European Cities Wheel
This wheel picks a random European city, which is the fastest way to settle a city-break shortlist that has been open in six browser tabs for a month.
Twenty cities on the wheel, mixing the obvious weekend destinations with several that are just as good and considerably cheaper.
City breaks are the trip type most vulnerable to over-research. Flights, weather, whether it will be too busy in June — all of it is knowable, none of it is decisive, and the tabs multiply. At some point the comparing is the holiday you are having instead of the holiday.
Put the shortlist on the wheel and spin. Every option survived your research, so there is no wrong answer left, only an unmade decision.
The less obvious entries are there deliberately. Ljubljana, Tallinn, Thessaloniki and Porto give you the same weekend for noticeably less money and fewer queues, and they rarely get picked voluntarily because they are not the ones people already have opinions about.
European Cities Wheel — questions
Should I use my own shortlist?
Yes, if you have one. Every city that survived your research is an acceptable outcome, which is exactly the situation a draw is for — there is no wrong answer left, only an unmade decision.
Why include the less famous cities?
Because they give you a similar weekend for less money and fewer queues, and they never get picked voluntarily — people gravitate to the cities they already have opinions about.
Can I use it for a geography lesson?
Yes. Spin a city and have the class name the country, the river it sits on, or the language spoken there. Turn on remove-after-spin to give each student a different city.