2-month Europe Itinerary feedback for a first-timer!

The Eurail Global pass for 15 days in 2 months is on sale this week for $382 for a youth. I do think that's a good value to cover your 15 longest travel days at only about $25 per day. Most of your trains are not likely to require additional seat reservations, except within Italy. The discounted passes are not refundable, but if the plan is well under way for your January departure, then this would be a good time to buy.

I assume that $4K budget does not include flights.

General tip: Every time you pick up and move from one location to another, you burn a day. Yes, with trains that go from urban-center to urban-center, you can be efficient, but it still consumes almost a whole day. That means when you plan "Place A (X nights)" you really only get X-1 usable days in Place A. For example, you give yourself 1 day each in Venice, Bratislava. You have "Naples, Milan, Florence, Rome (14 days with friends)" which translates into about 2.5 days in each. Never mind Sicily.

Consider this: January-March, days will be short. Your plan has you trying to hit half of Europe, and that's not going to give you the chance to savor much...too many short stays (1-2 days), too much moving around.

Your $4K budget looks a bit tight to me. Keep in mind that the faster you move around, the more expensive things tend to get (you get more for your money when you slow down and give yourself a chance to travel smart; if you are always pushing to stay on schedule, you will inevitably spend more money).

I think you need to limit the scope of your plans, even with 2 months. Look for some of your outliers to trim off and save for another trip. Items that look to me like candidates for that would include Sicily/southern Italy and/or Croatia.

Zoom, zoom, zoom........ you are too young to die this early from travel burn out.
This s your first, but not last, trip to europe .
Cold, sometimes very cold, and fewer hours of day light due to your travel dates.
Invest yourself in traveling less and experiencing more.
Less travel will stretch your budget longer.

Please obtain an old fashion print map of Europe then highlight your suggested itinerary.
Remove seven of your destinations.
Dive deeper with research and stay in the same place for more nights.
Make time to ferment friendships.

Your present itinerary maximizes the opportunity to create memories of travel.
Pare down the itinerary to maximize tge opportunity to create memories of a journey.

Slow down you move too fast, you got to make the moment last!

I agree with others - this is a lot of moving . I’d trim one or two places out .

As pointed out when you say “ two nights at such and such “ you are really only giving that place one full day .

Personally I’d trim a day from Prague and give it to Berlin .

I’d also start looking at hostels- it’s good for you it’s off season , you should be able to reserve some decent ones , no , they are not all equal , some are really nice - others not so much ( my daughter did 2 months backpacking trip two years ago at age 19 ) So start looking at hostel reviews for each place your visiting ( hostelworld has a good website ) and look into getting a membership perhaps

Your budget is very low - so many hostels have kitchens you can use to make your own meals - it can be a big money saver , plus it’s a great way to try local food - visiting markets etc

You might consider dropping Bratislava. Vienna and Budapest have a similar flavor and history to Bratislava so if you feel short of time, that could be a good place to start. I don't think you need 4 days in Amsterdam unless you are day tripping somewhere. You could add that day to Vienna, or Ljublijana or Zagreb. I don't think its a bad itinerary, for someone your age. You are covering a lot of ground and your locations are a bit spread out, but only you know what you are up to.

Does the $4k include getting there and back from LA ?

Even if the $4k excludes the airfare from/to LA, you are giving yourself $68 per day for food, lodging, transit in Europe, admissions to museums etc. , 'nightlife'.

Your trip looks like a stone skipping across a pond. You are not going to 'absorb' much of anything until the final hit at the end when you sink.

A trip of half the time would need careful planning to be done on $4k.

Are you planning to leave in 6 weeks? Hopefully Santa stuffs your sock with $$$

good luck

You will want to stay mostly in hostels. We've stayed in a number (we are 66 and 70). If you bunk it, you can do it for 15-20/night. There are hostel search tools online. As you are going in the off-season, the only question will be "Is it open?"

You're planning to go to northern cities in mid-winter. That means a lot of heavy clothing to tote around. And in those northern cities you won't have a lot of daylight. Sunset in A'dam at 5 pm, Berlin more like 4.30. Expect gray skies, not sunshine, and be pleasantly surprised if the weather's nice. I wouldn't count too much on theatre or comedy, unless you are fluent in the local language. You may be able to get cheap seats for concerts (classical music) and operas. You'll have lots of history in every city, but museums can be expensive. Check into multi-sight passes which can sometimes save you money.

Bratislava is an easy bus or train ride from Vienna. Consider day-tripping instead of changing places. Which reminds me - hostels. There are a couple of websites I've used, hostelz.com and hostelworld.com, to find hostels and get lots of info about them. One thing to consider is that some "close" for several hours from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. You may not be able to arrive or depart during that time, which means you have to find a solution for your luggage. Expect storage to cost you around €5 each time.

One day in Venice isn't worth it. Plan to spend at least two full days. Consider splurging on a one-day vaporetto pass, ride along the Grand Canal early in the morning (even pre-dawn), take a ride to the islands - worth it even just for the ride across the lagoon - and then the Grand Canal late at night. Other than that, Venice is best on foot. It's no more than an hour from end to end . . . well, more if you get lost, but that's part of the joy of being in Venice.

I wouldn't go to Sicily for a week. It needs more time, even with a rental car.

Lastly, I agree you have too many locations. Use bahn.com for train schedules - find out times and durations of your proposed train rides. Remember that you have to add time to get to/from train stations. Also, in each new location you need some time to get oriented/adjusted - where your hostel is and where the sights are, how to use local buses, trams, metros, just finding street signs can be a challenge, signage in different languages (like entrance/exit signs), and in some places getting and using local currency. Get a copy of Rick Steves's Europe Through The Back Door - lots of very useful information and tips.

Lastly, I agree you have too many locations. Besides the travel time from place to place, you will need to do laundry and shop for things as you run out of them. There will be snags - there are always unexpected things that happen - or don't happen. Having fewer stops gives you more lead time for them. Avoid the kaleidoscope effect - seeing too many places too quickly, they can get all mixed up in your memory until almost nothing stands out. Less is more. Giving yourself time to enjoy every place you visit is better than trying to see every place.

Your budget is indeed quite low for western Europe.
- I would cut out Amsterdam, which is expensive and far from your other locations.
- I would also cut out Verona /Dolomites because hiking is impossible in January (snow!) and skiing is above your budget.
- likewise, Milan in January isn't the best call. Venice-Florence-Rome-Naples-Sicily is the more logical route through Italy.
- with your low budget I'd look into buses, too. Could be as fast as trains on some routes, and cheaper.

We did a four week drive tour of Wales and England that cost us, not counting airfare, $8-9,000. We stayed in nice B&Bs or small hotels, had nice, but not lavish dinners. Car rental including fuel was $1500.

You can economize by staying in hostels. Large cities like Amsterdam, Berlin, Venice and Rome will cost a lot for lodging. For Venice, consider staying nearby in Mestre and taking the train into Venice proper. Croatia and Hungary will be cheaper.

Also, go in a grocery and pickup cheap eats. Alcohol will run up your cost to some degree. You will need to do some laundry, take small soap pods to do your laundry in the sink of your lodging. Do laundry the first day in places you are staying a few days, so the laundry will dry.

Wear a money belt to protect your passport and valuables, particularly in Italy.

Buy a guidebook, do research and find inexpensive lodging in advance.

We spend several months at a time in Europe and here's my two cents...
Make sure to build in rest days to this itinerary...even though you may think you are spending quite a bit of time in each place you will lose 1/2 to 1 full day in travel between each location. Believe me, you have planned a break-neck pace that will exhaust you within your 2nd week.
Another thing to make sure to specifically schedule are laundry times - seems like a weird thing to schedule but you will need to do laundry every 7-9 days or so. We usually schedule an entire morning or afternoon for this purpose.
Looking at your list, all of the places you are visiting from Prague (not counting Vienna) down to Ljubljana are quite cheap. Everywhere else is not. The most expensive will be Amsterdam, followed by Vienna, Prague, and Venice.
When I travel I use a service like booking.com to find inexpensive lodging then book directly with the hotels I find on that website. I only book via booking.com if I think my plans may change before I leave...they have a very generous cancellation policy.
Eurail passes can be a good deal if you are traveling a lot and are best for long distances. You should price out point-to-point tickets on a site like trainline.com to see what would be cheapest for you. Many of these locations on your list are not too far from each other and it may be quite a bit cheaper to buy individual tickets. Sometimes you have to pay for a seat reservation in addition to what you already paid for the pass so take that into account as well.
If you were planning to hike in the Dolomites then winter is not the time you will be able to do that. If you want to ski however, you've found the right place!