Help with Family trip to Europe, starting in Sweden
 

Hello Everyone, our family (me, my wife, 15 yr old son and 13 yr old daughter) is travelling to Gothenburg Sweden in mid July this year (from the Baltimore area), since my son's soccer team is playing in the Gothia Cup. After 10 days in Sweden for the cup, we'd like to spend another week and a half visiting other parts of Europe. Although I've been to Paris, London and parts of Italy many years ago, I'm open to any itinerary that is family friendly and reasonable.

I'd appreciate anyone's suggestions on how many cities we should visit, as well as what places would make sense to travel to, coming from Sweden. I'm also not clear on whether we'd need to rent a car or if this trip can be done using the rail system.

Our family is a typical one with teenagers; we enjoy fun and active vacations; (exploring, zoos, amusements, beaches, etc) and are less likely to spend alot of time in museums or bus tours. We'd like to keep the cost down if possible as well, while still having decent accommodations.

Any guidance would be much appreciated! If I can provide more info, please let me know.

Thank you

At most you have maybe 9 full days on the ground? One in transit and one to go home? If that's the case, I suggest sticking to one country. Part of it will have to do with what kinds of flights you can get, hopefully on the same airline flying to Sweden and back home. Italy is one where rail travel works very well.

Stay in Scandinavia.

Paris and London. show it to your kids so they will want to return.
Or Amsterdam and Paris.
Or Munich and environs and Paris.

I think I might stretch out my map out a bit more than just Scandinavia. Still I could imagine say visiting Finland for a week and having a great time.

We do need to know about your return journey, is it booked from Stockholm (or wherever) or could you arrange an open-jaw flight that gives you much for flexibilty?

Just for fun I went to see where you could get cheepo flights to from Stockholm.( skyscanner is a good place to start but the quality of the data is not perfect), and you can get to loads of nice places, I might, for example, fly to Frankfurt HAHN and cycle down the Mosel with the family (the train follows the river for the lazy and deals are easy to do for luggage transfer etc) on bike paths mainly so low risk exercise. Trier Tourist Information do a great package (I think it is 6 days) staying in B&B (which are very cheap in Germany, as is good food etc).

The river is very pretty, virtually every town has a swimming pool by the river, plus kayak hire plus plus. Germany is a relatively cheap place to holiday though it is also possible to pay a fortune (as Sweden may show you :-) ) This link is a bit of a help but there are loads of other things you could do http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Mosel_Guide.php

Gothia cup finishes on the 18th so you avoid the very high season of August, even so I'd avoid Southern Europe as the place will be heaving from the start of July

I like the idea of Germany - I had a great time there when I was a kid because of all the pools and gymnasiums.

Another idea would be England, and Wales. The Peak District and Lake District in particular have wonderful trails and the opportunity to see Roman ruins and artifacts, medieval ruins and buildings, limestone and bluestone and coal caves to explore...

There's an adventure park my family enjoyed in the Peak District (http://goape.co.uk/days-out/buxton). The longest zipline in the world is in Wales (my husband and son thought it was awesome! I could never do it... http://www.zipworld.co.uk/), along with many more hiking opportunities and caverns and ruins

Good luck planning your trip!.