18-day Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy Itinerary Help

AnesthesiaWannabe, Welcome. I think I would be anesthetized by spending 15 days out of 18 on trains or in train stations. Distances seem short on the map, but it does take a lot of time (not just the actual travel time) to move around, especially in the mountains. There really needs to some severe cutting back on what's reasonable to accomplish in that time frame, or you wont actually have time to see or experience anything. You've linked a lot of major destinations, but spend practically no time in any of them.

My first take: I'd start by cutting Vienna, Munich, Interlaken (short ride to Lauterbrunnen), Mainz (short ride up to the Rhine towns), Naples, Positano. Maybe re-route south from the Rhine to Swizerland, over to Salzburg, down to Venice and over to Rome. Add days to Venice, Rome, Salzburg, Lauterbrunnen.

It's good that you are seeking help from experienced travelers. With that itinerary, you will mostly just be seeing Europe from the train window. Every time you change locations, you lose half a day for checking in and out, not even counting train time. You may be looking at group tours that move at this pace, but they have lots of experience in the logistics and people to handle them for you.

No one knows what Covid will be doing in the future, but right now you would have to meet the requirements of 4 different countries. You are smart to fly into one city and out of another.

By the time you check in and out of hotels and take the train from Positano to Rome, you will have very little time in Rome. Pick the 6 places you most want to see and then people can provide more useful information.

For a 23-year-old I think this itinerary is ambitious but totally doable! I wouldn't advise this itinerary for a person in his 50s like me, but you've probably got way more energy than most of us.

Still, there are some inefficiencies in what you posted which can be easily fixed. Scratch Interlaken and stay the extra night in Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen is only 20 minutes from Interlaken, so one night in Interlaken is not worth the hassle. Not much of interest there, anyway.

Naples/Positano are too far out of the way, especially since you've got almost no time in Rome in the itinerary. Rome should take priority over Naples. So, go from Venice to Rome, possibly via air.

Normally when someone suggests a trip that covers a lot of territory in a little bit of time, I say; each to their own. But this one even defies that attitude. Oh, and you wanted cheap? Switzerland isnt cheap. Also, dont suppose trains are drastically cheaper than flights. Sometimes they are only marginally cheaper.

Let me suggest a compromise.

1. Fly into Frankfurt at 7:00AM, train to Mainz, rest and recover from jet lag
2. Morning train to Bingen, Rhine River cruise from Bingen to St Goar, Train to Bacharach
3. Bacharach, train to Munich
4. Munich
5. Munich, train to Salzburg
6. Salzburg
7. Salzburg, morning train to Hallstatt
8. Hallstatt, late train to Vienna
9. Vienna all day
10. Vienna all day
11. Vienna to Venice on Ryan Air evening flight (about 1:30 and under $100)
12. Venice
13. Venice evening or overnight train to Rome
14. Rome
15. Rome
16. Rome
17. Day 18: Morning flight from Rome to U.S.

That is one day shorter, so pick a stop to stay longer. Or spend a day in Florence on the way to Rome. I know it skips Switzerland, but it just seemed too much to try and do it all.

Of course this skips Budapest so its no good at all.

The easiest way for me to pare down an itinerary and cover what is important to me is to create a spreadsheet with columns for morning/afternoon/evening. Write down each day on a line, look up the actual train details to find out exactly how long it will take to reach the next destination, i.e. 8:40 am train from Venice (Venezia) to Naples (Napoli) arrives at 2:03pm. By the time you get from the train station, check into your hotel and start to wander the neighborhood, the morning & afternoon columns are already filled. So that leaves you the evening in Naples. Do that with the rest of your days. Look at your idea list of what you were wanting to do in each location. Start filling those into the empty spots on the spreadsheet and add extra days, as needed, to put everything you wanted to do into the spreadsheet.

Now that you have the whole picture from the spreadsheet, you can begin to weigh your options and pull out locations that aren’t such a priority, leaving the activities that are most important to you. And that will give you your 18 days. Just as a point of reference, I have traveled a lot in Europe and move around quickly. I aim for train travel of 2 hours - max. 3 hours every couple of days, so that I am maximizing my time doing things and minimizing my time on transportation.

Oh, where are you flying from and what airline?

Either Switzerland or Munich are out of your way and make for backtracking. Personally, I would leave Munich out. Basel is also "meh" in my view.

I would tweak as follows:
1. Take train to Bacharach rather than Mainz and keep it as a base. It won't exhaust you more than stopping in Mainz, and luggage is awkward on the Rhine ships.
2. Bacharach
3. Train to Lauterbrunnen area.
4. Lauterbrunnen
5. Lauterbrunnen
6. Lauterbrunnen
7. Train to Salzburg
8. Salzburg
9. Salzburg to Hallstatt
10. Hallstatt to Vienna
11. Vienna
12. Vienna to Venice
13. Venice
14. Venice
15. Venice to Rome
16. Rome
17. Rome
18. Fly out

It is in the same vein as James E above, but I kept Switzerland and removed Munich instead.

I suggest reducing your number of places that you plan to visit. You need more than one full day in Munich and a fraction of a day in Salzburg. Also, Rome deserves 4-5 days,

As a first step I would add a day to the Rhine, eliminate Vienna and Switzerland, visit Hallstatt from Salzburg rather than overnighting there. Day train from Salzburg to Venice. Add time to Venice. Eliminate Positano and stay those days in Rome.

I don't mean to stereotype one profession, but it seems likely that you will be able to afford to visit Europe again in your lifetime - if not to travel to multiple international conferences in your specialty? Have you looked at our host's free travel tips, top left menu?
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips

Your itinerary is just impossible, even for a young person. You won't see even half of the things you may think you are going to see, and you'll spend hundreds of hours booking rooms and train seat reservations. Did you read some obsolete books that talk about going to the TI office from the train to book a room after you arrive?? In summer high season that's a terrible idea, and I'd never do it out of season either.

During Covid, you have to be ready for different rules in different countries. But for time reasons, I'd pick only two or three of your countries, and stay at least two, preferably three nights in some major cities. I've spent over three weeks (of nights ... ) in Paris, and I'm not close to repeating sights (except my favorites.) It's not true that Austria and Germany are "alike", but they have enough overlap that if you want two countries, they could be France-Spain, Germany-Netherlands, or Austria-Italy. But there's nothing brilliant about those pairs, there are lots of other choices.

My wife and I made our first trip to Europe as a week in London and a week in Paris. The next summer we went to Italy for 15 nights, Rome-Florence-Reggio Emilia-Venice.

Welcome to the forum, AW. About those first two days... they might be somewhat unbalanced right now. And I think you might actually have UNDERplanned your time a bit.

• Fly into Frankfurt at 7:00AM, train to Mainz, rest and recover from jet lag
• Morning train to Bingen, Rhine River cruise from Bingen to St Goar, Train to Bacharach

Are you itching to see Mainz? If so, great, you are the rare traveler, but if not, then with your 7 am arrival time, and to spend your time more efficiently - just travel the extra 20-30 minutes or so beyond Mainz to BINGEN. The Bingen > St. Goar cruise takes only 1.5 hours; If you get out of FRA by 8:30 you will have plenty of time to get to Bingen in time for the 10:30 cruise (well, we hope this year offers a 10:30 cruise) so you'll hit St. Goar by noon.

The whole point of your jet-lag day is to try to keep awake until early evening so that your crack of dawn doesn't happen at midnight. So once you are in St. Goar, get yourself some lunch, then pay a visit to Rheinfels Castle. You should not allow yourself to leave the Rhine without touring a castle, and this is the one castle you have a good shot at seeing.

For convenience and for the superior river scenery, I would book a room right there in St. Goar. Drop your bags when you get off the boat.

DAY 2: I think you could make it to Munich by 9pm or so...

• If you really DID want to tour Mainz, catch a train there in the morning. Mainz to Munich is 6 hours. You could leave just before 3 pm and be in Munich by 9 pm.

• If Mainz ISN'T important, you might want to break up the long train ride to Munich somewhere else. Spend an hour or two in Bacharach on the way; make a stopover in Würzburg, home of the Residenz (UNESCO World Heritage site,) for lunch and a few sights. Würzburg station has lockers for your bags.

While I completely agree with stephen that you could ADD time to the Rhine, you have so many other destinations in mind that it's more practical to shed some time there.

The big question in my mind is what is your travel goal? If you just want a flavor of these cities and countries for future trips, I say go for it the way you have it planned. But, as Cala said, you'll be seeing Europe mostly from a train seat.

Your cities are really spread out.

Pick only 2-3 countries and they should be close to one another. Like Germany and Austria or Switzerland and Italy. Pick your locations and number of days.

Germany...Bacharach Cruise, Nuremberg, Munich

Austria...Hallstatt, Salzburg, Vienna

Czechia-Prague

or

Germany...Frankfurt, Bacharach Cruise

Switzerland...Basel, Luzern, Lauterbrunnen

Italy...Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome

Have a great time.

AW23, Welcome to the Forum!

Your life for the next 7 years: rush, rush, rush, rush, STRESS!, rush, rush, rush, rush, rush.

I understand the desire to see as much as you can, but maybe it's worth making that first trip to Europe go at a more relaxed pace given what lies ahead? You definitely are going to make it back to Europe... especially if you don't go all MD crazy and buy a big house and expensive toys that you technically may be able to afford but that cut into your ability to have intellectually and culturally rich experiences.

As you can tell, it would be virtually impossible to execute your original trip. My question is whether you've yet bought your airfares? There are possibly better cities to fly into. Are you really taking a bohemian beer drinking type of trip as I did when I was under 30?

For young people, my favorite cities are Munich (of course), Prague, Vienna and Budapest (and their Ruin Bars). I've had some great (and wild) nights in Venice as well. I would fly into Munich and take in the cities in that order. Then like James E. said fly down to Venice for a couple of nights and take the train to Rome.

Every city I'm suggesting is not just a good place to visit. They're all GREAT European cities each worthwhile for a week's visit. It's a shame you're trying to hit the highlights. You can easily overodse on so much art, culture, food and history in all these cities.

To learn cities quickly, we take Free Walking Tours where the guides work for tips. Then we go back at night and take one of their Pub Crawl Tours or Nightlife Tours where they take you to reasonably priced restaurants, beer halls and hangouts for young people. The night tours are simply a ball and well worth taking.

It was exhausting reading that itinerary. You will not even know what day it is or where you are. Crazy.
The first mantra of any traveler should be you can't see it all.
That is my only comment. Others have tweaked your plan, but that was only a tweak. You need an overhaul.

Must have missed this thread those first few days, but my comments would be the same as others ... too much to enjoy unless your idea of a good trip is riding the rails ...

The easiest way for me to pare down an itinerary and cover what is important to me is to create a spreadsheet with columns for morning/afternoon/evening.

For me, this is the best way to see how to budget time, knowing you'll have to take into account the getting to and from the train station, checking in/out of hotels, wait time before departure, etc... anything more that a few days and the trip gets a spreadsheet ... I've also got columns for the things I want to see / do, costs and entry / closing times.

I confess I did not read all the replies so forgive if I am repeating. I would not take a river cruise. You are 23. You dont want to see it all from a boat deck. You can train to and rent a bike in Bacharach, then ride along the riverside to St Goar. My daughter and I rented a bike in Bacharach, rode north to a ferry crossing (its more like a barge), locked the bikes there and ferried across to a train station, where we caught the train a few stops to Marksburg castle. We walked up to the castle from the train station. It was such a cool castle. When done we walked back to the train station, went south to the barge crossing, back across the river, retrieved our bikes and rode back to bacharach, where we hiked up into the hills in the vineyards to the hostel to look around. Such a fun day. We had planned to take a river cruise, and Im so glad we didnt. When I saw the cruise going up thew river I thought, they're so far away from all the activity and sites right here along the bike path. Our b&b told us where to get bikes (from a guy's garage, it turned out!)

In general I think you're trying to do too much, and I am an aggressive traveler. I think you're selling yourself short. Not to mention, you'll be able to take many more trips to Europe in the future, Dr. Congrats on med school

I started to respond but then realized the OP first posted this 3 weeks ago and has not made another appearance since then. So I think I'll hold off.

Agree with James' post

Vienna is incredible and well worth a few days. I spent a month there when I was your age and loved it. Other than not agreeing that Vienna should be cut, I agree that your itinerary has far too many transit days. Try to choose fewer cities, and spend at least 3 nights in some of them, alternating with shorter visits for the rest.

First time poster and has not come back since posting in early February.

I'm going to echo the pro Vienna sentiment above. I've been to Salzburg 4 times and Vienna 5 times and would pick Vienna over Salzburg 7 days a week. Salzburg is a lovely little city; Vienna is an imperial capital in the same category as Rome and Paris. Or if not quite on the Rome/Paris level, Vienna is super user friendly. If all you are doing in Salzburg is seeing the basics, you can do that in a day. Vienna though is essentially similar to going to Paris - you can go pretty deep.

AW33 congrats on med school, well done! Smart move planning a trip before you are buried in hard work for the next 8 years or so. And then family maybe, big purchases, could be a minute before you can get back to Europe. As such it's good you are looking for advice; many solid suggestions so far.

I'm a 54 year old professor at an R1 university who's planning a 14th summer trip to Europe this coming summer. First trip when I was 20 years old college drop out. I've also travelled extensively and led a number of study abroad programs in South America. I have a pretty good idea what makes for enjoyable travel for young people.

First: solo or with a group? If so how many? The answers to these questions make a difference.

You don't rest away jetlag. You active away jet lag. People debate whether a nap that first day is a good or bad idea (I'm agnostic - solid result both ways for me), but being outside moving around in the daylight gets you over jetlag and resets your bio clock faster than anything else. Tire your body out moving around on day one, sleep better night one, get on local time quicker. Get to somewhere you want to explore and get out there. Walk up to some castles maybe.

Plan a touring trip like the one you're planning with a "go deep/short blitz" strategy. Do three nights in a couple/few places you want to explore extensively; roll through other places with a quick look around. Don't feel like you need to cut out a full day for any given place if you wonder how to fill it, or if you are taking away from being able to spend more time somewhere you want to go deeper.

Hallstatt is a dead end that will take quite a bit of time relative to the couple postcard quality views you'll get and the throngs of tourists you'll battle. Save it. If I was going to stop at one place between Salzburg and Vienna it would be the superlative Melk Abbey, which could be argued the greatest high Baroque site on the planet. Gold leaf and marble absolute madness, very beautiful and interesting.

Hallstatt is in the foothills, and the Dachstein is a big beautiful peak, but it's behind big foothill ridge from Hallstatt. You can't really see it. You could see it from Gosausee, but that's an even more inconvenient dead end than Hallstatt. If you want an alpine experience that's close to your current itinerary think about Berchtesgaden. Close to Salzburg, Berchtesgaden has views of (and access to) high mountains, a crazy beautiful ultra-clean lake, and lots of 20th century history (it was Hitler's mountain headquarters, chosen because the raw alpine beauty and traditional culture fit his idealized notion of what being German was. Nonsense of course, but he did pick a gorgeous spot). If you'd like ride a gondola to hike among the edelweiss, I'd find two night to go there. Many other alpine spots are good too, and not so far from Munich.

Figure out if you want to meet fellow travelers or not. If so, plan your trip around the more social youth hostels/spots, particularly in the "go deep" places. Much easier to meet people if you'll be around for a couple of days. I met dozens of great people and had dozens of crazy, fun experiences of all sorts when I was single and on the close to the ground backpacker circuit. If you'd rather keep more to yourself that's fine too, but know that you'll have far more options to hang with people if you aren't always on the move and staying in hotels alone.

Traveling from place to place doesn't connect points in the trip. It's all the trip. You likely won't do this, but if I were you I'd skip Salzburg, head to Passau instead (cool Baroque city in its own right) rent a bike and ride the Danube to Vienna, or at least to Krems and then train to Vienna). The ride is chock full of worthy cities and towns along the way, and you see country life too. By the time you arrive down river in Vienna you understand Austria. 4 nights, worth it, won't be a blur in memory.

Lastly for now, don't short shrift Rome. Decide if you want to make a go deep node on your trip or not, and then if so give it some days. Study up on the aspects of Rome you are most interested in ahead of time, then geek out on all of those things. And also then have time to drink in the contemporary culture and life. You don't want to just buzz in to Rome for 24 hours. Venice on the other hand holds up well to a shorter visit - you can go deep there but you can also get rewardingly immersed in its unique cityscape for a day.