As the title says. Harry may be cloistered inside his house for the duration of the summer, but presumably other Wizarding families actually go somewhere for the holidays. Skiiing trips are also a possibility.

Question is, where? Wizarding communities of popular muggle tourist spots - Spain, Italy, France, Ibiza for the young, Benidorm for the elderly? Spots that have a long Wizarding history? All ideas welcome.

 

I would think they would go to places that muggles don't think actually exist, like the phantom islands of the Bermuda Triangle for the Americans or Thule for Europeans.

 

For their equivalent of a city break, its probably places with long magical histories - Greece, Italy, Egypt, India, Tibet, maybe old native sites across the Americas, etc. Some of them are probably more touristy than others.

For the rest and relaxation holiday, I'm note sure. There's probably a few resorts hidden from muggles, you could definitely bring in the Bermuda Triangle, maybe some magical oasis in the Sahara. You could get more magical though, there could be one under the ice in the Arctic or Antarctic, or even one under the sea somewhere - a hidden and healthy section of the Great Barrier Reef perhaps? Given that magic removes engineering concerns pretty much entirely, these wouldn't be unreasonable to construct.

 

Given how hot it is right now, I'm imagining a lovely wizarding holiday to the Antarctic.

That aside, have a VP quote.

 

My headcanon includes a small, but thriving wizarding community in and around the Black Forest in Germany. Fairies, dwarves and even a small giant community roam the forests, making for an excellent vacation destination for everyone from small families to the thrill-seeking gentleman adventurer. The centres of magical activity are located in Freiburg and Strasbourg, the cities having been popular hubs for magical folk from all over the region ever since the middle ages thanks to their picturesque environment and opportunities for trade in relative geographical proximity.

Some background: The Black Forest was a very popular setting for fairytales in Victorian periodicals, which is where I originally got the idea from.

 

Presumably there's a colony of veela somewhere that charge exorbitant fees as a men only resort.

 

I like the Idea of legendary muggle places just being wizarding tourist destinations and resorts like Atlantis, El Dorado, the Argatha, the Garden of Eden, or the Scholomance.

Obviously none of them being nearly as impressive as the legends, but still impressive nonetheless.

 

Expand it a bit towards the sci-fi. Broom-skiing vacations on Enceladus's ice-geysers. Flame-Freezing charms and Bubblehead charms while you skiff down one of Io's volcanos. You get more points the faster you go. Daily Prophet reports attest that Gwenog Jones herself recently managed to attain such a speed that she ramped back up another volcano and escaped the moon and managed to get captured within Jupiter's summoning charm only to blow a kiss at it before apparating back down to Io! Whether or not that is true is not known, but Gwenog Jones is flying with it and calling herself Hera! (Hollyhead Harpies' quidditch jerseys with the appelation, 'Hera the Hollyheaded' are available for owl order) Credence has been applied to the claim however, when a senior Obliviator returned to the Ministry for a spot of tea after having to perform, "a complex obliviation charm (complete with verifiably documented Arithmancy results (see Dept. Mysteries; Accidentally, Yet Purposefully Foreseen Office of Yet to be Verified Divination) whereby he managed to, quite accidentally! divine precisely 7 days, 7 hours and 13 seconds prior to the obliviation while observing Mercury during a lunch break when he was trying to see how many galleons he needs to withdraw from the goblins to pick up his wife's potions' ingredients)" applied to the muggle space-contraption known as Juno!

All just a portkey away. Continuous Hot-Air charms are recommended but not altogether required for the most thrill seeking of wizards!

 

I really likes this. Globe trotting citizens, flying off to see exotic locations half a world away has a very modern citizen-of-the-world taste, which doesn't quite match the feel of the books. That kind of behaviour may make sense given the wizarding world's travel abilities (see the Quidditch World Cup) but I can't help feel the wizarding world in the books feels very British and I like focusing common holiday's on quintessential 'British' holidays. So some kind of magical Brighton beach (with it's own all-magical hidden pier - maybe Chain Pier didn't *really* fall down), day trips to strange little B&Bs that give you picnic baskets full of lashings of ginger beer for arcadian adventures, niche speciality musceams and so on.

 

JKR wrote about King's Cross and the magical platforms there, saying "I like to think that it is possible to take a version of the Orient Express off to wizard-only villages in continental Europe (try platform seven and a half)", so there's canon basis for that at least.

 

Thats an interesting one, small settlements like Hogsmeade scattered around the world being the focus of tourism rather than it being actual resorts. Given the population size its maybe more realistic. Different villages having reputations as where to go for different sorts of activities or interests.

 

I feel like wizards have a lot more options than we think.

Why not some exclusive vacation spot located in the sky among clouds? Or perhaps in the Mariana Trench?

In fact, why not the dark side of the moon?

 

Some old/ancient cities with long history have already been mentioned. Austria comes to my mind because I have just returned from Austria and I think that wizards would love Alps: plenty of mountains to gather and hide magical villages with few anti-muggle charms.
During my long walks up the mountains in Tyrol, I kept stumbling upon mostly isolated old houses that were kilometres away from the nearest houses and they seemed to pop-up out of nowhere. You would consider them completely isolated if it weren't for trash bins and mail boxes. It made my think how easy it would be to hide magical villages and holiday resorts for wizards on those mountains.
And I am pretty sure there would be native magical creatures. What if Krampus was based on a real magical creature? What if Krampuslauf had magical origins before Statue of Secrecy? Also, skiing. I can't imagine wizards not adapting skiing.

 

Why bother hiding just a magical village? Maybe there's a whole mountain or two under secrecy charms. Nice wee magical village nestled in the valley between them, and lots of space for wizards to be wizards.

 

Or whole islands.

I remember "Black Island" was a popular idea in fanfic once upon a time.

 

The would tie neatly into the idea of the Bermuda Triangle. If there's a decent sized island, with the consequent surrounding tides, reefs etc, and its not on any charts then that would definitely have an impact on shipping.