Our Summer Adventure 2023 Plans…

Me again! Yep, on a roll here blogging… two days in a row! DETERMINED to stay on a good posting schedule. It’s so easy to post little things quickly on social media and then forget to detail everything here but I am trying to get back to the old days!

Today’s post is a quick and easy one… sharing our full-ish Summer Adventure 2023 itinerary! Back in late 2016 I had this crazy idea and then decided to actually GO FOR IT! Traveling the world each year with my girls for the first 5-6 of Summer. I don’t take for granted the opportunity to have done this over and over agin even for a second. It’s been months and months now of pure ADVENTURE with my two not-so-little anymore lovies. Memories, experiences and and huge leaps outside of our comfort zones that I know the three of us will carry with us forever. And I can most definitely say now that I KNOW that after Addie had no problem, hesitation or homesickness whatsoever as an exchange student in France this past January. She was in her element and it made me oh so proud.

This year I am sad to say will be a wee bit different. For the first Summer since it all began, the girlies will only be going on half of the trip. The first two and a half weeks will be with John and the girls but my mom will be flying home with Addie and Winnie after London (our third country this Summer) so they can do tend to their ever-increasing tween/teen schedules. With Addie’s band schedule alone, the last half of Summer is constant practices so her time with her Dad was kind of non-existent last year. So this year we are changing it up! I knew it would probably happen one day but just didn’t think it would come “so soon”.

The inspiration for the first half of this Summer’s travels came from Addie’s years long obsession with Harry Potter. She has a bucket list of things to see and we’ve all never been to Ireland or Scotland so we are excited all around!

But first, here’s a few travel posts I’ve done to answer questions I get often…

My Top 13 Travel Tips & Must Haves for Traveling to Europe

How to Plan the Ultimate Long Summer Trip Adventure…

How I Pack Only Carry-On for All of Our Long Travels

Dublin & Galway, Ireland…

We will land in Dublin and spend six nights there… four in Dublin and two in Galway… before flying into Edinburgh where we will meet up with my mom. Addie has several places she wants to see in Dublin and then we will be traveling across the country to see the Cliffs of Moher…

Edinburgh, Scotland…

We will then spend seven nights in Edinburgh where I found a place along the “real Diagon Alley” to stay. I will definitely link everywhere we are staying after we leave each destination. One big thing we are excited about in Scotland is taking the Jacobite Steam Train “the Hogwarts Express” into northern Scotland. From there, we are flying (or taking a train… we haven’t decided) into London, England.

London, England…

We haven’t made too many plans for London just yet but will definitely of course be hitting up the historic basics in addition to a few more Harry Potter must-sees. We will be in London for three nights before the girlies fly back home with my mom. Sniff. Sniff.

Switzerland Road Trip

After the girlies leave, John and I will be flying from London to Geneva for a ten day road trip around Switzerland! And I AM SO PUMPED! We visited Switzerland back in 2018 and it is so unbelievably stunning. Like literally UNREAL. John has such an appreciation for nature and beautiful things that I have been dying to travel there with him and show him all of my favorite places in addition to experiencing some new ones together. A few highlights will be our stay at Pilatus which is the most incredible hotel I’ve ever been to and paragliding over Lake Lucerne. We also plan to visit Montreux, Grindlewald and Zurich. We are then flying from Zurich to Venice, Italy!

Venice, Italy

I am going to start this off with quite possibly a very unpopular opinion… Venice is not my favorite BUT also a must-see. If that makes any sense at all. I visited Venice years ago and thought it was neat and all but really didn’t have a desire to go back until John mentioned wanting to go. We are staying here for three nights before flying over to SLOVENIA!

Ljubljana & Lake Bled, Slovenia

Slovenia… had literally barely even heard of it until I looked at a map and thought hmmmmm… where would be fun to go next. Venice is very close to Slovenia and after a quick Google search seeing that it’s not only beautiful but also one of the safest countries in the world it was a quick YESSSS!!! We are flygin into Ljubljana where we will stay for a short bit before heading to Lake Bled…