Feeling overwhelmed with planning a 4 week trip

Congratulations! If I were planning last minute. I would first decide what kind of weather I wanted, then what I like to do, then price/ availability of flights to get where I wanted to go, then lodging. If your passport is valid pack a bag and your patience and go! Most of my favorite memories are from last minute trips.

Have fun!

I always suggest YouTube, there’s so many travel videos on there. I like the wandering around ones, myself.

The dollar is strong now, so that works in your favor. If you were thinking the U.K., the exchange rate is quite nice right now, sometimes the dollar/pound exchange rate makes the U.K. horribly expensive to visit. Minimising time in expensive London can help, I happen to love the north of England but anywhere not London might be fairly easy on the budget.

The Euro is also weak against the dollar should you choose a place in the Eurozone.

With those dates in mind, I would opt for going to more Northern European countries such as Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia, Switzerland. Southern Europe is going to be hot at that time of year. Also bear in mind that the further north you go, the more expensive it will be. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are really pricey. I hope that helps narrow it down for you.

I live in NZ - unless you are into snow sports or love cold miserable weather don't come here in your time frame!

Due to the issue with airports/flights and the general business of the big famous western European cities I'd consider going further east. If you want to do the UK then you really do need a car (outside of London) , I'd check your rental car availability /price before you committed to flights.

You need to plan much and if I was you I'd be on the plane now. I'd find the plane ticket first - be flexible - fly to somewhere in Eastern or Central Europe do open jaws and fly out of somewhere else.

Having booked the start and end points e.g. Budapest and Venice in our case. I'd book the first 3/4 nights in the first city and the last city. I'd do research on the bit in between. I'd confirm that there are lots of places to stay using booking.com and then I'd go.

We are travelling in September - but that's all the actual booking I've done for 6 weeks in the Balkans - I've not actually booked anything past those 2 cities.

So stop wasting time at home - get your flights booked and read all you need to read to find your itinerary or general plan - but don't focus about details like hotels. Its far more important to know about the sites and what you want to see.

I have been know to steal itineraries published by companies like Rick Steves and use that as a start - but normally adding days to every stop. Lonely Planet books also have useful suggested itinerary sections which are a good place to start.

I have lived overseas, Germany four years and Saudi Arabia for 5 years and have traveled to 78 foreign countries.

Not sure what you want to focus on, but my first interest was in Historical places in Europe as well as art and culture.
Places like Rome, Paris, etc. that you have already visited. There are still more places like that all over the World.
As I became more widely traveled, I visited many scenic places like Alaska, Norway, Around the Horn of South America, etc.

For scenic places in Europe, Switzerland is fantastic, but it is also more expensive than even next door France, Italy and Germany.
A cruise up to the North Cape of Norway is another amazing scenic trip with it unbelievable fjords.

Greece is great for history and the scenic Greek islands like Santorini, Mykonos, Crete and more.
Croatia, Slovenia are a bit historic but very scenic.

My favorite countries in the World to visit are:
Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Peru and Norway. That doesn't mean that Greece, Spain, France and Germany are great. We loved Ukraine and Russia, but that is off now.

South America is best done on a tour, but it is cheaper than Europe and the best places to visit are Peru (Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu), Argentina and Chile.

The British countryside is amazing and the vast majority of my ancestors are from there. Bath, the Cotswolds, Stratford Upon Avon, Oxford, York, Durham, Winchester and more.

For Switzerland, Austria and Germany, consider visiting Interlakken, Switzerland (middle of the country). For Germany/Austria, first choice is Munich, Salzburg (Austria), Garmish/Fussen (Germany). Also, the western part of Germany, specifically the Rhineland is great. Take in Cologne, down to Heidelberg and south to the Black Forest. Berlin is my third favorite area (also Dresden).

Great tours can be found at Gate 1, they get high ratings for affordable prices.

Other great places in the World, Israel and Egypt. Do a Nile cruise. Australia and NZ are great, but you should put them off for later.

I’d consider Poland…keep your itinerary fairly simple and leave some wiggle room between destinations in case you want to stay longer in a place or hear from other travelers of other places of interest. Poland is less hot in temperature (at least right now), less expensive and possibly less traveled. Maybe include Germany….Berlin isn’t so far away.

We liked Warsaw, Krakow, Toruń, Wrocław and Gdańsk.

Plan for longer stays in each spot you chose and settle in!

Enjoy your travels!

I totally agree with Marsle, with 4 weeks you can do a very nice "Best of Poland" trip and maybe dip into neighboring countries like Germany and Czechia. Weather will still be hot/humid but not deadly like in southern Europe.

Planning a trip to Europe and South America is about the same difficultly, except for vaccinations. Weather wise, northern hemisphere summer is probably the best time to visit much of South America. In fact, that's what I'm doing, spending 4 weeks in Peru this August :)

Plus in South America there's virtually no Jet Lag (if coming from North America).

As Mary said above— keep the weather in mind before choosing. I would rule out Southern Europe as it historically is uncomfortably hot and humid in Mediterranean locations during July and August. Iceland. Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland , Benelux, Scandinavia and Germany would be on my radar.

So much good advice on this thread! The venice/budapest open jaw trip and the "go east" idea are gold and I will probably steal those same idas!

I would only add that after you filter for desired weather, activities, and ticket cost, don't book nonrefundable tickets without doing a quick check on general availability of accommodation etc. first. For instance in Greece the islands are so full that some ferries are completely sold out. I'd be shocked if you could get a hotel room in Santorini. In general this summer in Europe (especially the most obvious destinations) is expected to be overwhelmed with visitors.

You want to have fun and be mobile, not stranded or having to settle for lame circumstances or sold out must-do activities. I'd do an open jaw ticket somewhere in central/eastern Europe and out of turkey if you'd like, and get on the plane as fast as possible.

One other tip- save a bit of your PTO for decompressing after you return and before you go back to work if you can. Trips those awesome deserve a bit of processing :) Another reason to leave sooner!

If you can tell me what the weathe will be you are better than me.

Here you go. Start out of IAH …. I actually did this last year with my daughter….

A few days short of a month but you can fill in what interests. I split Istanbul with a few days at the start and a few at then end. The open jaw ticket was about $750 last August.

1. Depart IAH on Turkish Air
2. Arrive Istanbul
3. Istanbul
4. Istanbul
5. Istanbul
6. Istanbul to Athens on same Turkish Air ticket
7. Athens
8. Choose an island
9. Choose an island
10. Choose and Island
11. Island back to Athens
12. Athens
13. Athens to Zagreb (Aegean Airlines on Wednesday or Saturday)
14. Zagreb
15. Zagreb to Mostar (bus or guide …. I know a good guide)
16. Mostar
17. Mostar to Dubrovnik (bus or guide …. I know a good guide)
18. Dubrovnik
19. Dubrovnik
20. Dubrovnik to Budva (with stops along kotor bay … bus or guide …. I know a good guide)
21. Budva
22. Budva and day trip to Stari Bar
23. Budav
24. Budva to Podgorica to Budapest (Wizz Air on Tuesday and Saturday)
25. Budapest
26. Budapest
27. Budapest
28. Budapet
29. Depart for Home on same Turkish Air Ticket

Howdy!
Congrats on the work award. Given today is July 4th I suspect you may have already completed planning, but do offer a travel tip.
"Be" instead of "See".
Many folks travel with the intent of "seeing" their journey and tend to increase the pace in order to "see more".
Folks who focus on "being" in the locale of their journey tend to slow down and be absorbed by experiences.
Simon and Garfunkel lyrics convey the spirit of the "being" sentiment............

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

Enjoy a great journey!

We just returned from a few days in London, a couple of days in Athens and a seven day cruise around the Greek Isles. We visited Montenegro and Croatia and the cruise ended in Ravenna, Italy which is 70 mi. south of Venice. We flew home from Venice.
Our cruise was supposed to be from Copenhagen to Tallin, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and back into Copenhagen. The St. Petersburg stop was cancelled for obvious reasons and that's when we swapped The Med cruise instead. Travel through Scandanavia is great, but it's just too expensive unless you're traveling by cruise ship. Late Summer cruises to The Med are just very hot.
Accommodations in London are now so expensive that I doubt we'll return.
This is not the best year to travel to the eastern side of Western Europe with Poland and Hungary having to take care of so many Ukranians. This may not be a good year to travel to Turkey either.
We are looking forward to seeing more of the eastern side of the Adriatic--Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and back to Hungary.
We visited the Med coast of Spain a couple of times on repositioning cruises, however we'd been putting off inland Spain. Just before the pandemic, we went to Madrid, Granada and Barcelona--and loved the place. It was very inexpensive too. There's still a lot of Spain to see, and it was so much nicer than we ever imagined. You could spend a whole vacation there. My wife liked it so well, she turned around and went back with her older daughter.

Hi folks.

I apologize for not responding to everyone. I sadly got COVID, so I will only have 3 weeks to travel instead of 4, based on when my symptoms started. I somehow managed to never catch it until a few days ago. My quarantine will end July 15 and will be able to travel until August 6th.

Thank you for everyone’s replies. I will be rereading everything tomorrow as I’m feeling better. I do appreciate everyone’s helpful advice!

This is not the best year to travel to the eastern side of Western
Europe with Poland and Hungary having to take care of so many
Ukranians.

David, you are usually spot on, but you are off on this. Its an understandable assumption but not really the case.

Anything I could say about Poland would be second hand, but I am guessing it isn't much different than Hungary where you would be hard pressed to recognize a Ukrainian refugee if you saw one. After COVID, unfounded fears of being too close to the war and the air traffic disruptions I know the Hungarians would love to see more tourists and I suspect the Polish as well. I write this from one of my favorite cafes in Budapest.

Hakac, so sorry about your Covid, but better at home than elsewhere and now you won't have to worry about getting it on your trip. I hope you're having a mild case.