Savvy travelers love Europe in winter—and not just because they can avoid the sticker shock and tourist crowds of peak season. It’s easier in winter to feel connected to local life, as it’s easier to meet the local people and see how they really live. More time may be spent indoors, but museums feel like your own private galleries, and it’s easier to get into the most in-demand restaurants for fabulous meals.
Insider experiences, charming scenery, and great food are all accessible and available, as the travelers below discovered, if you just know the right trip designers who can help you make the most of this cozy time of year. Here’s what it means to get a WOW trip.
NORWAY: “We were in the middle of a herd of reindeer, admiring their beauty inside an Arctic wonderland…”
Traveler Julie Silbermann spent a day with Sámi people and got to help feed their reindeer.
“WOW! What a trip we had to Finnmark in northern Norway! We can’t thank Wendy enough for connecting us with Jan and Miriam for our trip March 7-15. They crafted an exciting trip of one adventure after another. We flew to Alta, which is 400 miles inside the Arctic Circle, and stayed at the Sorrisniva Arctic Wilderness Lodge. It is remote and incredibly beautiful. We stayed in a room overlooking the river and mountains with floor-to-ceiling windows. We went dog sledding, snowshoeing, and ice fishing. We even caught Arctic char, which our guide, Kalle, expertly cooked for us inside our warming tent for lunch! We were very lucky to see the northern lights on three out of four nights, and Helle knew just where to bring us to see the spectacular light show.
One of our most special expeditions was spending the day with the Sámi people, helping them herd and feed their reindeer! We were in the middle of a herd of hundreds of reindeer, watching them and admiring their beauty inside an Arctic wonderland. Just an amazing experience. Big thanks to Trygve Nygard, Kalle, Helle, and Emilie for their special care on our expeditions. Everything was taken care of for us—there wasn’t a detail left to chance.” —Julie Silbermann
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
VENICE: “Around every turn, under every bridge, were sites to behold and cause wonder…”
Traveler Marsha Friedli said the fog during her gondola ride made Venice “beautiful and evocative.”
“WOW! A foggy gondola ride with guitar player and singer (part of our WOW Moment) was our introduction to Italy, specifically Venice, on Valentine’s Day. Around every turn, under every bridge, were sites to behold and cause wonder. The heavy fog made Venice so beautiful and evocative. We stayed at the Sina Palazzo Sant’Angelo Venice Hotel on the Grand Canal. Our room balcony was a perfect location to watch the water traffic comings and goings of daily life in Venice.
Another part of our WOW Moment was visiting the 1499 textile weaver, Tessitura Bevilacqua! My background is in textile and clothing so I was extremely surprised and pleased to experience this working factory/museum. Seeing the weavers work and delighting in their skill with the looms.
From Venice we went to Rome via the high speed train—fantastic way to travel! Our hotel for the next six nights was Martius Private Suites, just steps from the Pantheon. This was the perfect location as we walked to/from most of our touring sites and wonderful restaurants. What can we say—words cannot do justice to the art we viewed. From the Vatican to Borghese Gallery, from ancient to modern-day interpretations—magnificent! And our guides provided insight and details that cannot be garnered from a book or classroom lecture.
A very fun happening was taking a golf-cart tour in Rome! Just a fun way to scoot around and visit some of the sites! We visited the Trevi fountain during its cleaning session. The size is enormous and with it filled with water you don’t really get the scale of the fountain.
Our driver dropped us off at a private Art Restoration experience that Jennifer and her team arranged for us. This was a truly wonderful experience for me to actually see and watch a 15th-century artwork being restored. This was a private experience and we were able to ask as many questions as we wanted and get up close to the work being restored and yes, take pictures! This experience helped me to appreciate the art even more during our visit. Without Jennifer and her contacts we would not have had this truly memorable experience.
Another day we took the high-speed train to Pompeii. I had read many books/articles about this tragic and historic place. Our guide brought life to Pompeii/Herculaneum and we could visualize daily life.
Thank you Wendy for putting us in contact with Jennifer and her excellent team of guides. Her options of experiences and her thoughtful guides made this truly memorable.” —Marsha Friedli
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
SWITZERLAND: ” The mountain regions are huge and you can ski all day and never ski every run…”
Traveler Ashley Point and family sledging in Grindelwald.
“Our family of five (two adults and three kids, ages 7-13) just returned from our ski holiday in Grindelwald. Skiing in Switzerland is different than in the U.S. Switzerland uses trains, gondolas and large lifts. There were mostly beginner and intermediate runs (with a few advanced runs). The mountain regions are huge, and you can ski all day and never ski every run.
Nina and her team listened to our desires for four solid days of skiing, with Switzerland culture and fun for the kids thrown in. We took a private sunset hike of Wengen with Weronika and tasted Swiss cheese, chocolate and wine by moonlight while overlooking waterfalls. Celio took us up a small gondola to a local fondue spot (eight tables in the entire place). We went to a private chocolate-making class and toured Interlaken while our chocolate dried. Afterwards we met up with Weronika again and raced down the slopes on sledges. We almost crashed several times, but it was wonderful fun, and we wanted to do it longer, but the lifts were closing.” —Ashley Point
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
MALTA: “A tour of a palazzo by the baron (and knight of Malta) who owns it…”
St. John’s Co-Cathedral is a one-of-a-kind Baroque masterpiece in Valletta. Photo: Timothy Baker
“Malta is an amazing destination and Damon and team were amazing in helping us plan it and making all the arrangements! They were instantly responsive to issues and random questions and their recommendations were always spot-on. We had an amazing tour of prehistoric temples (marking the calendar thousands of years before Stonehenge), had a private tour of the famous St John’s Cathedral (we were alone wandering through it and gazing mesmerized at the Caravaggios), a tour of a palazzo by the baron (and knight of Malta) who owns it giving a very unique perspective on their role in modern Malta, and an amazing cooking lesson with a local bakery owner. We kept several days for independent sightseeing but certainly many of the most amazing experiences were those arranged by Damon and his team.” —Regina Olshan
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
SPAIN: “So many extra little details he put in place made my stay in Spain everything I wanted and more…”
Vejer de la Frontera is one of the famous White Villages of Andalusia. Photo: Shutterstock
“Wendy put me in touch with Iván, her Andalusia specialist. I had been to most of the World Heritage Sites in the area and therefore wanted to focus on architecture, gastronomy, viniculture, lifestyle, and the culture of the people in and around the White Villages.
The trip was amazing! Eleven days with seven different guides, each of whom was friendly, courteous, extremely knowledgeable and a pleasure to be with. Seville, Cadiz and Ronda were my country bases before returning to Madrid.
There was not one event Iván planned that was not exceptional. He even showed up at a small vineyard I was visiting to personally introduce himself and give me some wine that wasn’t available in the U.S. The immersion I had originally requested was handled perfectly. All the hotels, White Villages, restaurants, sights in the cities and guides were exactly what I wanted. Vejer de la Frontera was my favorite village, where I plan on returning for a few weeks next winter.” —Patrick Mackay
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
FINLAND: “An exciting jaunt by snowmobile to learn how to ice fish on a frozen lake and then dog sledding on a snowy day…”
Between adventures, this traveler warmed up fireside in his Glass House Suite. Photo: Traveler Michael Ruma
“My wife said she’d like to see the aurora borealis and, with Wendy’s help, we were quickly introduced to Leigh, who created a delightful week of fun in Finland.
We hopped an easy flight from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, which lies directly on the latitude of the Arctic Circle. An efficient, private transfer brought us to the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel. Met with warm blueberry juice, we checked into our Glass House Suite. Our room had a centrally located living room with an enclosed wood burning stove along with two bathrooms, one of which had our very own dry sauna.
Advised to download the Aurora app, we learned about the KP index, which predicts the probability of witnessing the northern lights. Fortunately, after dinner at the hotel, a notification from the app informed us at 9pm the chance was high! Intent on seeing the natural phenomenon, we bundled up and hiked up a trail to a 50-foot observation tower specifically designed for viewing the lights. Finnish myths say the lights are caused when a fox runs across the Arctic landscape whipping up snow from its tail, sparking the lights in the night sky.
Regardless of the cause, we were blessed by an hour display of a gray hazy line emerging in the distance and evolving into a bright green glow right in front of our eyes. As we watched and photographed the sky, the lights blew around us along our walk back to our room.
Our next two days were filled with other Arctic adventures which included an exciting jaunt by snowmobile to learn how to ice fish on a frozen lake and then dog sledding on a snowy day in the beautiful and vast northern Finnish countryside. We concluded our trip with a train ride from Rovaniemi back to Helsinki. On our last day in Helsinki, we splurged and dined at Restaurant Savoy.
We would happily come back to Finland for a future visit either in the winter to take in the unique night sky, but this time much further north, or during the summer to take in the lively and sunny long days in Helsinki filled with so much to see, taste, and do. Delighted by its vast country, small polite population, and compact capital, its seasonally focused food, and its matter-of-fact and kind people. We had such fun in Finland.” —Michael Ruma
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
TURKEY: “Late December/early January turned out to be a great time to travel to Turkey…”
Istanbul can be just as colorful in winter as in summer. Photo: Tim Baker
“Karen and her team did an excellent job planning our trip to Turkey. Late December/early January turned out to be a great time to travel to Turkey. It was chilly (although luckily for us, it was a few degrees above normal, at least in Istanbul) but the sun was shining. In addition, there weren’t large crowds, even at the most frequently visited sites.
We enjoyed the restaurants that Karen recommended, and appreciate that she switched restaurants between two evenings to avoid a traffic jam due to a soccer game being played along the route from our hotel to one restaurant.” —Susan Sullivan
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
FRANCE: “We didn’t just tour this small museum; Philip arranged for the museum director to spend three hours guiding us through it…”
The winter light in Provence attracts painters—and wise travelers. Photo: Shutterstock
“Our two-week trip to France in December focused on Provence and the Riviera. Philip created a wonderful itinerary focused on memorable experiences and lesser-known sights. Philip suggested a glassblowing class in Antibes, and my husband and I made three glass pieces each. The Riviera has lots of museums, but Philip sent us to one of his favorites, the remarkable Museum of Classical Art in the hilltop village of Mougins. We didn’t just tour this small museum that intersperses antiquities with Old Masters and modern art; Philip arranged for the museum director to spend three hours guiding us through it. What an enlightening experience.
Philip also arranged black truffle hunting outside Salon de Provence, which was interesting and surprisingly educational. We had a delightful seven-hour private cooking class in Aix-en-Provence with a former chef who emailed us all the recipes for the dishes we’d made. We went horseback riding in La Camargue, the wetlands area south of Arles between the two branches of the Rhône River. La Camargue is famed for its white horses, bulls raised for French bullfighting (the bullfighters have to snatch a ribbon from between the bull’s horns, not kill it), and pink flamingos. We had fun riding through this region on the ranch of a former bullfighter and seeing the bulls and horses he and his elegant wife raise.
A don’t-miss experience was Hotel Mirande’s Table d’Haute dinner in Avignon. We dined in the hotel’s tiny cellar kitchen on a nearly all-French evening (except the chef and sommelier, who spoke English), which tested my vocabulary but engaged us with locals and Belgian tourists.” —Jan Heininger
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
LATVIA, LITHUANIA, & BERLIN: “The scenery is beautiful and the capital cities charming…”
Once in ruins, the Trakai Castle has been restored to its 15th-century splendor. Photo: Shutterstock
“My family and I had a delightful trip to Vilnius, Riga, and Berlin thanks to expert planning by Leigh. I highly recommend the Baltics—the scenery is beautiful and the capital cities charming.
We had visited Tallin, Estonia on a prior trip and were curious to see the other Baltic capitals. Vilnius is a charming, Gothic and Baroque city with a sophisticated dining scene with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants. The shopping streets were lined with lovely shops. We enjoyed the day trip to Trakai Castle on an island and lunch at a local restaurant.
Leigh suggested a driver from Vilnius to Riga and a stop at the magnificent Baroque Rundale Palace in Latvia—Catherine The Great and other movies were shot here. We also enjoyed the lovely streets and sights of Old Town Riga. We walked the beautiful Art Nouveau architecture area of Riga.
We enjoyed history-laden Berlin. We only had two full days but Leigh’s plan of one day of a walking tour and the other driving tour allowed us to see quite a lot.
We had outstanding meals in each city—Leigh’s company has curated very helpful restaurant and sightseeing lists. I am always happy to use one of Wendy’s destination experts—I can relax knowing that we’ll see the sights, eat well and stay a in a well-chosen hotel—better than stressing and hoping things go well!” —Susan Sullivan
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
VIENNA: “A tour of the second-floor chapel room (otherwise closed to the public) and the catacombs (also generally closed to the public)…”
A savvy planner can get you special access to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, in Vienna. Photo: Julius Silver
“The guides that Gwen arranged were fantastic, especially Gertie, who provided us with great insight into Viennese life, both historical and modern-day. She was also quick to pivot and make sure we had the most fulfilling experience possible.
For example, when we arrived at St. Stephen’s Cathedral for our special tour on the rooftop, we were informed that the elevator was broken. My husband is claustrophobic and did not want to climb the narrow staircase to access the roof. Gertie arranged for us to instead get a tour of the second-floor chapel room (otherwise closed to the public) and the catacombs (also generally closed to the public). In retrospect, we think we enjoyed this experience more than we would have the rooftop tour.
On Gwen’s recommendation we stayed at the Hotel Sacher, where we received first-class service. We have stayed in many five-star hotels and have not received the same attention and personalized service that we received at the Sacher, and I believe being associated with Gwen was a big reason we were so well received.
We very much enjoyed the Spanish Riding School. Getting to see the stables and horses close up was a special treat. Indeed, other visitors to the School looked on with envy when we were allowed access to the restricted stable area, where many of the horses came up to their stall openings to greet us.” —Marla Strain
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
ITALY: “The weather was mild and we were able to spend a lot of time outdoors…”
The Serralunga d’Alba castle sits above a medieval village in Piedmont. Photo: Shutterstock
“We were so very fortunate to be able to experience an impromptu trip to Milan and the Piedmont region in early January—and we could never have done it without Jennifer. The trip was glorious. We went to a Barolo village and had the chance to visit a Barolo wine cellar for a private tasting and tour. Our guides in Torino and Milan were excellent, and we relished the opportunity to take in The Last Supper and other masterpieces with no crowds. Like NONE. In Piedmont, the weather was mild and we were able to spend a lot of time outdoors. We made some wonderful memories and cannot say enough about how this trip gave us a much-needed change to start the year.” —Gina Melton
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
PARIS: “A fashion expert who took us to neighborhood boutiques featuring up-and-coming Parisian designers…”
Visiting the Louvre made one girl’s graduation dream come true. Photo: EdiNugraha/Pixabay
“This was a trip for our daughter’s college graduation. She was interested in fashion, food and the Louvre. Jennifer did a great job planning our tours and making our dining reservations! We were very impressed with each tour guide—private 1/2-day tour of the Louvre could not have been better! We loved our croissant-making class and our chef was fabulous. We were pleasantly surprised with our tour of the Dior museum—so unexpected and maybe one of our most favorite things. We had the museum to ourselves and our guide was fantastic! Jennifer secured a fashion expert who took us to neighborhood boutiques featuring up-and-coming Parisian designers and this was a real treat! We loved meeting the shop owners and we felt like locals shopping for the afternoon.
Each and every restaurant reservation that Jennifer procured provided the best table in the restaurant with amazing views of the Eiffel Tower. One of the restaurants surprised us with a sparkler in my daughter’s dessert, which was so fun.” —Kim Brown
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
SICILY: “Getting to know Sicilians—over good conversations, culinary experiences, archaeology hikes, food and wine—was the highlight of the entire trip…”
Sicily, according to this traveler, is a “stunning, fascinating, history-filled island.” Photo: Pixabay/kirkandmimi
“We are just back from an AMAZING, perfectly planned and executed trip to Sicily. Marcello is the gold standard of travel planners. He created a perfectly curated, balanced itinerary and checked in daily to make sure all was going smoothly. We could not have covered as much as we did (in nine days) without having private drivers, who were excellent. We covered a lot of ground in Sicily with a full schedule each day, but somehow it never felt rushed.
While January might not be the ideal time to visit Sicily (with the weather less than cooperative!), we saw, learned, engaged, and met wonderful people all along the way—from Palermo and surrounding towns Monreale, Castelbuono, Cefalu to Villa Romana del Casale, Agrigento, Testa dell’Acqua, Noto, Siracusa/Ortigia to Mt Etna. More than anything, getting to know Sicilians—over good conversations, culinary experiences, archaeology hikes, tours, food and wine—was the highlight of the entire trip.
Perhaps the highlight of many highlights was the final day at Mt. Etna guided by Salvo (a volcanologist) followed by our visit to the Santa Maria La Nave Winery for a tour, wine tasting, and lunch hosted by Vera and Carmello. They epitomized the warmth, welcome and pride of purpose we found every day during this first visit to Sicily. We look forward to returning soon to this stunning, fascinating, history-filled island.” —Barbara Gross
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
HUNGARY & POLAND: “On the Danube, a private boat to see the lights of nighttime Budapest…”
Budapest’s monuments light up after dark. Photo: Leonhard_Niederwimmer/Pixabay
“In Krakow, our private tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau was so moving and impactful. Our guide’s father was a survivor of Auschwitz, and it was humbling to have him share with us. In Egar, we had a fantastic meal at the beautiful castle restaurant, with Hungarian wines paired to our various courses—the best meal of the trip! On the Danube, we took a private boat to see the lights of nighttime Budapest.
I appreciated Gwen being willing to make changes for us as we moved through the itinerary. It was such a relief to know the logistics were handled and we had someone on call should anything change or become difficult.” —Sarah Wade
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
PORTUGAL: “In the Alentejo we experienced an outstanding lunch with a wine pairing, horseback ride, cork factory and hikes…”
The Guadiana River and the village of Mértola in the Alentejo region of Portugal. Photo: Shutterstock
“This was a special trip to celebrate our son’s graduation from college. WOW! What an amazing trip Gonçalo and Joanna planned for us. The accommodations that they chose for us were fantastic: very unique and customer-oriented. The destinations and route they planned—from Lisbon to the Alentejo region and the West Region—were perfect. Our driver, Sandru, was amazing and went above and beyond to make our trip very special.
We had a wonderful cooking class and gastronomic tour with Lara in Lisbon and even attended a Benefica Football game. In the Alentejo region we experienced an outstanding lunch with a wine pairing, horseback ride, cork factory and hikes. In the West Region, a full-day tour which included Obidos, Nazre, and Alcobaca. The details were taken care of for us, from tours to restaurant reservations, it was the best trip I have ever been on.” —Lori Bentley
To get your own WOW trip, start with our trip questionnaire, reached via the black button below.
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