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JetBlue is one of the nation’s favorite low-cost airlines, so it’s exciting to hear that they’re expanding their network with more European routes.  

JetBlue now flies transatlantic routes from New York and Boston, but it is their Boston hub that will benefit from two exciting new routes in 2025.  

Starting from May 22 next year, JetBlue will launch new nonstop routes to both Madrid and Edinburgh.

These are two incredible and culture-rich destinations that are well worth exploring!  

Here’s everything you need to know:  

Flights To Madrid And Edinburgh 

JetBlue is introducing two new flight routes.

These will depart from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and fly to either Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD) in Madrid, Spain, or Edinburgh Airport (EDI) in Edinburgh, Scotland.  

Both of these routes will launch on May 22, 2025.  

JetBlue already flies a seasonal service to Edinburgh that departs from New York JFK airport, but now their passengers will have a second departure airport option to choose from.  

The route to Madrid is not only the first to the city, it’s also the first one ever that JetBlue has flown in Spain.  

Both routes are available to book now, and if you’re fast, then you might be able to take advantage of their introductory and celebratory fare rates.  

JetBlue is advertising roundtrip fares to both destinations, with prices starting from $449 right now.

Affordable Flight Deals 

To see if these prices were available, I pulled up a couple of sample routes on the JetBlue website.   

First up, a round-trip nonstop flight from Boston To Madrid.

This is based on departing from Boston on June 8 and returning on June 15, although other dates in the same month had identical prices.  

The total cost for a Blue Basic ticket (with free hand baggage but no hold luggage) is currently $943.   

If you’re more interested in the charms of summer in Scotland, then a round-trip nonstop flight from Boston to Edinburgh has similar price points.  

If you’re more interested in the charms of summer in Scotland, then a round-trip nonstop flight from Boston to Edinburgh has similar price points.

Flying on Sunday, June 8, and returning on June 15 will cost $978.

Again, this is based on a Blue Basic ticket. If you want to upgrade to a Blue fare, which gives you one hold bag, free seat selection, and no change or cancellation fee, then this will cost an additional $180.

Why Visit Madrid In The Summer 

Both of these new flight routes are seasonal summertime routes, so you may be wondering why you should visit Madrid in the summer.  

This is an architecturally beautiful city, so exploring the buildings, the incredible museums, and Europe’s largest palace should all be on your list of things to do.  

The Royale Palace in Madrid covers a whopping 135,000 square meters and boasts 3,418 rooms. It holds an incredible array of unique works of art and treasures. Standard admission costs 20 euros ($20.86) per person.  

In terms of summer-specific entertainment, you can enjoy everything from summer cinema to swimming pools. Because of the high temperatures in the summer, Madrid boasts a huge number of government-run swimming pools, so there’s always somewhere to take the plunge and cool off if the heat gets too much.  

Why Visit Edinburgh In The Summer 

Edinburgh in the summer is busy, bustling, and chaotic. But that only adds to its charm! The city is a riot of color, entertainment and fun.  

One of the very best reasons to visit the city in the summer is for the Edinburgh festival.  

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is iconic. It is the world’s largest performance arts festival, spanning 25 days with an eyewatering itinerary of events.

In 2024, it featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,746 different shows across 262 venues from 60 different countries.  

In 2025, the event will take place from August 1 – August 25, and tickets are already on sale now.  

Edinburgh is a wonderfully pretty city, and summer is a great time to explore the many gardens that you can see from the vantage point of the castle.  

You can also use the city as a base to explore the wider beauty of the Scottish countryside, with its lochs, meadows, and mountains.   

 

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Last Updated 4 months ago

Forget Paris, Barcelona, London, and the like: if you’re a digital nomad on a European quest for a better quality of life, higher levels of safety, great connectivity––and even culture––your destination may lie further East than you might have suspected at first:

Eastern Europe is brimming with digital nomads, and if Nomad List‘s ranking of Best Places to live in the Old Continent is anything to go by, all your usual Western hotspots are losing momentum as once-overlooked destinations start catching up.

4 Eastern cities in particular seem to be experiencing the biggest surge in visiting nomads, and it’s time we had a look into the why:

Prague, Czechia

The capital of formerly-socialist Czechia, Prague has a monument-packed historic center encompassing an iconic square flanked by Gothic buildings, a 15th-century bridge, ornate Baroque churches, and a hilltop castle that’s among the largest in the world.

It’s called the City of a Hundred Spires, and good luck if you’re climbing up Petrin Hill in an attempt to count all of them (we never got further than maybe 30 ourselves).

Besides its obvious timeless beauty and cultural mightiness that would appeal to Europhiles, Prague is just as enticing a prospect for digital nomads: it’s one of the highest-ranking European cities on Nomad List currently, with near-perfect scores across the board.

Nomads love it for how safe it feels compared to much of Western Europe, where cities like Paris, Barcelona, and London have seen crime increase significantly, lively social scene––Prague’s cosmopolitanism is not to be underestimated––and a myriad of laptop-friendly cafes.

That being said, it’s not one of the cheapest nomad destinations East of the divide, nor the most welcoming:

Monthly expenses total $3,038 to live in (month-long stays on Airbnb cost $1,052 – $1,611, and consumer prices have increased), and based on Nomad List reviews, the perception of racial prejudice is higher among non-European residents, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Skopje, North Macedonia

Capital of a landlocked Balkan state that, much like Czechia, also had a socialist past, Skopje is a surprisingly laid-back city traversed by a scenic river, with your usual cobbled Old Town and castle on a hill––and countless celebratory kitsch statues.

Seriously, we doubt there’s another European city with a higher concentration of sculptures per square mile than Skopje: from Alexander the Great proudly mounting his horse to the pious Mother Teresa (who was born here), there are larger-than-life icons scattered all over the place.

Naturally, taking selfies with Skopje’s infamous rows upon rows of effigies is not the main reason why nomads are coming here: North Macedonia lies both outside the European Union and the eurozone, so needless to say, bureaucracy and prices here are much lower.

1 U.S. dollar equals 56.86 Macedonian denar, and considering the national minimum wage is a mere MKD 22,567, or around $400––as reported by Wage Indicator––you can guess how much further your hard-earned IT dollars will stretch in Skopje.

We’re talking $539 per month for an apartment rental in the city center, within walking distance of all the shops, cafes and main attractions, kebabs for around $6.18 in the Old Bazaar, or $30 for a more luxurious dinner for two in a mid-range restaurant.

Affordability and the absence of strict Schengen rules seem to be the two biggest draws here, as Nomad List respondents have reported ‘fun levels’ are just ‘okay’, and nightlife as being ‘bad’, but if you ever need somewhere cheap enough to lie low for a while, look no further than quirky Skopje.

Warsaw, Poland

One of the most innovative and fastest-growing business centers in the East, Warsaw is not your typical European city with postcardy streets exuding Old World allure and the fairytale castle on a hill, but it has something the others lack:

It’s as cosmopolitan as Europe gets after London, with towering skyscrapers as far as the eyes can see, manmade parks nestled amid the concrete jungle that will evoke your fondest memories of Manhattan, and a thriving social scene only a true global capital can offer.

The visiting nomad may wonder how exactly Warsaw turned out this way when many of its counterparts are, you know, more on the quaint side of things, but the truth is, much of the historical city was destroyed by bombing in World War II.

Boom. Gone. Literally razed to the ground and rebuilt anew from the 50s onwards.

That’s why, in strolling modernism-dominated Warsaw today, you get more ‘America’ vibes than you do ‘Europe’––except it’s kept the walkability, the living standards, and (at least some) of the centuries-old culture.

Old Town Warsaw, a reconstruction of the former medieval center, boasts a high concentration of cafes and pastry shops where nomads are more than welcome to sit and unwind for a while (you may even be able to spot the odd 14th-century structure that survived the bombing).

In Mokotów, however, it’s all about the shopping centers, including one of Warsaw’s busiest at Galeria Mokotów, and the riotous nightlife: Puławska Street is where you’ll find all of the trendiest cocktail bars and brewpubs in town.

Over in Bielany, a more laid-back, calm district on the banks of the scenic Vistula River, nomads get to enjoy peaceful riverside walks and abundant green spaces, and let’s not forget offbeat Powiśle, famous for the quirky art galleries and bistro scene.

As you might have guessed, despite its amazingness that would put it on a par with all of Western Europe’s grandest city breaks, life in Warsaw costs $2,812 per month, as reported by Nomad List, and the big plus is safety:

You’d maybe expect a city as big––1.7 million residents––to be awash with crime and other deep-seated urban problems, but that certainly doesn’t apply to Warsaw, where harm is unlikely to come to you walking alone at night as a woman, and violent crime is (mostly) unheard-of.

Murphy’s law once stated that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, but this doesn’t change the fact that safety levels in Warsaw are higher, and thus your risk of being affected by crime is subsequently lower.

Tbilisi, Georgia

The rising star of Eurasia, Georgia’s Tbilisi is an ancient queen famous for its eclectic architecture, comprising periods of Persian, medieval, Imperial Russian and socialist influence, picturesque Old Town, and most recently, for reinventing itself as a nomad hub:

At present, it’s the highest-charting city in Europe on Nomad List, and to the uninformed onlooker, this might seem a bit surprising considering Georgia’s relative anonymity, but we’re here to shed some light on it:

Unlike the namesake U.S. state, this country is not exactly associated with peaches, as much as it is with wine and centuries-old Orthodox churches.

As for Tbilisi itself, it’s proof that you can have one foot in Europe and another in Asia and get the best of both worlds.

It has a distinctly European feel about it, with wide boulevards lined by stately palatial complexes and ornate building facades, and your usual landmark squares and fairytale castle on a hill, but as nomads have been glad to report, price-wise it’s, well, on a par with Central Asia.

A modest meal in a cheap downtown restaurant will cost you $10, or the equivalent in Georgian lari, whereas a more elaborate dinner for two in a chic restaurant up the high-end Bambis Rigi will probably run you up a reasonable $44.20.

As for Airbnbs, monthly rentals in Tbilisi have definitely become pricier in the last couple of years owing to the influx of nomads––and Russians and Ukrainians fleeing the conflict in Eastern Europe––but there are still apartments for a surprisingly-affordable $665 – $745 per month on Airbnb.

Tbilisi’s unrivaled cafe scene is yet another compelling factor for remote workers. Places like Fabrika, Coffee LAB, and Lui Coffee cater to an international crowd and are well-equipped to host English-speaking guests.

Last but certainly not least, most nomads–and certainly Americans–can stay a whole year in Tbilisi visa-free, thanks to Georgia’s generous open-visa policy.

Learn more about it here.

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Europe is like a magnet for Americans, especially in the summer months when, in some hot spots, it can feel like the American tourists outnumber the locals.  

And it’s easy to understand why. Europe crams so many cultures, cuisines, and historical attractions into a relatively small geographic space that it makes the perfect travelers’ playground.  

But travelers-in-the-know are avoiding the crowds and heat of Europe in the summer, and visiting during the winter months instead.  

The atmosphere is different, the vibe more relaxed, and, dare I say, tourists are welcomed more warmly, too.  

So where are they going? According to research by Allianz, these are the top 5 most popular European destinations for U.S. travelers this winter:  

5. Dublin, Ireland  

The popularity of Dublin as a winter vacation destination has exploded this year, jumping to 5^th most popular destination from last year’s position as 7th most popular.  

If you’ve always imagined getting cozy by the roaring fire of a traditional Irish pub, then winter is the perfect time to do it.  

And although the weather can be a little dreary, the longer nights and shorter days means that the nightlife in Dublin in the winter months is exceptional. For example, St Patrick’s Cathedral hosts live music and gigs throughout November, and the 3Olympia Theater dedicates itself to comedy in January.

If you’re looking for a little festive cheer then from October 24 ‘til January 5, Dublin Zoo will host its famous Wild Lights Nights.  

This is a spectacular display with illuminated installations that you can enjoy as you move between the enclosures of the zoo. Entry costs 24.50 euros ($26) per person.  

4. Rome, Italy  

The Eternal City is one of the most popular cities in Europe during the summer months, with local authorities even introducing a ticket system to visit the Trevi Fountain in a bid to control the crowds.  

But in the winter the crowds are gone and you can explore this living museum at your leisure. Temperatures are mild and you’ll find there are plenty of sunny days too.  

The culture, architecture, and cuisine that the city is famous for are just as enjoyable in the winter as in the summer – perhaps more so. But the winter months also have their own unique charm.  

Between December and February you can visit the Grinzing Village at Piazza Adriana and enjoy outdoor ice skating with a festive feel. There’s no need to pre book, you can just turn up!  

On January 5 and 6 the Romans celebrate the legend of Befana, the witch who brings gifts. This is a great time to be in the city as there’s a carnival and a parade of over 100 people dressed in period costume.  

3. Madrid, Spain 

Madrid is one of the best Spanish cities to visit in winter. Crisp with a chill in the air and clear blue skies you can top up your vitamin D and explore this fascinating hot spot.  

During November and December Madrid boasts Christmas markets, pop up ice skating rinks, and ornate nativity scenes.

Don’t miss the Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor, which has been attracting visitors since the 17th century.  

If you want to escape from cold or rain, head into the Prado Museum. One of the most fascinating galleries in Europe for art lovers, you can find pieces by Goya, Velázquez  , and El Greco here. From October 15 – February 6 there is a special exhibition dedicated to the work of Reubens. 

General admission costs 15 euros ($16) per person.  

2. Paris, France 

If you’re hoping to visit Paris without breaking the bank then winter is the best time to choose. Hotel prices drop considerably.

The weather is cold, and often wet, but the city is still charming and the crowd level is much lower too.  

From November onwards, the city is sprinkled with Christmas trees, lights, and decorations. On rainy days take the opportunity to explore the art in the Louvre or the Palace of Versailles. 

If you love to shop then visit in January for Les Soldes. My favorite time to be in Paris! Unlike in the U.S. or the UK when stores seem to have permanent sales, in France there are only 2 official sale periods. The first of these runs from Janaury 10 – February 6 and is a great time to bag a bargain!  

1. London, England 

It should come as no surprise that London is the most popular European destination for U.S. travelers this winter.

London was also the most popular European destination for U.S. travelers last winter!  

I’ve mentioned before that winter is my favorite time of year to visit London. The incredible light displays, festive atmosphere, and the chill in the air all create a wonderful experience. 

Some of the best things to do in London in winter include visiting the museums and galleries, wandering along the South Bank to see the lights, and for a taste of Christmas visit the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. This opens from November 21 ‘til January 5 and entry tickets cost from £5 ($6) with additional charges for activities such as ice skating.  

For traditional Christmassy foods, take a walk to Borough Market. This is London’s oldest and largest food market, and although it does have a reputation for being overrun with tourists (especially in the summer) the quality of the food here is excellent.  

Like Dublin, London in winter is a great place to cozy up in a pub with a pint. Try the Grazing Goat in Marylebone or the The Anglesea Arms by Ravenscourt Park. This has an open panelling and roaring fire, creating an authentic British pub feel.  

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