Amsterdam-Zurich-Vienna-Turin-Venice-Paris-Barcelona-Ibiza-Barcelona

Amsterdam-Paris is 3 1/2 hours on the Thalys
Paris-Zurich is 4 hours on the TGV.
Zurich- Vienna is 8 hours on the Railjet, consider flying.
Vienna-Venice is 7 1/2 hours on the Railjet, again consider flying.
Venice-Turin is 3 1/2 hours on the Freccia.
Turin-Barcelona is definitely a flight.

9 locations over 27 days, and looks like about 6 of those days will be travel days, leaves for very little time in any location.

for some reason the old joke comes to mind---"how do you eat an elephant?"---- 'one bite at a time'

What I envision reading your proposal, is a snake trying to swallow it whole.

Another factor to consider is the time of year you have chosen has the fewest daylight hours of the year

I suggest some further reflection on how widespread of a trip you undertake

Sam's order and recommended modes of transportation (most cost effective wise) look about right,
I would apply extensive research to listed spots using guide books and the internet, that way you pinpoint what you are most interested in seeing instead of random suggestions

Hi Everyone! Thanks a ton for the speedy responses, and especially for reordering our path to what makes the most sense. A friend suggested the previous order but when I looked at a map, it didn’t seem to make sense...so i took to the forums for help. Will surely decide on things to do...we’ve started looking but still have a good bit of time to figure some more things out.

As far as the number of countries we “plan” to travel to, we may cut back...especially now that we know what order to go in. That’s the “wing it” part of our trip, where once we get there we can figure out if it makes sense to try to cover all of that ground. We don’t mind the short days and reduced number of people roaming around during the winter...perfect for us. Winter in Europe is something we are looking forward to for sure! We basically want to eat amazing food, check out the architecture and just do “romantic couple stuff”.

Zurich I have to question. Its about the same time to Luzern by changing trains in Basel. Continuing, it is 1 hour by train to Zurich Airport or Zurich main station for the train to Vienna. Zurich may come under the category, "Nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there."

Hey Sam! We’re not opposed to scratching Zürich off our list...at all, given that our friend suggested merely “passing through” (literally) versus an extended stay. Based on what you said though, seems that even passing through would be a hassle. We are wide open for recommended adjustments to our itinerary. We for sure want to go to Amsterdam, Paris (short stay/pass through), Vienna, Venice, Turin and Barcelona. We’d only planned to go to Ibiza if we end up having a lot of time near the end of the trip, which will be in Barcelona. If that were the case, wondering if it’d be best to go to Ibiza first and then to Barcelona? Are we getting closer to being on the right track? Thank you!!!

The better order is, as Sam says, Amsterdam-Paris-Zürich-Vienna-Venice-Turin-Barcelona (look at a map).

Why Zürich? People visit Switzerland for mountains, not cities. Either go to the mountains, or fly direct Paris to Vienna.

9 locations over 27 days with some long travel days. Try to cut 1 or 2 places out.

And your dates "16 Dec 2018 to 13 Jan 2019", think carefully where you will be over Christmas (24th,25th, 26th December). Many places close down and therefore extra planning is required.

Christmas markets are a "must see". They end 23rd/24th December. Make sure you visit 1 or 2.

Hi Chris, thanks for chiming in! We are flexible and want to do what’s smart, so we’ve struck Zürich and Ibiza from the list (especially since Zürich wasn’t in our original plan, but rather suggested by a friend who made it seem as though we could merely pass through on our way to the next destination).

Amsterdam-Paris-Vienna-Venice-Turin-Barcelona sounds good to us! We looked at a map and that’s what prompted us to make this post - what was suggested to us didn’t seem to make much sense, but we thought that perhaps there was something he knew that we obviously didn’t LOL. That’s what we took to the forums for help.

Now that we’ve narrowed it down a bit, decided to spend Christmas in Venice and NYE in Barcelona...so let the planning begin!

"We plan to sort of "wing it" and decide on our mode of transportation after we arrive (rail, car, train". Unfortunately the world no longer works that way.

Rail and air are all a lot cheaper if bought in advance. Buy rail tickets direct from the company running the trains, NOT resellers in a different continent.
And both get busy over Christmas, another good reason to buy early.
You don't say if you are a first time train traveller. If you want to know how it all works, read this website: https://www.seat61.com/

Car hire - just turning up you may not find much availabilty, especially over Christmas. Hiring in one country and returning in another has a large surcharge. Doing a circular trip and returning in the same country you started in has no surcharge.

Thanks for the helpful info...we will check that website out today as we will be first time train travelers (in Europe anyway). Now that we are narrowing down our itinerary, we can soon begin to make advance bookings.

Hi Eveyrone: So, after more thought - we realized that we were listening to our friend when we already had a good idea of what we wanted to do. We initially thought his suggestions made sense and that we could cover more ground without losing time...boy, were we misinformed! How quickly it turned into someone else’s holiday - we are far too kind sometimes. Our friend and his wife wanted to travel with us but now, we figure, they can just join us wherever we are versus dictating where we should go. That being said, the places we really want to go and that we initially discussed are:

Amsterdam/Netherlands (our friend lives here)
Paris, France
Barcelona, Spain
Rome/Venice, Italy
Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin, Germany
Amsterdam (to fly back home)

We are still flying into Amsterdam but have received a full refund for our plane ticket out of Barcelona. We will likely stay on travel longer than we initially planned in order to make the most of our trip. Thanks to ALL of you for being so super helpful and for your precious time!

"Amsterdam/Netherlands (our friend lives here)
Paris, France
Barcelona, Spain
Rome/Venice, Italy
Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin, Germany
Amsterdam (to fly back home)"

This is a great list of interesting cities. I've been to Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Rome (briefly, one day excursion from a cruise ship, not ideal) and Berlin. Here's the method that works for me: husband and I both research the cities we will visit and each of us plans two or three days in each, then we blend them grouping together sites that are geographically close. That's the framework but we adjust on the fly depending on weather, whether we need down time for laundry, etc.

Hey Marty!
Thank you for the advice! That’s exactly what we are going to do this weekend - sit and really zoom in on the sites we know we want to see. We checked out the map and don’t think it’ll be too much of a hassle to hit all of those places within 30 days (give or take)...spending at least 3 days in each locale with a travel day in between. Speaking of which, we just have to figure if we want to fly back home from Berlin or if we want to close out in Amsterdam with our friends and fly back home from there. Otherwise, we’re pretty much set and feel a heck of a lot better about this plan versus the one our friend suggested lol

Way too much travel.

Why Turin? It is not one of the top spots to visit in Italy. Have you been to Florence?
Zurich? Check out Lucerne or Interlakken.

My suggestion is to plan visiting places geographically closer together. Save Barcelona and Ibiza for a trip to Spain and or Portugal.

AirB&B is usually a good choice for families, but many available places tend not to be near the city centers. We usually do better (Wife and self) staying in B&Bs or small hotels that are close to the city center.

For your new list of destinations, flying will make sense on most legs; see www.skyscanner.com. If you were going to do it all by train, then I'd suggest a rail pass, but most of these are too long to be practical train connections.

Amsterdam-Paris is the shortest train ride, only 3h 20m; book ahead at www.thalys.com for a discount over the full ticket price of about $200 in 2nd class. Any other long leg that you decide to travel by train will also offer considerable discounts for advance booking. Berlin-Amsterdam is next shortest at 6 hours. Looking Up Train Schedules and Routes Online gives you the Deutsche Bahn train schedule link and tips for using it.

We will likely stay on travel longer than we initially planned in order to make the most of our trip

How much longer?

Given a long enough time your agenda can work, but to get useful input from the forum knowing the time frame is important

Hi again Everyone - Hubby and I just had another very lengthy chat. Based on all of the feedback from the forums and the sheer complexity planning a trip like this would entail, we’ve decided that it’s best for us to cut back on the number of locations (no surprise there, right?).

We decided to spend:

10 days or so in the Netherlands/Amsterdam area
2 days or so in Paris
3 or 4 days in Venice
10 days or so in Barcelona area (flying directly home from Barcelona)

We narrowed it down to our “must haves” and that’s the list we agreed upon.

The train ticket (Amsterdam to Paris) and one-way flights in between the other locations are very cheap and ultimately saves us a good amount of time.

Your input has been priceless for us - especially the suggested websites and routes. This has been a huge lesson! Thank you!

I'm with you on everything except Paris. Two days there is shockingly short. Of course, you can do that, but you won't begin to get the flavor of the city in that amount of time. Have you had time to read a guidebook chapter on sightseeing in Paris? It sounds as if you either don't think you'll like the city or don't know too much about what it offers.

Lol, you’re probably the 4th person to say that! Ha! Truth is, we thought it would be waaaayyyy to expensive but as it turns out, Venice would be super pricey as well. So we are considering saving Italy for another visit when we hit Prague and Germany. We won’t be in Barcelona proper the entire time as we plan to explore more of Spain while there. So we will likely end up spending more like 10 days in the Netherlands, 6 days in Paris, and 10 days in Spain...something like that.

now it starts to come together and make sense....

We TOTALLY agree!!! Definitely off to a MUCH better start now LOL. We have our incoming and outgoing flights booked and now we get to play with some of what's in between when we sit this weekend to hammer out the details.
We change the allocation of days in any one place once we get there given the ease of transport, which affords some flexibility for us to visit other locations where it makes sense.
We'll have accommodations and all secured but can still kind of "wing it" as we wanted to do to begin with (but without as much risk and without trying to bounce around to 9 locations! LOL)
All of the feedback we've received has been a tremendous help and we feel much more confident moving forward.

You said:
10 days or so in the Netherlands/Amsterdam area
2 days or so in Paris
3 or 4 days in Venice
10 days or so in Barcelona area (flying directly home from Barcelona)

Good that you simplified your travel, but can you fill us in on why you plan 10 days in Netherlands and 10 days in Barcelona?

I love both of those place and have been there more than once. However, you can see Barcelona quite well in about 4 days.

As for Netherlands, there are cities in that country other than Amsterdam, but again, I think you are overkilling both places.

Two days in Paris you aren't even covering the exposed part of the iceberg.

Hello, please see my post above.

"So we will likely end up spending more like 10 days in the Netherlands, 6 days in Paris, and 10 days in Spain...something like that."

Sounds like a great trip! As others have mentioned you'll want to book planes or trains between cities in advance for cheaper fares. This stifles creativity some but you have enough days to play with that if it rains on the day you were touring say, gardens, you can fill in with a minor museum or laundry. I try to alternate in-city and out-of-city day trips when I rough in a schedule, checking on the days various sites are closed as part of the process.

For a rather "how-to" heavy trip report of my visit to Paris in the spring, https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/april-in-paris-1e48a51b-4933-490e-9e0d-e8bdf1035b47

In some countries the fares on non-express trains do not vary by date of purchase, so there's sometimes no advantage to buying day-trip tickets early. However, there are savings to be had for trips along the Barcelona-Girona-Figueres route.

SpiritualK, going back to your original post, you said:

Flying into Amsterdam and out of Barcelona (one way for each).

Are you pricing tickets as two one way flights? If so, you might want to check the open-jaw (aka multi-city) fares. That would be into one city and returning from another. These fares are usually much closer to a roundtrip price, that pricing separately. Unless you're looking at budget airlines. Just thought I'd mention it in case you weren't.