Planning Timeline for Spring 2019 Trip

I’m planning a trip for April/May 2019 also. I am doing a little preliminary looking at rentals now, but won’t start booking until November or December—when I get back from Paris.

I, too, am planning for this time frame. I probably won't do airfare for a few more months but as soon as I have my dates organized I'll go ahead and do hotels BUT I've got specific places I want to stay. I'll start looking at train fares about 6 months out. I can never remember if the Thalys trains are 4 or 6 months ahead so I'll start at 6 and then book when I can to get it cheap.

I've booked a Road Scholar tour for Oct 2019 and as soon as the 2018 dates pass, I'll go ahead and book my London hotel, then book the pre-night at the first tour hotel.

If your trip includes travel on the Eurostar, I'd be ready to book that 6 months out.

This week I booked my May RS tour because I needed to get that set up before booking the rest of my trip. The flights on AA I wanted were no longer available and others that I didn’t like the connection on had gone up $300. I was able to find workable flights on Delta. I booked hotels too because they were quickly filling. I got the last room at one hotel (thru their website) and lost out on another hotel I wanted.

People may not agree with me but I say don’t wait. I’d rather pay a tad bit more and be reassured that I can get from here to there and back and have a place to sleep.

Oh, my...I hadn't even thought about booking trains yet. I thought one simply purchased passes upon arrival. I haven't even begun to put together my itinerary so don't know what trains I'll need or when. I'm glad I'm not behind on flights and some other details, but I think I need to nail down my dates and get on it! Luckily, I've purchased about six books on Paris and France (including Rick's), so I'm well supplied. Thank you both!

You've still got what, 8 months before your trip? Plenty of time. No point in booking anything until you have your itinerary planned out. After all, how can you book hotels or trains if you don't know where you'll be each day of your trip? So nail down your itinerary first. In the mean time, you can set up fare alerts on a couple of sites like Google Flights or Kayak to alert you to price drops on your preferred flights. I rarely book hotels more than 6 months out, unless I really, really, really want a particular hotel on specific dates in high season.

Advance purchase of attraction tickets or passes can wait till the new year (eiffel tower tickets can't be bought til 3 months out). Some things like the Paris Museum Pass can wait til you get there. All this is in Rick's guide books.

As for trains and passes, I'd spend quite a bit of time researching the pros and cons of passes vs just paying cash for tickets. The man in seat 61 https://www.seat61.com is a very good place to start.

I agree with CJean...do some research before you jump on ANY kind of train pass. They may not be right for you. You may be able to get really reasonable fares by booking well ahead - like Eurostar. That train has airline pricing so buying early will get you the least expensive prices. Other countries require a mandatory reservation fee for pass-holders which can drive your price up.

You'll want to do more research before you start booking. Do look at the Man in seat 61 website and read his stuff on passes and maybe purchase Rick's Europe Through the Back door which is a general travel handbook. It will teach you some of the basics you need.

I'd also advise posting an itinerary on here before you book airfare and train tickets. Many times 1st timers will try to move too fast and too far on their first trip because they want to see everything. You'll have a much better trip if you edit your wishlist. IF you want to go fast and far, I'd recommend Rick's 21 day Best of Europe tour. It's expensive, you need more than 3 weeks (if you are still working) but it gives you a huge taste of Europe!

I guess this is a case of what comes first, the chicken or the egg. In my case, it was a fabulous, I can't skip this price airfare that decided where I was going and the time was my spring break from school. I did my airfare first and will fill in the rest in the next few months.

Who knows. It depends to some extent on where you are going and if it's a popular time. 3 years ago I booked a B&B in a tiny Alsatian town in mid-March for a late June stay - more than 3 months in advance and I didn't get the room I wanted because it was already booked. OTOH if you try to book now or even before year-end, you may find that many smaller establishments haven't set their rates for next year yet.

France, outside of Paris, can be tricky because the schools close for a 2 week vacation in spring, around the time of your trip. About half the country is off for the "first" 2 weeks, then the rest of the country for the subsequent 2 weeks. Many families take time off then and travel to other parts of the country. Other Europeans do the same.

I don't know how early train tickets go on sale. Flights (if you mean within Europe) are available about a year in advance. Cheap tickets go first. It's either impossible or expensive to change flight and train tickets, so it's important to plan your route. Most hotel reservations are cancelable, but be sure to read the 'fine print.' Sometimes there's a non-refundable deposit.

Lastly, I never book my to/from Europe flights before I know my itinerary. I don't have constraints on my time, just my budget and bargain flights aren't offered from here. If you snag bargain flights, maybe it's worth grabbing them and locking into dates. And maybe if you have set dates and a specified number of days you can use, and you are sure what cities you want to fly into and out of, then buying transatlantic flights whenever the price looks right is a good idea.

Airfares are flaky. Sometimes there's not a lot of variation (unless you wait till the last month or two, which sometimes proves very costly if you want a non-stop flight on a route that offers mostly connections), but other times the fares seesaw all over the place, offering substantial savings. That can be the biggest single opportunity to keep costs down, so you should be trying to figure out where/when you want to fly and monitoring fares now. That way, you'll recognize a great deal if one crops up and can grab it.

Fares for long trips on express trains (TGVs, etc.) are highly variable, with the best deals on the most popular trains selling out quite early. This is the next-best opportunity to save money. Focus first on trying to pin down the longest trips so you'll be able to buy at the promotional rate when tickets initially go in sale. Those tickets will be non-refundable/non-changeable, so you must be certain of your travel date and time before purchasing. Fares on regional trains (TERs) do not vary, so you don't need to worry about short trips to small towns (such as along the Riviera).

I don't usually see huge variations in hotel rates unless I'm traveling during a major special event (and in that case, a sell-out is also possible). Unless you need a family room to accommodate more than two people, it's more a matter of having to settle for a place with less charm in a somewhat less central location, etc. There are travelers for whom lodging selection is A Very Big Deal. They will structure an entire trip around a lovely, special hotel or B& B. If you are one of those people, you cannot start looking too early. I am not that type of traveler, so for me the hotel bookings come last. However, I'd take a quick look at booking.com before buying train tickets, just to be sure a special event isn't driving up rates so much that I want to adjust my itinerary. You don't want to find out that the city is booked up after you've bought a non-refundable train ticket.

I suspect the majority of travelers book hotels before buying train tickets, but it takes a lot more time to figure out where you want to stay, and the cheapest train tickets may sell out while you're contemplating your hotel options.

Edited to add: A lot of hotels are probably available for booking now, whereas it's a bit early for most trains. I, personally, wouldn't make any non-refundable reservations or purchases until I had the airline ticket booked.

Lots of good advice and perspective in the posts above.

I often plan a trip only 2-3 months out, and I do just fine. Of course, I'm flying from New York, where the plethora of flights to Europe means I can often still get a good airfare at that time, and I'm usually visiting cities (larger or smaller, but not rural areas), which means that there will be hotel rooms available. I'm traveling alone, which gives me much more flexibility to pivot and change my plans if I can't get a hotel, train, etc.

I have missed the cheapest train fares, but have usually been able to get something in between that and the full price fares. I accept this as a consequence of not being ready to book the minute the trains became available, and of knowing that if I did book cheaper tickets and not use them, then I'm out the money entirely. (In other words, I'd rather pay €90 for a ticket I use, than €45 for one I have to throw away - plus the cost of a new ticket to replace it).

So, I think you are indeed "ahead of the planning curve."

We always book our flights early......either with FF points, 300+ days in advance to get the tickets or on a website with some great deals. Once those dates are in we book around them. Depends a lot on where you are going and when......we had on our bucket list to spend the night on Mont St Michel........good luck getting a room if you wait even 5-6 months in advance! There are so few available and tour groups get them first so wait by the phone as we did and jump when it opens and they are willing to take your dates. We have noticed that a lot of places are not willing to take reservations until a certain date so you have to wait until they are ready. I will always err on making plans too early rather than regretting that I missed something because I waited too late. We have a Prague, Hallstatt, Vienna, Budapest trip for next May 2019 and all of our hotel reservations were made a month ago along with our flights that were secured in June, 2018.

This is all so helpful. Thanks, everyone!

It think depends on where you are going and what you are booking. I usually book my airfare as soon as I know when I'm going or at least I start scouting airfares (it could take weeks to get a good fare). I just booked flights two weeks ago for a trip next June to Paris and Normandy (10 months prior). The 75th anniversary of D-day in next June when I'll be there, and most places to stay have been sold out for many months. So I booked my B&B in Ste.-Mère-Église two years prior. But my Paris accommodations will probably wait until this Winter, and trains a few months out. YMMV.

I am planning a Spain/France trip for the end of April/ beginning of May as well and I have booked all of my apartment rentals but tickets for attractions etc I plan on buying December/ January. I have google tracking some flights for me to notify me when the prices drop but haven't secured those yet. Glad to know I'm the only early-planner!