Surprising Trip Combos
Copenhagen to Corfu. Brussels to Biarritz. Instead of flying direct to your holiday, stop in a city you’ve been meaning to visit, then get a nonstop to the beach or countryside. It’s a two-fer!
Last year I wrote about interesting flight routes you might not have imagined—who knew you could fly from Pisa to Corfu, for example? So often people get an idea in their head: they’re renting a house in Tuscany and they imagine that means a nonstop flight in and out of Rome. But what if they were to pair it with a stop in London (spending a night or two in blissful Heckfield Place), or exploring Edinburgh, or Copenhagen?
If you plan ahead, you can get a two-fer: two very different experiences in one trip. And not of the overcrowded variety—I’m not suggesting the obvious connections. I’m more about the city you’ve always been curious about but never prioritized, and won’t be jammed in summer. A place that’s also a hub for nonstops into places like Pisa, Florence, or whatever airport is closest to your rental. It’s this idea I want to get at.
A lot of friends, even my husband, were surprised by how I planned our Bordeaux to Salzburg trip earlier this year. The only flight options involved two stops (unless we flew into Munich or Vienna, from where it’s a 3-hour drive), so I looked at who flew nonstop into Salzburg, and discovered a weekly Eurowings flight from Marrakech. Knowing that, I built Marrakech into our itinerary—which turned into a nice four-day trip, starting with a nonstop from Bordeaux to Morocco, and later a second nonstop from there to Salzburg. Once you know these seemingly random flights exist, they can make your travel life so much easier. (Honestly, I hate nothing more than connecting flights to go somewhere that is relatively so close.)
I was speaking to a travel agent and saying my dream would be to find an agent who’d be willing to go through this exercise with me. But nobody has enough time—and the possibilities are endless! So I went ahead and spent time digging for options, pasted below, to make my point: 6 gateway cities, and nonstops to both the beach and countryside.
I realize I’m just scratching the surface here. But I hope this list does make you stop for a minute before completely committing to an itinerary and ask: Where could I add an easy tack-on that will expand me? How do I get out of my head of not wanting to f**k up our very special trip—but also see something new? This is a good way to do it. And just maybe, you’ll fall in love with a place you didn’t expect to find yourself in.
P.S. I didn’t include the expected big airports like Paris, London, Amsterdam, or Rome—the idea here is to encourage detouring into cities that are a bit off-piste, that you might not have thought to plan a trip around, but are still hubs for easy nonstops.
P.P.S. I’m sorry the departure airports are so U.S. focused, but for all of you departing from elsewhere in the world, the surprising trip combo approach still holds up!
Edinburgh to…
If you haven’t experienced this great city—do! I was lucky to have our daughter in school there for university and really fell in love with it. If you only have a few days, spend them in town, but if you want to build out a Scotland itinerary before heading elsewhere (like this epic road trip), you won’t be disappointed.
Beach
The Dodecanese (via Kos); Marbella Club or Finca Cortesin (via Malaga); Mallorca; Masseria San Domenico and the Salento region in Puglia (via Brindisi); Northeastern Corsica (via Bastia); Costa Smeralda/La Maddalena and northern parts of Sardegna (via Olbia); Cap Ferret and the Arcachon (via Bordeaux); The Basque Coast (via Biarritz); Sicily (via Catania and Palermo)