First Euro Trip: Young Teacher Backpacking

Where to begin?
Have you bought your airline and major train tickets yet?
1. I won't beat you up about calling the Eurostar train "the Chunnel". But somebody is bound to.
2. Fast trains from Paris to Brussels to Amsterdam are the Thalys. Rail Europe is a travel agency that does not operate any trains. Advise against using them. www.capitaintrain.com is a good seller of Eurostar, Thalys, and Trenitalia tickets.
3. Skip Brussels. Staying one night to see the Grand Place and the Mannekin Pis is a waste. Add that night to London since you are already trying to do so much there.
4. 1 night in Prague and 2 in Budapest sounds like a salesman's itinerary. Pick one and spend 3 nights.
5. Greece in 3 nights including Athens and an island? OK, pick one you can get to quickly. Mykonos to party or Santorini for the romance.
6. A week in Italy is OK. Skip Pisa, One trick pony. Rome, Florence, Venice. Trains between these 3 cities are fast and frequent and inexpensive. See if you can fly Venice to Barcelona.
That's a start.

Edit- You can get direct flights on Vueling from either Santorini or Mykonos to Rome on 8/8. No need to backtrack to Athens. Also, Vueling has direct flights Venice to Barcelona 8/15.

Sam is correct, where to begin?

That Itinerary is far to ambitious and is going to be exhausting (and perhaps not completely possible). It tired me out just reading it! I'll have to take a closer look before I can offer any suggestions.

It would help to know which arrangements you've already purchased (flights, hotels, etc.). Your trip is only a bit more than a month in the future, so it would have been prudent to have asked for suggestions long before now.

kym, we do need the answers posed by Ken and Sam.

It is much easier to think in terms of nights, not days. It can be tempting to give a place that you are leaving and a place that you are going to with credit for that same day. In reality, by the time you have had breakfast, packed up, checked out, got to the station, traveled a number of hours, found your new accommodation, settled in and started to look around, pretty much the day is gone. So instead of counting the day for both you actually can't count it for either.

So, for example, your first day is impossible.

Day 1: Tate Modern Art Gallery, Big Ben, London Eye, Tower of London

After your overnight flight arriving at Gatwick at 11 am (Norwegian leaving New York at 11pm? What time do you have to leave San Diego to connect with that?) you will be exhausted. By the time you have gotten off the plane, walked the long route to immigration, waited in the long queue to get your passport checked, and gone past the the luggage carrousel and through the frosted door into the rest of the airport it will be at least 12:30. The earliest you will be in London Victoria (or one of the Thameslink stations - do you know where you are staying?) will be 1:30 or 2:00. Then find your hostel, airbnb or hotel and check in.

So now it is the middle of the afternoon and you are ready to drag your tired self to the Tate Modern Art Gallery, Big Ben, London Eye, and Tower of London.

If you don't have advance tickets for the London Eye you will face a queue. And if you do have advance tickets for it you may have bad weather or your flight may be late, or you may be so tired you wish you didn't have to do it. In any event, getting to it from wherever you are, queuing and riding will take the best part of two or three hours. Where will you get the 4 hours required for the Tower of London, let alone the other items?

I say all this not to put you off but to give you a dose of reality. I believe that this whole trip will be far too busy, you will have lasting memories of the inside of transportation rather than those things you saved up for and dreamt of for so long.

It is extremely close timing to change much of this at this point, but we will do what we can to help. Please share what is set in stone and what isn't. Try to replan using nights instead of days, don't use Rail Europe for anything (use the DB website for train times) and be prepared to cut cut cut.

Unless you have a time-turner.

Perhaps the only way you could make this work is by dropping Brussels and Greece. All of your destinations are 3+ night destinations. Remember, a stay of 3 nights means 2 days to explore.

23/7 Arrive London
26/7 Train to Paris (Eurostar)
29/7 Train to Amsterdam (Thalys)
1/8 Fly to Prague (easyjet)
4/8 Train to Budapest
7/8 Fly to Venice (Ryanair)
9/8 Train to Florence (trenitalia)
11/8 Train to Rome (trenitalia)
14/8 Fly to Barcelona (Vueling or Ryanair)
17/8 Depart Barcelona

Excellent advice about changing your itinerary. In particular, the post about your first day's activities. There's no way you would be able to do all that. The jet lag will eventually hit you like a brick wall.

I fly from LAX to LHR.

Day of arrival estimate at least 2 hours for passport control, immigration and travel into London proper. Then sometime to check in, drop off the back pack, freshen up and back out the door by 3pm at the earliest.

You'll need time for sustinence, getting your Oyster card, money from a bank ATM, and merely getting oriented to the hustle and bustle of London.

In order to stave off jet lag and no matter how fit, young, etc you are you will experience it. To combat it stay outside. So on arrival day you first "must see" should be Parliament Square ( Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey.)

From there walk across Westminster Bridge to the London Eye. If too crowded buy your ticket for later that evening. From here follow the Queens Walk along the Thames all the way to the Millennium Bridge or even farther to Tower Bridge.

Use google maps satellite view to discover what you'll see if you take this walk.

If you bought you London Eye ticket use the tube to get back there and enjoy the view of London after dark. Otherwise tube back to the neighborhood where your are staying, enjoy dinner by your Accommodation and a good nights rest. .

As another poster mentions, you'll be better off picking either Prague or Budapest--each are gorgeous, lively cities full to the brim with wonderful things to see and do, and you won't get more than a glimpse of either. Prague last May was horrifically crowded, and while I enjoyed myself it was sometimes difficult to do so for the throngs of people everywhere, can't imagine what July will be like. I may be biased as I just got back from my second visit to Budapest, but I'd choose Budapest. My first visit was 3 1/2 days and I was able to see a lot and also allow time for just wandering and relaxing--your itinerary is jam packed and at some point you will need a respite.