Diary: Planning Our 2027 European Holiday
Here is a month to month update and planning of our upcoming 2027 Europe trip. Follow our progress and just see how much we swap ideas around and destinations and hopefully end up with another great holiday in August 2027. This blog is updated monthly
December 2025 - The planning begins for our 2027 Europe Trip
Possible Routes and Driving Options
From our 2025 trip we learned a lot more than we expected, and all of it is helping shape the early ideas for our 2027 adventure. Planning is still very loose at this stage — mostly just thoughts floating around — but one thing is certain: we loved the Austrian Lakes so much that we’ll definitely be returning.
How can we make these destination fit together
Southern France is also on the list this time, especially since we missed it on our last trip. It would make for another great drive, and we’ve also been tossing around ideas about Slovenia and Northern Spain.
We’d really like to explore the eastern side of Italy, particularly the Puglia region, but we haven’t quite figured out how everything will fit together yet.
We’re also considering flying premium economy for the extra comfort. We’re not tall people, but a bit more legroom and recline makes a long flight much easier.
As for airlines, it may be Emirates again with a stopover, or we might look at other options like we did in 2025 — Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa were both strong contenders. If we choose Lufthansa, we’ll most likely start our holiday in Germany.
January: 2026 Throwing Our Thoughts Around for Europe
Germany: base ourselves around Heidelberg - Bad Wimpfen, Michelstadt, Hirschhorn, Ladenburg
Munich possible base before Austria
Austria: Gmunden, or Mondsee base for 4 nights
Italy: Penne, catch up with friends in Pescara
check out Sorano
Bosnia - Mostar, Travnik - problem is transport
Serbia
Albania
Update March 2026
Going via middle east is now out, looking at flights best are Singapore, Thai airways. Destination still Frankfurt. Thia airways best airfares, just don't have premium economy where Singapore do
Fuel prices up, war rages on and we're still planning. You have to have something to look forward to
The original plan has changed to the below (at this stage)
Update April 2026
Update June 2026
Trying to get flights from Brindisi back to Germany to match the days of our itinerary was getting too hard. The only flight we can get from Trieste to Bari at a reasonable time is on a Friday and the only flight from Brindisi is way too early in the morning, which would force us to spend one night down there, and doing that threw everything else out. So, plans have changed significantly.
We have now cut out southern Puglia, found better flights to get back home, and changed a few destinations.
I would have liked to have seen more of Croatia, but with their limited transport options and minimal flights made it a little to hard to get back over to Bari. I think some of the other beatiful areas of Croatia will have to wait for another time and become a trip on it's own.
Scouring the web, we found better deals by flying out of Sydney rather than Melbourne, along with selecting Cathay Pacific and having a 9-hour stopover in Hong Kong. It may not appeal to some people, but we'll get out of the airport and do some sightseeing for the day, come back tired, and sleep most of the next leg to Frankfurt. For the return journey, we selected a 3-hour stop as we'll be exhausted anyway.
I said earlier in a post that I would'nt drive again, but after seeing the Grossglockner High Alpine Road in Austria, how could you pass this up? So, we are hiring a car in Salzburg for four days.
We've now decided on staying in Munich for three nights and added nights in Zell am See, Ljubljana, Rovinj, Trieste, and Rome.
Due to Middle East conflicts, we have increased our daily spend to €135 p/day (AU$220) and accommodation costs to €152 p/day (AU$250)
Update July 2026
It's amazing how things can change in a month and again throw everything out of wack.
Since you can't get accurate flight prices so far in advance, we had to work off the 2026 current prices. This also goes with some accommodation, where we want to use frequent flyer, or Flybuys points.
We are going to use points for accommodation at Sydney and a couple of one night stays along the way. This will save us just under $2,000 in costs.
Where we have points, we have budgeted AU$250 p/night. After looking at some Hotels we'll be well under this.
The below shows where we have settled on for countries and towns, with the Green highlighted showing properties that have been booked.
9 nights germany
6 nights Austria
4 nights Croatia
19 nights Italy
2 nights Sydney
We have extended the hire car option as it was cheaper, and we have cut stays out in Innsbruck, Garmish and Slovenia. The main reason being that logistically there was just too much travelling and changing direction too much. By extending our hire car option gave us extra time to visit the southern part of Austria.
We have cut out Bamberg as a base and have selected Wurzburg, due to shorter trip to the places we intend to see and having the main train line run through Wurzburg makes it so much easier. Bamberg will now become a full day trip
Adding an extra night in Munich gives us a day trip to Garmish/Mittenwald, and by removing Slovenia we get to see the Apulia region of Italy by basing ourselves in Lecca for 6 nights.
Catching up with friends somewhere around Venice or northern lakes area in Italy, makes Milan and ideal short train trip to fly out of. Milan is not my favourite choice of cities or for a nights accommodation, so hopefully there will be a late train from the lakes to the airport so we can avoid this.
Logistically this works out much better with internal flights and trains.
Budget has increased by $1,000, to compensate our flights through Asia, fuel costs rather than the middle east.
I have kept the daily €135 p/day per couple (AU$220) spending the same, as I know I've been very generous with this.
Daily expenses do not include: Tours, local buses, souvenirs, clothes or gifts.
I really can't see too much changing, except we have narrowed it down to Thai Airways, Cathy Pacific and Singapore Airlines. We won't be booking any flights until January 2027 and get our hoidays approved at work.
With all our accommodation we select free cancellation, you may pay slighlty more but we look at it as a form of insurance. This also goes for hire cars.
Update July 2026 V2.0
Another spanner has been thrown into the works, as we are now catching up with friends in Pescara, this is nearly going back to our original plan. So we now have 4 nights in Pescara and will depart from Rome. This I prefer as I would love to wander Rome ruins again and take it all in.
We'll hire a car in Pescara for the day so we can travel to a small village called Montebello di Bertona which is around 45 minutes drive by car where we'll stay for lunch with our fellow travellers extended family.
Lets have another look at our budget and plans after adding in Pescara
From the last update, I found an error in my budget calculation, in my favour which is great. We are now under budget by $2,690.06
Highlighted in Green - denotes accommodation booked
Cathay Pacific maybe the choice of airlines, as they use the A350-900.
As of July 22nd 2026 flights were at $4,870.00 return to Sydney, well under the $6,000.00 I had budgeted for, however as the time gets closer for booking I believe it will be close to budget.
Next update I'll show you our planned day trips to date.
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