All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. Often, they include trips such as epic safaris and cross-country adventures that, while lovely, are undeniably harder to pull off. But a bucket list isn't always made up of destinations that are far-flung or once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Sometimes, they're places closer to home that we've always wanted to visit but never quite got around to. So, we asked our editors to let us in on their ultimate holiday itineraries in Europe β the places they're desperate to visit at some point in their lifetimes.
From a verdant road trip through Ireland and Europe's most glamorous train journey, to island-hopping in Greece and visiting Iceland's Westfjords, their responses were varied and far-reaching. If you need inspiration for your next European adventure, these are the destinations our well-travelled team has put at the top of their bucket lists.
For more inspiration on where to visit next, see our editors' global bucket list , where we've cast our nets a little wider in the hope of finding the perfect holiday destination. Happy travels. And while Portugal as a whole is at the top of my European bucket list, top top top of that list is the coastal city of Porto.
Could there be anything better than a lazy afternoon spent meandering the streets, stopping in the occasional bar for a glass of sweet Port? I guess I'll have to find out. Is there a European adventure that populates bucket lists more than the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express? Sure, the flight time from Istanbul to Paris may be less than four hours, but the thought of a six-day adventure winding through the continent seems like the ultimate excursion. Istanbul is one of my favourite cities, a bicontinental metropolis where cultures collide at every turn, blazing spices and sparkling jewels littering the wonderfully chaotic bazaars.
I dream of renting a little flat or cottage where I can live out my cottage core dreams β slow mornings spent with a book, fresh fruit for breakfast, afternoons spent frolicking lakeside and walking through the hills of the Italian countryside. And in the evenings, you will find me at a charming trattoria eating homemade Italian food with a bottle of the house wine. The surreal rock pools of Pamukkale in southwestern Turkey have long been on my bucket list.
