Help please - 3 months in Europe slow family travel itinerary
 

I have spent many hours researching and have come up with an itinerary for our big adventure next year, thanks to the wonderful help I have received from my many questions, thank you all. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have.

Background: Aussie family with 4 and 9 year olds. Will be leaving Australia this Christmas, living in south of England with kids at school for 6 months. During any school holidays we will travel in UK and may have a week in Spain in February. From 20 June we will spend 3 months travelling and 3 months living in family home in Croatia (near Split).

We will catch trains as much as possible, with car hire in rural locations as necessary and limit travel times to less than 4 hours where possible. We are looking at staying on working farms, in accommodation at campgrounds and vacation rentals. As often as possible we will stay 7 days so we have many days at "home" as well as busy days out.

Aim: to travel slow enough to not burn out, get some homeschooling done and see the sights and experience cultures very different to our own.

Carcassone (1 night)
Provence (6 nights - farm?)
Conque (1 night)
Dordogne (7 Nights - gite at campground near Sarlat)
Paris (7 nights - vacation rental, near Luxembourg gardens)
Cochem (7 nights camp ground)
Colmar (3 nights vacation rental?)
Lauterbrunnen (6 nights vacation rental)
Lake Maggiore (3 nights camping?)
Verona (2 nights B&B?)
Alto Adige or Innsbruck (6 nights farm?)
Salzkammergut (7nights camp ground)
Salzburg (3 nights vacation rental)
Slovenia (7 nights farm)
Istria(Porec) (7 nights with family)
Venice (5 nights vacation rental)
Tuscany (7 nights farm)
Rome (5 nights in campground)
fly to Split (18 September) enjoy "home life" with side trips 3 months

This itinerary consists of 82 "Schengen" days and has Provence, Tuscany and Rome out of peak season for prices and heat.

I have removed the Black Forest, Strasbourg and Bavaria from the itinerary as a) we would arrive in Croatia too late to enjoy the beach, b) risk using up our Schengen days and c) we can go to all three at Christmas time to enjoy the Christmas markets as we make our way back to London to fly back to Australia.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I am looking forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

I believe Croatia joins Schengen on 1 July...you may want to check that out as it may impact your ideas of staying in Croatia in addition to your 3 months travelling. Its also 90 out of a rolling 180 days so be sure any travel you do from the UK is counted properly because it will impact your rolling total of days...

Thanks Jamikins, I will have to check that out with Croatian Embassy. Our understanding was that Croatia joins EU in July but must join Schengen by 2015. Also we can get Croatian temporary resident visa for 12 months (as my husband inherited a Croatian property and his Croatian passport will take min 2 years to come through) but we don't want to do this as we would have to enrol the kids in school there.

Wow, what an incredible family experience!

This is just an opinion, but I would take a day or two off from Venice and add it to Rome. Both are amazing cities with countless worthy sights, but Rome is larger geographically, so if you want to see the highlights without a ton of rushing around, a week is preferable (especially since you'll be based out of the city center, I presume).

Your children may enjoy the Salt Mine Tour in Hallstatt, Austria when you are visiting the Salzkammergut. My husband and I also greatly enjoyed the falconry show at Scloss Hohenwefern in the area. Great fun for children.

You may be right, just wanted you to check it out.

Have a fabulous vacation!

interesting itinerary. It's difficult to tell but I would verify if your time in Verona is during the very crowded summer opera season. If you haven't booked your B&B there yet, better do so as soon as possible.

Looks like a wonderful trip. We just returned from three months in Asia and Europe with our family of five. We used Airbnb exclusively, except for a couple of nights where we used hotel points.

Here are some considerations:

We found it cheaper to lease a car through Renault's Eurodrive program than to utilize the train. We greatly appreciated the added flexibility to explore the countryside since we used trains exclusively in Japan and Korea. With small children you might at least one to explore the option.

With a GPS in your car, we had no problem driving throughout Europe including in major cities, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, etc.

I agree with the previous comment that 5 days in Venice is too long. We ended up only staying one day in Venice. We rented an apartment on the mainland for $50 a night and just drove to the car park and took the ferry to Venice. Hauling luggage on a ferry and around Venice is a royal pain.

We spent a couple of nights on Lake Maggiore. Beautiful. Have you considered Cinque Terre? One of our highlights in Italy.

With young children, you might find 7 nights in Paris too long. Kids can only take so many museums.

One of the surprises of our trip was how beautiful the Netherlands countryside is. Flat as can be but the with tree-lined roads, charming houses, plenty of bike trails, we thoroughly enjoyed it. I prefer the charm of Amsterdam over Venice, because not only is it beautiful but it is a working city as opposed to Venice, which is primary a tourist hub.

Have a wonderful trip.

Wow what a fantastic trip and great planning.

Your idea to stay longer times in places is wise with children.
When our three were younger we felt the times we added that extra day to a stay was so valuable - as often it meant a slow day, maybe just some simple walks and ice cream and then down time.
It was also fun to spend time in local playgrounds and use up energy rather than worrying about seeing a list of sights or hitting another museum.
This made life much easier for all and gave us time to relax a little even if on these down days we were busily doing washing!
Ours enjoyed their visit to Venice and we could have managed at least four days - even though the then youngest protested he was not going on a boat just as we stepped out of the railway station.
He did after only a little persuasion and it was all good!!!
Going up towers and chasing pigeons - was possible then - was regarded as great fun!

I do hope you don't have any challenges re the Schengen timing.
And - those visits to the Christmas markets before returning to Australia will be a gorgeous finish to this amazing year.

Happy planning and even happier travels.

Thanks everyone for your sharing your experiences and suggestions I really appreciate them all.

Jdstein you have really gotten me thinking about train versus car. Really love catching the trains in Europe and had this picture in my head of the train being our mobile picnic, playroom and classroom. But I guess reality would include stressful train changes and lugging huge amounts of luggage while the little guy is yelling "I'm tired carry me". Plus we could buy some camping gear if we had a car.

Apart from the 45 days of car hires I guess we will need a car for our 3 months in Croatia. DH says "why I caught buses everywhere in Croatia" but being a single backpacker and family with shopping to do and kindy to go to are different things (very excited I found a Waldorf kindy in Split willing to take the little guy and speak basic english to him..shame split is 11/2 from Makarska where we will be living)

So after I cost up this itinerary I'll see how much buying a car in Croatia would cost (perhaps in the name of a croatian relative) and do the same trip as a big loop starting and ending in Croatia. What do you think?

If you can manage to buy and sell a car that would definitely be the a worthy option.

There is a quirk in French tax law that the VAT is lower on used car. So Renault and Peugot run programs for non-European Union residents where they can lease a new car at the beginning of a trip and return it at the end. Insurance is included, as well as maintenance. After your trip, those companies turn around and sell the car.

We ended up putting 8,500KM on the Grand Scenic we leased. Total lease cost was about $24 a day. For five of us that was significantly cheaper than rail passes.

No need to check with the embassy about Croatia joining Schengen this year. They don't even know if they will join Schengen by 2015 much less 2013. But - shouldn't you be counting your 7 days in Porec towards your 90 days in Croatia? I am sure you already thought about this :)

I disagree about 5 days in Venice being too long, in fact the dragging luggage around is way worse WHEN you have a shorter stay. There are a number of rentals very close to vaporetto stops and there are rentals close enough to the train station that a walk to them is not over the top horrible. Choose your apartment wisely to make things a bit easier on yourself.

I would rethink "camping" for Rome if you can swing it.

As an alternative to the Alto Adige, you might want to considering spending some time at the wonderful La Faula agriturismo in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region on your way to Austria.

http://www.faula.com/

This is probably my favorite place to stay in all of Italy. It's very kid-friendly, with a swimming pool and a crew of gentle, friendly border collies. Check out the photo galleries on their website for lots of happy-kids-and-dogs pics. With a car, there are several interesting day-trip destinations in the area.

I have had a look at prices of cars in Croatia (huge ) and the cost of leasing, and compared to railpasses huge difference but compared to cheap point to point tickets and individual car hire only about $400 saving over all..but maybe way more convenient but it would add necessary overnight stops where I could have used a fast train (France). This will be a tough decision but either way Jdstein a big thank you for this suggestion :-)

Thanks rialtogrl for info on Croatia and its delay in going Schengen it is a big relief. We still need to visit Croatian embassy to arrange DH's passport, he may as well have it eventually even if it takes two years, and kids too I'm hoping.

susoir that farm stay looks fantastic thank you , showed the kids the photos and they want to leave immediately.

Happytivir what do you have in mind if not camping in Rome? we were considering staying at Fabulous camping about 18km from Rome to give the kids swimming and play time in the afternoon after sightseeing in the morning. Rome is an amazing place but I don't remember seeing any parks (though I wasn't looking for them without kids). Staying centrally would obviously be much easier.