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Travel Ideas
Family Travel
Tailored To Your Family
Our family-focused vacations bring everyone together to share new experiences and perspectives. Whether you are considering a vacation with grandchildren, teenagers, or multiple generations, our customized travel programs appeal to all ages, interests, and activity levels. Our hand-selected guides (who know what your family will love in your chosen destination) bring local history and culture to life to ensure your children or grandchildren will forever remember the journey you took together.
Hand-Selected Guides
Simply put, our guides are the best in each destination and will ensure you make the very most of your trip.
First-Hand Experience
We understand family travel as we take our kids on tour to Europe too! We know what questions to ask to craft the best trip for you.
From Single Parent To 3G
Bonding trip for two or three generation trip? We can suggest the right destination whomever is traveling.
Expert Hotel Knowledge
We know which hotels are best for families and which rooms exactly and will provide impartial and frank advice.
Sample Itineraries
Come get some ideas from previous trips we’ve planned in this region. These are only samples since every itinerary we create is customized around your specific interests, travel style and wishlists
See The Beautiful Countryside of Austria
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See The Beautiful Countryside of Austria
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See The Beautiful Countryside of Austria
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Contact us to plan your personalized Europe trip today.
Reviews
The trip included travel to five of the six Balkan countries formerly known as Yugoslavia … Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro (Macedonia is the sixth). While a complicated and extensive political and religious history connects these countries, each had its own fascinating identity, culture and people. My local guides were phenomenal, most having been born and raised in each city/town that I toured, which made their storytelling all the more rich with unique detail. Milan, my guide in Belgrade, was also a professor of art history at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts as well as an opera singer and an actor. He had just published a book which he graciously signed and gifted to me.
Highlights from each country …
Slovenia … Old Town Ljubljana was a delightful mix of history, art, architecture, nightlife and shopping … I could plan a trip there this fall and do ALL of my Christmas shopping … a day trip to picturesque and historic Lake Bled provided a great contrast.
Croatia … a fascinating combination of food and cultures (depending upon which border we were close to) … truffle hunting with a cute young brother and sister in Prodani, casual strolls through picturesque historic walled towns in the mountains of Istria, fresh oysters and mussels prepared by a local farmer in Ston ( just outside of Dubrovnik), a stunning flight along the Adriatic coastline from Istria to Dalmatia, waterfront dining in harbors tucked away among the Pakleni Islands, a private cooking class in Split, and a sunset boat ride accompanied by dolphins off the coast of Rovinj.
Serbia … in Belgrade a deep dive into the history of Yugoslavia and Tito’s regime from a scholar’s perspective … personal time with a master violin maker and local “naive” artists and their galleries in Kovacica … and shopping at a local grocery store for the favorite foods Serbs like to eat.
Bosnia and Herzegovina … my biggest and most pleasant surprise of the trip (Belgrade came in a close second) … Sarajevo was a fascinating city with something to see and learn about around every corner. My local guide, Muhammad, was instrumental in describing a very complicated history, but also showing me the very vibrant multicultural atmosphere that it is now his adopted city.
Montenegro … a coastline and atmosphere that consistently makes you think you are on a movie set … Kotor, Perast, and Herzeg Novi … a tour by boat of the hidden submarine tunnels from WWI, and a day trip up the historic Serpentine Road (22 switchbacks that follow the old caravan route that Roman traders used) to the Old Royal Capital of Cetinje.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say a word about the very personal attention that Arina paid both leading up to my departure and also as my trip progressed in real time. A few weeks before my departure I developed some concerns about news that I was reading about political unrest in Bosnia and Serbia. Arina, who lives in Belgrade, was able to assure me that everything remained very peaceful. I’m really pleased that I followed her advice because I didn’t find anything remotely similar “on the ground” to what I was reading in the international press. Arina also arranged many lovely personal touches during my travels and helped me understand occasionally unique local logistics.
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We had an amazing trip and could go back tomorrow. All the guides were great (as well as the drivers) and were well prepared for our requests and also had great suggestions for other things to do. Everything went as planned which is a real bonus these days. The hotel locations were great and we especially enjoyed the Raffles in Warsaw and our room with a balcony in Gdansk at Blu.
Thanks again for all of your help in planning this trip, and look forward to working with you on a future trip.
Bill
We're very glad we listened to Silvia’s hotel recommendations (they were so nice) and acted on many of her preferred restaurant recommendations. We ate extremely well and enjoyed the wines immensely.
Overall, we could not have been more pleased.
Thank you to Exeter and especially Silvia for bringing us this enchanted journey. We cannot wait for the next one.
Ala and her team created the most perfect Croatian vacation trip for me, my husband and the other couple that we were traveling with this month. I've had the good fortune to have travelled all around the world and never have I experienced such an incredible team to ensure that literally every detail, every activity, every hotel we stayed at was top-notch.
If you are even considering a vacation to this incredible country, I would highly recommend speaking with Ala and her team first. I know I will be recommending Ala friends and family that want to visit Croatia and I can do it with complete peace of mind knowing I am referring them to the best!
Nikki Davidson
The guides in each city were so fantastic. They each had a wealth of experience as guides, planned the routes well and asked about our interests when we first met so they knew what we wanted to see and do. They were all spot on time! The guides made the trip a truly special experience. They helped us to understand each city, its history, special characteristics and helped us with questions about how to navigate the city and use public transportation. The guides expedited getting into busy museums or other venues because our guides had passes to jump queues. They maximized our time so that it was spent enjoying the sights and venues instead of standing in lines and figuring out how to purchase tickets. They knew where to go and when to go there. Some venues required advance tickets and Leigh took care of that. Leigh arranged our very own private saloon boat tour of the canals of Amsterdam. Leigh checked in on us along the way on our trip and sent us special notes. She arranged to have a gift sent to my hotel room in Helsinki on my birthday.
Leigh arranged really great hotel rooms with the best views possible. And our stateroom on the Silja line cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki had an amazing view so we saw the sunset and sunrise over the Baltic from our room and that was stunning. With Exeter involved in making the hotel reservations we were treated like special guests at each hotel by the staff.
The drivers were all outstanding. They were polite, helpful, on-time and made all our connections and excursions seamless and stress free. We actually started our trip in Gothenburg Sweden at the Volvo factory. After that Exeter took over and we proceeded on our dream trip to Stockholm, Helsinki and Amsterdam. We did no driving. We used trains and boats all arranged by Leigh at Exeter. And in each city we used drivers arranged by Exeter for excursions outside the city centers, such as when we went to the delightful town of Porvoo, Finland.
When we took the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm our train was over an hour delayed and it was late evening when we arrived in Stockholm. The driver who met us in Stockholm, arranged by Exeter, had waited for us. While waiting she arranged for the hotel to have food for us upon arrival. Also when we arrived at our room at the hotel Leigh had arranged for a lovely charcuterie tray to be sent to our room. So although we arrived late and were worried about being hungry, everyone involved made sure that was taken care of without having to ask.
I can't say enough positive about Leigh Landis and Exeter International. I feel we got more than our money's worth. Without Exeter we would have wasted so much time trying to figure out what could be seen each day in each city, how to get tickets, how to find a good restaurant and figure out how to make reservations etc. We did not have to worry about any of that. All the details were taken care of in advance and all we had to do was enjoy it!
We will be forever grateful for Leigh and Exeter!
FAQs
We travel to our destinations with our kids – at different ages and stages. They test-run activities for us!
We know the best combination of rooms for families in all the hotels we work with – and which are more kid-friendly than others. In general, double-double rooms are rare in our locations.
We can give you expert advice on villas within hotels, but we are not private home rental experts.
Our part of the world is very popular with families and every destination can tailor to family travel, however, perhaps our most popular family destinations are Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Iceland.