1 week in Europe for beginners

That will be such a special time for you together! I have taken both of my adult daughters separately to Europe, and the memories are wonderful!

First, a question. Can you possibly make this a 2-week trip? That is a long way to fly and expensive to just have one week in Europe. If you can make this a 2-week trip, I think we may be able to give you answers much more in alignment to your wishes. A week is just too short for all of the requests.

For a 7-8 day trip, I would fly into London and home from Paris. Purchase multi-city tickets on one reservation- not two 1-way tickets. I would spend three days in London, take the Chunnel to Paris and spend three more full days in Paris. Take one day-trip at each location, if you wish, although you will already he pushed to even try to do everything you want in this short time at each of those two cities.

Another trip could be Switzerland/Italy which at a minimum should be two weeks.

Europe's destinations are huge and full of sights and attractions. So, with 7-8 days stay on London and Paris if this is priority. And there are also other attractive cities such as Copenhagen, Vienna, Rome, Lisbon, ...

With just a week and London and Paris being the priorities, stick to those two.

Trying to cram more places in will not be 'better'.

Fly into Paris, 3 nights. Fly to London or take the train. 4 nights. Fly out of London. This is called "multi-city" on scheduling apps. It avoids the backtrack of returning to the city that you flew into. Please don't add another city unless you can add some days. If you can add 3 more days, go to Budapest.

For seven to eight days, stick to two cities. Traveling between cities takes time.

As suggested, Fly into London and return from Paris or vice-versa. Take the Eurostar train between London and Paris in either direction. It will be much faster than flying as you go city center to city center. Just be aware of the check in rules for Eurostar especially timing.

Trying to cram another city or two in a one week schedule will mean you see little of anyplace.

Do those 7-8 days include travel to and from Europe?

reddishfam, you've told us about your daughter. What about you? Have you been to Europe? Where and how long ago?

I'd pick London OR Paris and just do one or the other (and I'd pick Paris). Both of those are full of more than a week's worth of things to see and do. Add in the flight from the US eating up much of the first day (airport, check-in, jetlag) and the potential transfer day between London<->Paris eating up another day, and you'd be shortchanging yourselves by trying to see both places (let alone Switzerland or Italy).

For me, Paris + Versailles is a great week and a perfect "dip your toe" in European travel option.

Rick has an itinerary for Paris: https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/paris-itinerary
...and London: https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/england/london-itinerary