Family Eclipse Trip 2027 England Paris Italy and Tunisia with 3 teens.

Do you have your eclipse accommodations, transport, etc. sorted? Just making sure as some places were booked years in advance.
What is booked as far as your airfare? A month will go quick with four countries in your plans. Point to point travel costs can be less than a pass, so wait until you have the itinerary.

We do have a place booked in Tunisia for the Eclipse. This will be our third eclipse as a family. We're starting to look at transportation for the entire trip now. The idea is to take mostly trains in Europe, and whatever makes most sense in Tunisia, but we have to figure out the itinerary to know which will work best.

You just have to piece it together then, I would work west to east: fly to London, train to Paris, train to Switzerland, train to Rome, fly to Tunisia. That could easily fill a month, but you can insert a side trip or two if you move faster.

Tunisia at the end for the eclipse means four countries in four weeks, more or less, depending on what you mean by “at least one month.” Mid June to early August gets you perhaps 10 days per country; still not a lot.

Your friends are somewhere in England, Paris and Rome. Late June and July will be HOT and will sap some of your energy and make crowded outdoor sightseeing (Versailles, Eiffel Tower, Rome’s Forum and Coliseum) less pleasant. You have three 15-year olds on this hopefully epic journey and a year to plan, but you will need some number of months in advance to make reservations.

What you really need to do is spend time as a family (or group, unless you have triplets) talking, looking at multiple guidebooks and maps and shows, podcasts and the internet. I suggest you do that first before asking more particular questions, here.

You could easily spend a week in Paris, a week in London, close to a week in Rome and have too little time to explore rural areas, smaller towns or cities in England (eg Bath, Canterbury, Oxford, York, Cornwell, the Lake Dist.), France (Normandy, Alsace, The Loire) or Italy (Venice, Florence, Padova, Tuscany, Naples). Presumably, the Alps and hikes are calling you and the three teens to Switzerland, perhaps some of the lakes along the border with Switzerland like Lake Maggiore or Lugano.

Maybe find a theme or two to help guide your travel? History could be anywhere from Roman to Medieval to Renaissance to WW2.

Look further off the well-beaten track? Midlands or Peak District? Lorraine? Italy’s Cilento, Basilicata or Puglia.

Again, to me the discussion and planning begins at home with the teens.

Epic as it may be for you, it is more so for them.

Thanks for the replies. Talking with the family is excellent advice, thanks!

I have twins and a bit older brother so at the time all 3 will be 15 years old. A much different age than our last trips, and not nearly as easy to motivate. The biggest motivator for them now is friends. We are lucky to have one friend who recently moved to Cambridge, so that is a definite stop on our list. We also have a friend with an older kid who is a camp councilor, and has tons of fun with our kids. They live in Todmorden. Their son may join us on the adventure, which will make every location we go to much more attractive for the kids. Another family who often travels to Germany may join us for some part of the trip. We have friends with a kid the same age that lives in Paris. Our kids have not met, but they will likely enjoy the company. I also have a cousin in Rome. She's older than me, but loves kids and she will make the experience fun for them I'm sure. She may also join us at the eclipse.

I'd say that at least 90% of the motivation for the kids is friends, so if the visits work out, then the whole trip will turn out better.

Other than the friends, interests include sailing for all three and myself, but mostly for one of the twins. The friend in Cambridge was part of the same jr sailing program here in Santa Cruz, so we may have some sailing near Cambridge. The other twin has some interest in architecture. Not formally, but he does enjoy making interesting buildings, and places in minecraft. He recently tried to make an english pub. I'm sure that there will be more interesting architecture than you can shake a stick at all over Europe, and Tunisia, but I don't have a list of places. The third kid really likes to build motorized things. Trains used to be his thing, and I hope that he would get back into them in Europe. I do want to focus on trains for travel, and would love to do a sleeper train in Italy, and the train/ferry to Sicily on our way to Tunisia.

I put my priorities below the kids, otherwise I'll dominate the trip with things that are boring to them. I do have interest in history in general, but also astronomy, and science. I would like to visit places where my ancestors came from. One side of my family emigrated to the US from Bitonto Italy, and some town outside of Naples sometime around 1900. I have french Canadian heritage, but it was at something like 400 years ago that they traveled to Canada. My wife is African, but does not know from where.

A lot I know. My desire is for the trip to be 2 months, but I don't quite have buy-in for that, so we'll see if I can motivate them. I generally make a google "my maps" map to lay out possible places to visit, and dial in the trip. That has worked really well in the past. I start by filling it with way more places than we have time to visit. I filter it down over time to the spots that will make a good path with enough time at each location. So any ideas you have that fit can go into the early draft of the may. They may or may-not make it to the final revision.

Thanks for your feedback! -- one thing I do need to figure out early is travel. I really like the idea of getting a euro rail pass, but need to figure out which one to get, when the pass for that time will be available, and if the pass can be upgraded if we change our minds.

England, France and Italy are each comparable in size to California … and with a lot more history. Switzerland has the diversity of French, German and Italian language regions and influences, plus mountains more dramatic than the Sierras.

Naples suggests Pompeii. Ancient Rome ranged from much of England, all of France, as well as Tunisia. Aeneas found his way from Troy to Italy via Tunisia and Sicily. Sicily and southern Italy were part of Magna Graecia before Rome took over, about 300 or 400 BC

Your family has much to explore, read, watch, hear and discuss as you plan your journey.

LATE NOTE. Don’t sweat the rail or other ground transport issues yet. Spend the next 6 weeks talking about a month vs 6 or 7 weeks vs. 2 months. How much time to really explore where and to get a sense of place.

Where to roam apart from Cambridge, London, Paris, the Alps, Rome, Naples and whether to include Sicily. It all looks so small on paper and becomes so much larger when you really start to think it through. A “travel day” to get from one place to another is a half day or more that is lost to “being there.” Less can be more.

Thanks again!

This is the first time that I am trying AI to help with the planning. It seems pretty good!

I put the ai plan in this doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LtAEtLb8xp2KHHWgdT_nXhkLPu_zlx49k4-xlrOM59U/edit?usp=sharing

Last month, we stayed in a hostel for the first time with our 18 and 16 year old. Hostel Room was in Rotterdam, so not much help directly, but they are part of a group called Europe's Famous Hostels that has places in Switzerland and Italy. We had a private "family" room, which was basically one of the dorm rooms to ourselves. Bed linens and bath towels were included in the price for the family room, but it is something to check. If you are used to sleeping with air conditioning at home, you will probably want AC in Paris and Rome in July, but maybe Switzerland would be ok without.

As for Eurail passes, traveling by train is great, but you may get prices just as good buying tickets in advance. And for some of the trains, you still have to pay a reservation or supplement fee and book in advance even with a pass. If passes still seem like a better option, they might go on sale around Black Friday. I think there were posts about that last year.

Thanks for sharing,

For me, id like to introduce youth hostils to the kids as an option when they can travel on their own. I'm offering to support them traveling for a break year if they do well in highschool. Travel on the cheap in youth hostils is a great way to meet people, and enrich the adventure.

An adventure would be to take the ferry to Tunis from Marseille (France), Genoa or Sicily (Italy), and Tunisia has a decent quality rail service by all accounts, with a national rail pass
The Man in Seat 61 website has details both of the ferries and the trains.

In Tunis see also about the Majestic Hotel- German North African HQ in WW2, later American Forces HQ after liberation.
Maybe worth a night, just for the history.

The current plan is to take the ferry from Sicily to Tunisia. Also take the train/ferry from mainland Italy to Sicily. I'll look into that hotel, and see if it works for us. Thanks!

If you put your AI plan into a reply as text that might lead to some more specific advice. I don’t doubt that you’re trustworthy but I don’t think I’m alone in not being willing to click a link posted to an unknown document.

The AI plan is really big. It doesn't fit in the forum max post length!

I have since asked AI to elaborate on each location, and I now have 6 documents full of ideas. I'm not going to ask anyone to go through all of that detail, but thought that I'd post it hear out of interest.

Here's an example of a London day trip:
1. Shakespeare’s Globe (The £5–£10 Secret)

For 15-year-olds, this is the best theater experience in London.

• The Deal: Buy "Groundling" tickets. You stand in the "yard" right in front of the stage, exactly like the poor people did in the 1600s.
• The Cost: Usually £5 to £10 per person.
• Why it works: The actors interact with the Groundlings. It’s loud, it’s outside, and you can see the sky. If the teens find Shakespeare boring, the "standing" experience makes it feel more like a rock concert than a school trip.

What people do to post long content, such as lengthy trip reports, that maxes out message length is to post part I, then reply to themselves with part II, and so on. But I think your instinct not to try to post the very long AI plan you describe is a good one. The one suggestion I would have about your plans so far is to think hard about whether you really want to go from mainland Italy to Sicily and on to Tunisia by train and ferry, rather than fly. That is a long, tough trip however much your son likes trains. In fact, unless you planned to spend at least a week in Sicily, and preferably longer, I would skip it altogether. Sicily is a wonderful destination, but it is quite a large island with its major attractions spread out across it, public transportation (although adequate) not as well developed as elsewhere in Italy, and it needs sufficient time. I did a two week tour of Sicily earlier this year, and did a two week tour of Tunisia, which also has a tremendous amount to see, last year. Both of these were in winter when temperatures were mild and everything was green, except in the Sahara. As I’m sure you know both will be hot and dry when you plan to visit.

I also noticed the ferry to Tunisia may be a bit long, and we are not doing much in Sicily. This is the early part of the detailed planning, so it's in there, but I may rework, or remove it depending on how much interest there is from the family, and how practical it is as part of the trip.

I still say you should spend time talking with your family. Look at guidebooks, particularly

• DK Eyewitness Guides
• Moon
• Lonely Planet
• Michelin

For each country you plan to visit

Each of these also publish guides for major cities and regions within England, France and Italy. Many of these guides will be at your local library, so pick up a bunch and let everyone look through them.

I mention these four publishers because they’re quality guides with plenty of pictures to help you see what may be on the menu.

Then, work on the BIG picture, how much time in London, Cambridge, other spots in England. Ditto for each country. Worry about Shakespeare’s Globe vs West End Theatres vs other sites like castles, palaces, churches, museums and neighborhoods and other historic sites, and activities like beach trips, hikes, or punting on the River Cam, later.

The Rick Steves books are good, but lack the photos that help you see your trip. They are great for practical advice, like how to get tix or get to a particular castle, what French chateaux in the Loire Valley are well rated, or what strategy to use in touring a large museum.

Also for RS, look at

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/england
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/france
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/switzerland And
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/switzerland

Drill down to cities or regions. Look at some of the shows, under the watch tab, as a family on your home computer. Or have the kids do that.

This is going to be their trip and they’re at a good age - and perhaps at a good time of year on summer vacation - to play a role.

AI advice - without your first understanding what questions to ask - may well miss the mark. And AI can suggest itineraries that may not make a lot of real world logistic sense, eg, not knowing that French trains run on time and on schedule, Italian trains less so, and German trains even less. Or suggesting you can do three things in different locations in a day, when that involves too much travel and not enough “being there.”

LATE REPLY - Glad to hear.

I think that you may have misunderstood. I do talk with the family. Do you have kids? Every family, and every individual is different. Parents make their own best decisions on how to parent. It's easy to second guess someone else's parenting decisions, when you do you are most-likely wrong, and imposing. In planning out this trip, I'm doing most of that legwork, and that is OK. I do share it with the kids in a variety of ways. I just had AI make videos of our trip. The first one was so bad it was really funny. We all got a kick out of it. This will be our 3rd family eclipse trip. They have all gone spectacularly good -- if I do say so myself.

I will hazard a guess that the two previous eclipse trips were within the US to view the eclipses in 2017 and 2024. If so, then planning a lengthy trip through much of Europe ending up in Tunisia to see another one is a whole different order of magnitude, in a good way. I’m very glad also to have seen those two US eclipses but personally don’t have a great desire to see another one (well, I would if it were near my home, but that won’t happen again in my lifetime). But some people want to see more and more of them, and nothing wrong with that. I hope you’ll give sufficient time to Tunisia other than just seeing the eclipse. It’s a fascinating country that deserves more visitors; I think it’s underrated, especially compared to hyped Morocco, and much of the tourism it gets is Europeans on package beach vacations when it has so much more to offer. I do fear that you won’t see the country at its best in the summer heat and crowded with other eclipse tourists, and when you’re at the end of a very long trip, though.