2-3 Month Europe Itinerary ©

The cities you wish to see sound reasonable to me. My question is in what order do you plan to visit these cities? If you can set them in order, then you will give yourself an idea of how long it will take to go from point A to point B. After inserting time for travel you will see how many days are left for you to make day visits from each "base camp".

Have fun!

I sometimes travel in the evening instead of early morning. After a day of sightseeing, it's nice to relax on the train. Pick up some food and drink beforehand and have a picnic dinner too.

Awesome, thanks for your advice/help!

Does anyone know a way to do the following locations, but ending up in a more centrally located airport? Flying out of Napals home is going to break the bank for me, and It's not doable, aha.

Would backtracking to Rome help your flight situation? Also, hope you don't omit Florence!

I prefer to travel in the morning, also, in case there's a delay, especially with a connection (or more).

Overall it looks good. I would compare the cost of the global pass with the individual country passes or point-to-point tickets, sometimes the all-Europe passes are not worth it, especially if you need to book and pay for reservations separately from the pass purchase.

@ jonah,

"Does anyone know a way to do the following locations, but ending up in a more centrally located airport? Flying out of Napals home is going to break the bank for me, and It's not doable, aha."

im not going to to your homework for you since you appear to already have done most of it anyway.

But think about going directly from Venice to Naples via Rome or maybe fly from Venice to Naples and train to Rome. Again i will let you do your own homework.

just a personal comment. I want to do the Venice, Rome cities next year, but as you have found out, flying out a city to some other part of the world isnt as easy as you would like. For me and where i need to go, i found that its easier to fly out of Rome, so i will be leaving anything North of Rome out of my trip next year.

good luck and happy trails.

Where is home?

What time of year are you targeting?

Did you take a look at multi-city flights, i.e. fly to Barcelona and home from somewhere else? Those can be close to the same price as round trip to and from the same city. They will be much cheaper than buying 2 individual tickets to and from different cities.

Did you check into Milan as a departure city? Some people on this forum have mentioned cheaper flights to/from there than anywhere else in Italy.

We fly standby between the US and Europe. We discovered in early November that we simply could not get out of Rome to Atlanta or NYC, but that the planes going from Milan to NYC were almost empty! So we took the train to the Milan airport. The whole trip, Rome airport to Roma Termini, to Milano Centrale to Milan airport took about 5 hours, including the transfers from and to the local trains. The Rome to Milan part was on a Frecciarossa that hit 250+ kmph on a regular basis.

Note that flights from Zurich to NYC were also almost empty. By adjusting a bit, you could make Zurich your last stop before leaving if flying home from there is cheaper than from Naples or Rome and you don't want to fly out of Milan.

Note: my experience is not that useful if you don't live in the US or maybe Canada or probably if you plan to travel in high season.

Since your schedule seems to allow a day when traveling from one location to another I would suggest that you take the train from Venice to Naples and then from Naples to Rome to end your trip there and fly out of Rome. I looked up flights from Venice to Naples and the cost is comparable to the train but don't really save any time and the train is much more convenient.

I agree that Zurich is somewhat convenient for day trips to other places but I don't think I would spend my time in Switzerland there, I'd much prefer Lucerne and/or the Berner Oberland. Of course, this depends on what time of year you are going on this trip.

Do as others advise and price out the p2p tickets before settling on a global rail pass.

Sounds like a wonderful trip.

Unlike many posters who want to "hit" lots of far-flung cities for one or two days each, and ignore the time it takes to travel, you have enough total time to do each city justice, at least as a first visit. It's still an ambitious itinerary but less so for a young energetic person as I'm sure you are.

I agree with Ray and others that you might want to go to Naples before Rome, to improve your options for an "open jaw" flight home. I don't know the economics of rail passes, I understand that they're rarely cost-effective, but your trip might be one where a pass would save you money as well as providing the flexibility you'll need with an itinerary like this. Might be worth a little more to be able to stay an extra day in one city, or leave another a day early, depending on what you like, weather, etc.

There are two big omissions in your long list, to my mind, unfortunately on opposite ends of Europe: London and Budapest. But it would be better to miss these than to bite off more than you can chew. This surely won't be your last trip to Europe, so save something for later. And assume that you'll return to the cities you particularly like.

The only countryside you'll see will be flying by from a train window, but you might have trouble renting a car anyway due to age (not to mention big drop-off charges for crossing borders).

Have a great trip!

Itineraries are such a personal thing, I generally don't weigh in. My must sees in a particular place may be skipable for you or vice versa.

My general rule is to first learn about your destinations from travel guides and decide the sights you really want to see. Plan one in the morning and one in the afternoon (one full day per two major attractions) then keep a list of "good to see if I have time" sights in your back pocket. That gives you time to see the sights you're most interested in plus some extra time for meals, sleep, maybe an added smaller sight and serendipity.

If you and your friend will each be under age 26 when you activate the Eurail Global Passes in Europe, e.g. upon departing Barcelona, then you qualify for the 2nd-class Youth rate, which is cheaper than the 1st-class Saver (travel together) rate, and gives you the flexibility to split up. A Eurail pass also gives you a 25% discount on many Swiss mountain trains and lifts in the middle of your trip (without using a counted flexi pass travel day). Poland is not covered, so you'll pay separately for tickets within that country's borders. You'll need seat or sleeper reservations for about half of the trips listed (others are optional, but a good idea for long rides). Reservations to and from Paris are the more expensive and the most important to book before you leave home. Other reservations are easy to get at train stations; €5-10 for a seat and about €25 for a couchette.

You've listed 11 longer train rides plus "quite a few" day trips. If your train travel time fits within two months as above, then you could choose a pass just to cover your 15 longest travel days for $750, which would be a good value for the amount of ground you plan to cover. Note that the time spent in your first and last city can be before and after that two-month window of pass validity. I think you could avoid the more expensive 3-month continuous pass ($1300); see also tip for stretching a rail pass.

I'm going to still do some research to see if the Eurail Global Pass or just buying P2P tickets would be cheaper. It's frustrating how tedious they have to make this, ugh.

Thanks everyone for all your advice!

Jonah, this seems pretty thoughtful and not too rushed, but it lacks variety in two respects. There's no countryside (but for a few day trips), and the pacing is all the same. A little more on a few of the cities, but mostly 3 days.

Variety avoids burnout and helps to keep the cities from blurring together. So my suggestion is to throw in some beaches and mountains and maybe a week-long stay or two someplace with lots of possibilities. One or two overnights is not a bad thing either, if you hop off the train for a day to check out a small town that is on your route.

You have picked all great places, but I do not get any sense of what moves you from this itinerary. It's more like a list of great cities. Maybe you'd benefit from more research to find those places that sound really special to you.

Adam, my mom wanted me to prepare a rough itinerary to put her at ease when travelling overseas. A lot of this could get scrapped, omitted or I could attend entirely different areas, for instance I've already decided I will be going to Croatia. When? I'm not sure. For how long? Who knows. I'm going to start in a fairly centrally located area (Paris) as I feel it's a good way to start my trip as a first time backpacker, and go wherever things take me.

Furthermore, are there any countryside locations you would recommend? I've already researched some in Tuscany which look appealing, as well as a few in Switzerland.

I will not spend 4 full days in Barcelona or 5 full days in Rome. I will split them to add Madrid Florence and Milan for the Expo.
If I am not mistaken the 3 months pass compared to the 2 months pass is not so big a difference.