Critique itinerary: European Sampler Platter

I know you are wanting to do a "Taste of Europe" type thing, but you have a lot of traveling in there and not enough time in some of the big cities.

Personally, I would take out everything but London, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and Prague. Spend more time in those places and do day trips if you need to fill in time.

Also, if you have not booked your flights yet, look into doing open jaw into London and out of Prague, that way you don't have to circle back.

Just my thoughts. Have a great looooooooong weekend.

We looked into all open jaw options; they were wayyyy too expensive.

We don't want to stay in large cities throughout the entire month--hence the balance of urban/small town.

We also don't exepct to see all of the large cities; just a few highlights/local neighbourhoods.

Just a cursory glance on Kayak.com, but Edmonton to London return or Edmonton to London Prague to Edmonton are practically the same price. Perhaps $100 difference that you would then save by getting to buy a cheaper rail pass or point to point rail tix.

We did Amsterdam, rural Germany, Prague, Venice, Cinque Terre, Paris last year in about the same time frame, and it was A LOT of traveling (about 5 days). I would have taken out Venice if I had known how much it would be.

Anywhere you are staying one night in a location, I would consider removing it from your itinerary.

Cool--how much were the tickets you found on Kayak?

Let me ask you: honestly, do you really want a critique of the itinerary here? If you do, I know what people will say--you will be spending the lion's share of your trip on trains, not seeing much except the countryside flashing by. Train travel can be surprisingly tiring,too.

I appreciate that this is what you want to do, and you have every right to tell respondents that you're happy to travel this way. But by titling your post "critique" you are asking us for advice, and the advice that most travelers would give you is that this kind of whirlwind tour is exhausting and will leave you with little sense of what you saw, where you saw it, and what it meant.

So let us all know now if you would be unhappy to get a candid critique of the itinerary.

hmm. this was created following RS's "suggestions," as well as those of my housemate who did a similar trip last summer. neither found it too overwhelming. but if you care to elaborate...please be my guest :-)

I suppose it's important to note that certain days are intended to be "train days," in that the whole point of the day is to see the countryside, meet people, and write, on trains. Switzerland, the Czech Republic travel day (Aug 14) and the 4h round-trip in the Rhine area (Aug 20) are such days.

Most of us who advise against these sorts of itineraries have a good reason for doing so: we tried a whirl-wind tour once (usually in our youth), and found it the least enjoyable, and per amount of money and time spent, the worst way to visit Europe. Trust me, you will wear yourself out in a few days following this schedule.

Hi Stacey,

Some general thoughts for you to consider:

I think some RS recommended itineraries can be a little too rushed to really enjoy the destinations while others disagree with me, so we don't all agree with an ideal pace.

Too many people think they can handle a rushed itinerary "because they are young." The reason people recommend that you slow down is not because we think your personal equipment is getting creaky and unreliable, but because the ratio of train/travel time vs. sightseeing time is getting out of whack. The question to ask yourself is how much time do I want to spend experience Europe? How many days am I willing to sacrifice to checking-in/checking-out of hotels, train stations, etc.? Personal health/fitness is a different matter.

If understand that you just want "a taste of lots of different things." I think you have enough time to do that, but don't try to fit in a whole subcontinent. You still need to take out a few stops to make this reasonable.

FWIW, The more I travel, the more dissatisfied I am with a "taste". It seems to be a waste of time and money to me. You leave each location wishing you had more time, feeling like you need to come back to really experience it, and I feel like it's a waste to go to all the trouble to get there and leave with so much unfinished business.

I hope that helps-- just some ideas to consider. You still need to make your own decisions. It looks like you've done your homework and no matter what I think you will have a great trip.

Great points. Hmmm. Thank you very much for you input--I will reconsider a bunch of those one-night stops, for sure.

The flights were around $1200US each. Not too bad, considering.

I used the Saturdays around the dates you are going, but I imagine you might be able to find it cheaper if you pick a weekday.

Granted if you do find a seat sale out of London, it will likely be cheaper. However, like I said the cost of the travel time and train tix often outweighs your savings. I like to think that each day that I spend in a train not relaxing or site seeing is a loss of around $200 of value.

Jim,
That's a good way to think of it (the $200 loss). Thing is, our tickets are already booked ($1000 Canadian, which is substantially less than the American price you quoted). Hmmm.

Does anyone have concrete suggestions for improvements? Here are the places we have our hearts set on and are not willing to give up: London (have friends there), Paris, Eguisheim, Slovenia (love the idea of a tourist farm), Budapest, Cesky Krumlov, Prague, Amsterdam. Is this still way too much for a month? (6 countries)

We ended up changing our flights to a more expensive route that was open jaw as it made more sense (and Zoom airlines went under on us, haha). However, what would be the penalty for canceling your flight? You have to do a cost benefit analysis to see if it is worth it.

You have to think of it this way, it is a long way from London to Budapest and back.

Personally (and this is my opinion), the trip I would do with your wants (and open jaw tix) would be:

• London
• Paris
• Amsterdam
• Munich or Rural Germany
• Ljubljana
• Prague

If you keep the tix you have now you could do the same itinerary and take a flight back to London. Check out SkyEurope, etc. to see what flights back they have. We did that for our Prague to Venice portion and it worked out awesome.

Shoot, I forgot to mention that we have to end up in Amsterdam at that particular time in order to meet up with a friend (it's kind of the highlight of everyone's trip). Throws a wrench into things. (The Dieppe stopover is there for the same reason.)

Seriously, I spent so long thoughtfully planning this out and now everyone's telling me we'll collapse of exhaustion on the 12th day...eeek.

Also forgot to mention; the new suggested itinerary has almost no rural stops...we definitely don't want to do so many cities back-to-back.

Stacey,

I have to agree with some of the others in that the proposed Itinerary is perhaps a bit too "ambitious".

A few things to keep in mind....

First, some of Rick's "suggested Itineraries" seem to be configured for experienced travellers and ideal conditions, using a variety of transportation methods (train, bus, budget air and rental car). IMO these don't work as well for the average traveller.

Also, you're going to be travelling in peak travel season, so the trains (and everything else) are going to be crowded! With such a tight schedule and so many places to visit, if complications occur in any part of your plan it will throw off the entire plan.

I most definitely agree that open jaw flights would have been a really good idea in this case, considering the distance between your starting point and your ending point. While return tickets may have been cheaper, you also have to consider the time and money it will take to get back to LHR.

Based on your recent posts, it appears you have to be in specific cities to meet others, so I'm not sure what to suggest? However, dropping some of the destinations you have listed and stopping for a longer period to enjoy places that interest you the most would probably be a good start. Try to eliminate as many one night stops as possible.

Good luck!

Darn, I really wish RS would emphasise in his books that his proposed itineraries really only work in the context of ideal travel conditions and for experienced travellers--as my case illustrates, they can be very misleading! I was just comparing my itinerary to RS's 21-day "Best of Europe" tour, which is actually MORE packed than mine...and seven days shorter! Perhaps he should release a "travelling for the uninitiated" line of books before I can graduate to the "mainstream," haha.

It's true that certain plans in my itinerary only work if the trains are exactly on time (and not already full)! Way too stressful and unrealistic. I can't thank you all enough for the warning. The culling is very difficult, though...

We really do need to be in London/northern France at the beginning and Amsterdam towards the end, so I really have no idea how open jaw tickets would have helped us there (not to be rude; just to reiterate). I should have been clear at the beginning so we didn't have to needlessly discuss this topic. :-) As much as it breaks my heart, we may have to cut out Slovenia (sigh) and spend longer periods in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Munich has a good night train to Amsterdam so I would really like to keep that in (even if we don't get to see the city, it is still a good transport hub and we really want to see a bit of surrounding rural Germany).

The French wine villages must stay, and as for Switzerland--well, we just really wanted to see the scenery.

Any more suggestions from the experienced travellers out there would be most welcome (but please be gentle...I am still very sad at not being able to learn how to milk a cow on a hillside farm and swim in a Slovenian lake). I know, "I will be back," but that is sometimes difficult to keep in mind. :-)

Well, an organized RS tour is different than independent travel. While I've never been on a tour so I can't explain precisely, the gist of it is that you have paid guides and drivers making sure you get to the right place at the right time and taking care of details. You can't translate that into an itinerary for independent travel.

Absolutely true--I also did comparisons with the independent routes suggested in his guide books--they are definitely too ambitious considering our experience level and the busy trains.

Stacey,

I have been on RS tours, so have some idea on how these work (I'll be leaving for another one in about 2-weeks).

One of the important factors that make RS tours work so well, is the fact these use a full-sized Coach with experienced European Drivers for travel between cities. The only significant "variable" is traffic volume, which isn't a problem for the most part. Therefore with a RS tour all transportation is taken care of, and the distance between stops is arranged to be no more than about 6-hours or so. On longer trips, "breaks" are scheduled for coffee or the WC. Accommodations are pre-arranged, as are day tours with local Guides, Museum admissions, meals (those included with the tour), etc. Rick's staff do all the work of planning and making arrangements.

As your last destination in Europe is Amsterdam, it will be relatively easy to get back to London for your flight home. While you could use budget airlines for that leg of the trip, I'd suggest rail as an easier and less stressful option (even though the EuroStar is not inexpensive). July / August is not that far away, and the budget airlines may be booking up by now (which means the remaning seats will be more expensive and you'll still have to contend with very restrictive baggage limits).

Cheers!

Hi Ken,

I definitely realize that organized RS tours are completely different as they don't rely on public transportation, language barriers, etc.--I based my itinerary on the standards that Rick recommends for his everyday, independent readers (which are apparently wayyy too high for the novice traveller!).

I looked into the budget airlines options awhile back and decided that I would not end up saving any time or money, due to airport transfer times and fares, as compared to a round-trip Eurostar ticket between London and Paris. There are some good deals on Eurostar.com right now; is this the best place to purchase our passes?

Here is my revised/toned-down itinerary as it stands. It is probably still too much, but 3 night trains will hopefully give me more sightseeing time vs. spending my days on the train.

July 27, 28, 29 - London

July 30, 31, Aug 1, 2 - Paris (via Eurostar the morning of the 30th)

Aug 3, 4, 5 - Eguisheim (still would like to spend the morning of the 3rd strolling a bit in Strasbourg as it's along the way, and arrive in the village of Eguisheim for 5-6pm). Colmar is a five minute taxi/infrequent bus from Eguisheim, so we would probably like to spend most of the 5th in Colmar.

Aug 6 - 3h train to Luzern; spend the day (7hrs) there and take a 1h train to Zurich. Night train Zurich-Ljubljana.

Aug 7 - arrive Ljub. 8am. Short bus to Bled/tourist farm for the evening.

Aug 8, 9, 10 - Bled tourist farm; 2am night train from Ljub. on the 10th (actually 11th).

Aug 11, 12, 13 - Budapest

Aug 14 - a long travel day to Cesky Krumlov for about 5pm.

Aug 15, 16 - Cesky Krumlov

Aug 17, 18, 19, 20 - Prague

Aug 21 - a VERY early train (5am,ouch) to Munich. Munich will be treated as a transit hub (the village important to my family is 1.5h away on direct, frequent trains) and we'll spend the afternoon/evening in this Bavarian village.Back to Munich at 8pm to catch 10:45 night train.

Aug 22, 23, 24 -Amsterdam

(Con't, sorry)

Aug 25: 4 or 5h train from Amsterdam to Paris (probably in morning), then Eurostar to London for the evening (we'll probably meet up with a friend there and have one last night in London, and have to be at LHR for 9am the following day).

As you can see, I still couldn't part from Slovenia. The one-night stops are eliminated, however.

Hi Stacey,

First, have a great time. I wouldn't go that way, but I understand why you would want to.

Next, here's my advice FWIW:

1. Do LOTS of planning. Share it out among you, if you can. Hotel reservations, train/bus/plane schedules (and reservations where needed), maps and directions to/from stations to hotels and other points of interest, choose the points of interest you especially want to see, know their hours (also for activities), and how much they cost. Check visa and currency issues (not all European countries use the euro). And get videos and books to learn a little about the cultures and places you are going to visit.

2. Keep a detailed diary/travelog. Experiences tend to kaleidoscope when you are packing in a lot, the diary will help you remember them all for years to come. When you meet interesting people, take their photos too. If you take a lot of photos, try to keep a record of what you shot.

3. Things will go wrong - lost luggage, missed trains, unforeseen delays, bad weather, all are possible. Be flexible, don't stress, and look for the opportunities. Sometimes a wrong turn leads to a great experience.

4. This could be your pilot trip, helping you decide which places you want to return to. All the things you will wish you had done differently are only helping you to maximize your next trip - like firming up your itinerary before buying flight tickets :-)

Bon voyage,
Chani >^..^<

Stacey --

I think your itinerary looks great for some mid-20s kids taking their first big trip to Europe. It's a lot of travel, and afterwards you may think it's too much, but it'll be an experience nonetheless. I'm glad you dropped your single day trips to some of the bigger cities.

I'm a big fan of splitting days between big cities and more rural areas. We've had some of our best experiences out of the big cities. Plus, I live in a big city, so it doesn't feel like much a vacation if I'm still in big cities all the time.

Chani,
I love your advice. #1, 2 and 4 definitely reflect our approaches, attitudes and actions we've already taken (I have been obsessively planning; we've watched lots of videos of these regions and I have a whole shelf ful of recent guidebooks, lol--plus we are using our train time to keep detailed travel journals, and are approaching this as a "we will return" trip). I don't actually regret already buying our airline tickets as we knew at the beginning that we had to be in London at a specific time (crashing at a friend's) and Amsterdam at the end (meeting a friend), and open jaw leaving Amsterdam was CRAZY expensive.

Most of our routes have earlier or later trains that we should be able to switch to (I'm actually taking copies of "back-up" schedules in the inevitable event of missed/full/late trains, haha). As for baggage being lost...this is why we're limiting ourselves to carry-on only for the way over, solid locks, and common sense. But I can still see it happening, so thanks for the warning. :-)

Thank you to everyone who gave helpful and friendly advice. It was obviously much-needed!

Stacey,

Your revised Itinerary looks much more realistic and workable!

A few more thoughts that occurred to me after reading your recent posts...

I can't remember if anyone mentioned, but even though you're travelling with a Global Rail Pass, this doesn't include reservation fees that are compulsory on some trains or Couchette fees for the night trains you'll be using. You'll need to pay these fees separately so be sure to allow for this in your travel budget.

With the night trains, I'm assuming you've chosen routes that have no changes during the night? That's important if you intend on getting any sleep!

If you're planning to visit any of the Museums in Paris, a Paris Museum Pass would be a good idea, especially considering the time of year you'll be there! That will minimize the time you spend waiting in queues in the hot August sun! Check the website for details and costs. The two-day version would probably be perfect.

If you're planning on using the Tube in London on a regular basis, have a look at the transit passes such as the Oyster Card. As I recall, there's a deposit of about £3.50 but that's refundable, and you can "load" the card with whatever amount you think you'll use.

With the Metro in Paris, there are transit passes, but I usually just buy a Carnet of 10 tickets for. Be sure to retain your tickets until you exit the Metro.

Cheers!

Stacey,
Have you considered a low-cost flight within Europe? Easyjet has flights from London to Prague, for example, on the 29th for as low as 36 pounds. I haven't looked at your itinerary on the map, but if you fly to your farthest point and make your way back by train it could help. We have scheduled a few flights for this purpose, but haven't taken our trip yet. Hope you have a wonderful time!

Thank you everyone; your feedback has been really helpful. I will definitely stick around these boards for further questions!