10 American and European Christmas vacation ideas from the movies

We planned two road trips through Europe, where you can experience two beautiful and very different landscapes, although both follow the coast.

New York is the setting of some of the most famous Christmas movies of all time! Miracle on 34th Street from 1947 is the charming story of a department store Santa Claus who might just be the real deal. You can still come and meet Santa at Macy’s in 2025, this year from November 28 up until Christmas Eve.

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York features famous locations like Rockefeller Center, where Kevin and his mom are reunited underneath the Christmas tree. There are also scenes at Central Park, a place that looks beautiful in the snow (you can even sled on Pilgrim Hill and Cedar Hill)!

The modern Christmas classic Elf also has scenes shot in Central Park, as well as Grand Central Station. Buddy the Elf also goes ice skating at the Rockefeller Center, which is open to skaters every winter from October until March 30, both daytimes and evenings.

Renting a car in New York City for two days would cost €104. We also looked into where visitors might like to stay and found The Marquee House in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan offers a Queen room with shared bathroom for €302. If you’re only staying the night, sharing a bathroom with other guests can be a handy way to bring costs down a little bit.

Cleveland, Ohio is where the 1983 hit A Christmas Story was filmed (along with some scenes in Ontario, Canada). This movie, based on the semi-autobiographical short stories of Jean Shepherd about his childhood, tells the story of a little boy’s Christmas with his family, friends and neighbors.

Cleveland settings include Public Square, where the parade was filmed, as well as the Parker family home. The house in the Tremont neighborhood where these scenes were shot has been lovingly restored to the way it appeared in the movie and is open to the public as a museum, where you can also buy movie memorabilia.

In Cleveland, it would cost €86 to rent a car for two days and €104 to stay the night at the Hampton Inn Cleveland-Downtown. Why not head down to Public Square for some ice skating, or go to see the light display in the botanical gardens?

Chicago, Illinois is where one of America’s most-loved festive films was made – Home Alone, in which Kevin McCallister, left alone by mistake at Christmas, defends his home from a break-in by a pair of bumbling burglars. As well as Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, scenes were filmed in the nearby village of Winnetka and the suburb of Oak Park.

Another festive favorite, slapstick comedy National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, was partly filmed in Chicago, with scenes filmed at Marshall Field & Co. department store and the John Hancock Center.

The Millennium Park is a great destination for holiday fun, with an ice rink and a beautiful Christmas tree. Renting a car in Chicago for two days would cost €86, and you can stay at Club Quarters Hotel Central Loop, Chicago for €113 a night.

This country has produced some really popular Christmas movies. Here are some ideas for December minibreaks based on the settings of some of the UK’s most popular festive flicks.

2003’s Love Actually is a UK classic, with an all-star ensemble cast coming together to tell the funny, romantic and poignant stories of 10 different people at Christmas time. It was largely filmed in London with scenes shot at Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair, Selfridges on Oxford Street, and on the pretty streets of Notting Hill, among other locations.

The touching romcom Last Christmas includes scenes filmed at Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus and the Thames Embankment.

Lastly, Paddington, the 2014 adaptation of the Paddington Bear children’s books, was filmed and set mostly in West London. While not set at Christmas time specifically, it takes place in winter. Scenes were filmed at London Paddington station, where the adorable title character makes his first appearance, as well as locations like The Natural History Museum and Portobello Road Market.

There’s lots to see in the UK capital over the festive season, with Christmas light displays and markets all over the city. Renting a car in London for two days would cost €31 and you can stay in the Courtyard by Marriott London City Airport for €129 a night.

Nativity!, made in 2009, was a hit that went on to become a whole series, set at the fictional St Bernadette's Primary School in Coventry. In the first movie, a teacher tries to impress a teacher at another school by saying Hollywood producers are coming to watch the school nativity play – the children are obviously thrilled and even though the truth comes out, everyone still comes together to put on the show of a lifetime. This cute comedy was filmed in many different locations in Coventry including the office building of The Coventry Evening Telegraph, Holy Family School and Babcake School.

Coventry is a charming city, half an hour’s drive from nearby Birmingham where you can pick up a car to rent for two days for €30. You can stay at Ramada Hotel & Suites by Wyndham Coventry for a night for €99. Coventry Cathedral has festive concerts throughout December, and the Christmas market this year has a Ferris Wheel.

The Holiday is another beloved Christmas rom-com – an American production, it was filmed partly in California and partly in the UK, as it tells the story of two women, American Amanda and English Iris, who decide to swap homes from Christmas for a change of scenery. While both are heartbroken at the start of the movie, they both meet someone new over the holidays.

Although the exterior of Iris’ country cottage was constructed for the film, this part of the movie was filmed partly in a real village, Shere in Surrey. This beautiful village is full of Tudor houses and has a long history of being used as a setting for films.

Pick up a rental car in nearby Guildford for €100 for your two-day break, and it’s only a 20-minute drive into Shere itself. Guildford Manor Hotel & Spa is two and a half miles from the center of the village, and it costs €101 to stay the night.

Across Europe, many different countries have their own Christmas classics! Here are just a few ideas for vacations based on the places these popular movies were made, from city breaks to a festive trip to the ski slopes.

This gorgeous building is Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, where some scenes from Three Wishes for Cinderella were filmed. This beloved European children’s Christmas movie was released in Czech as Tři oříšky pro Popelku and in German as Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel.

The 1973 retelling of the fairytale included some scenes filmed in German locations like Moritzburg Castle and some scenes filmed in Prague, Švihov and the Bohemian Forest.

Moritzburg Castle is half an hour’s drive away from Dresden – this lovely city is a great base for a day trip out to see the castle, and the city also has a very popular Christmas market. You can rent a car for two days for €96, and you could stay in Motel One Dresden - Palaisplatz for €235 a night.

Warsaw is the setting for 2011’s Letters to Santa, originally released in Polish as Listy do M. It’s a romantic comedy that tells intertwining stories about 10 different people falling in love at Christmas time, like Love Actually. Praised for its emotional depth, it was such a big hit that there have been five sequels to date.

Letters to Santa was filmed in various Warsaw city centre locations, including the Arkadia mall — the production company had to film at night when it was closed, with hundreds of extras creating the atmosphere of a busy shopping center on Christmas Eve.

Warsaw has several Christmas markets that visitors at this time of year might also like to check out, including one popular market in the Old Town. You can rent a car for €26 and stay the night at Motel One Warsaw-Chopin for €107.

Christmas Vacation, originally released in Italy as Vacanze di Natale, is a 1983 comedy that kicked off the ‘cinepanettoni’ series. There are now more than a dozen of these movies set around Christmas time, with farcical, slapstick tales about groups of friends, family and couples going on vacation. But the original is set at home in Italy, in the popular skiing town of Cortina d'Ampezzo, where two families from Rome are staying for the holidays.

The movie was mostly filmed in the village and ski resort of Cortina and on the surrounding slopes. Because Cortina d'Ampezzo is quite remote, the best place to pick up your rental car might be Venice, which will also be beautiful at this time of year (and much less busy than in the summer) – why not check out the Christmas markets?

Renting a car for two days from Venice will cost €13. After a two-hour drive, you’ll arrive at the resort. You can stay at Hotel Columbia & Spa for €270 a night.

Our final European Christmas movie is Santa & Cie, a Belgian-French co-production from 2017 that has charmed viewers around the world. When all 92,000 of Santa’s elves fall ill, he has to make his way to modern-day Paris to try and buy enough Vitamin C to get them all feeling better again in time for Christmas.

This adorable family comedy has many scenes filmed around the French capital, including iconic locations like the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which every Christmas is lit up with beautiful lights – well worth a visit! In the movie, Santa’s sleigh also lands at the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret at Place Blanche.

Parisian department stores pull out all the stops at Christmas, so why not head to Galeries Lafayette to see the 16-meter-high tree and window displays? You can even ice skate on the rooftop terrace!

Renting a car in Paris for two days would cost €61.46, and you can stay at Hôtel du Pont Neuf right in the city center for €137.

If our Christmas movie vacation guide has you feeling festive and you’re planning a December trip, we’d love to help. As a global car rental comparison site, we make it easy to find and compare options in over 145 countries around the world.