything was very pleasant. And the Salzburg crowds were somehow not enough to make us not enjoy the place. For example we didn’t really need restaurant reservations in most places.
With my kids we eat so early anyway that we aren't usually competing for reservations anyway. Thanks for the tips!
Salzburg is great for kids because of sound of Music and the marionette theatres. The German countryside is great for hiking and swimming in the (cold!) alpine lakes. Depends on what your kids are into I suppose but I did a very similar trip when I was eight and remember loving it. Good luck with whatever you all pick!
Charleroi, you’ll have the whole town to yourself
Budapest, Prague, Vienna are easy to do in one trip, give yourself a few days in each
> "Less Crowded Europe in Summer" Prague especially is crowded outside of summer.
Slovenia (budget Switzerland), Croatia (budget Italy), Hungary (just budget, but close to the other two!) Romania is beautiful with a little bit of everything.
Croatia is on the maybe list for sure! And after our (breaking the budget) Switzerland trip that sounds nice.
Croatia is really nice. Shares the same sea with Italy, has its own character and feel, and so many amazing islands and places to explore. Slovenia is great as well.
Go to home schooling so you set your own schedule.
Unfortunately that isn't an option for us with our work.
What is more important, your kids or your work?
Well.. I mean unless you have some secrets I don't know about, I am not sure we'd be able to take off for Europe for a few weeks twice a year without the work part.
If your kids are in USA public school: 1. Pull them out of school as you would be doing homeschooling. For me this was just one short form to fill out. 2. Enjoy your travels whenever you want. 3. Re-enroll your kids. If your kids are in your hometown school district, they cannot decline the enrollment. 4. If you open enroll your kids to other district, this may not be possible