azepine00

We plan spend 8-9 days in norther italy in early july with 8 yr old kids.
Flying either into zrh followed by a train down or to milan. The main goal is to avoid crowds and have flexibility to do day trips and explore so ideally i envision a rental car and 4 days in turin (or nearby) and 4 day in bolzano or dolomites area.
Staying on the aps side is a possibility too but for some reason i always wanted to go to dolomites and a day trip to show kids venice seems like an intersting thought..

We usually do a fair bit of driving with sightseeing hiking picknicking along the way- last couple trips were to bavarian alps and slovenia.

Any specific suggestions or considerations for our planning - usually we stay at hotels on points but perhaps some other arrangement is more practical here due to limited chains and smaller room sizes...

PWMTrav

I'm a fan of apartment/home rentals over hotels for family travel. For 8-9 days, I'd pick 1-2 cities and leave it at that. Bolzano has been on my list to visit for a long time, so I think it's a great idea.

Akcaver

Riva del Garda was a nice visit in my opinion- smaller area with lots of outdoors activities- biking, walking, hiking, swimming, paddleboarding, boating... the list goes on. Its beautiful there, and not too far from Bolzano if you want to make a day trip from there to see the lake (google says 1:20 drive). Also a very good pizza place called SUD.

brandie

I've stayed at the Sport Hotel in Obereggen. It is a kid friendly place. Breakfasts are extremely generous and are more like breakfasts that you would get at a hotel in Germany. The dinners are really good here too. They have an indoor swimming pool that is great for kids. I was there in December so I don't know how it is positioned for summer travel.

Make sure to go to Bolzano to see Otsi.

You are not that far from Venice.

brandie

I forgot to mention that you probably won't see any Americans in the Dolomites.

brandie

Whoops, I meant to say make sure to visit Otzi the Iceman in Bolzano.