First time Europe

Congratulations on planning your first trip to Europe, and welcome to the forum -- I see this is your first post.

It's hard to give you useful advice based on the information you've provided. A month gives you time to visit various locales, but how to combine them into a successful and enjoyable itinerary depends on time of year, your age, interests, activity level, budget, and lots of other factors. Likewise whether to rent a car or use public transportation. A car can save time and add convenience in some parts of Europe; elsewhere it's a hassle to deal with traffic and parking. Do you have experience with independent travel in other parts of the world?

The good news is that private bathrooms are very common in European hotels these days.

I'd suggest you get a copy of Rick's Europe Through the Back Door and read it. Then sit down with a map of Europe and plan out an itinerary and decide on a time of year. Count nights, not days, and think of where you might want to sleep each night and how many nights in each place.

You're likely to get more useful information from the folks on this forum if you come back after you've done that research and ask more specific questions.

Good luck!

Mid-winter in northern Europe means very short days and not a lot of daylight, but I imagine you're OK with that since you say you like cold weather. I do not, and if my dates were flexible I would definitely not be traveling to that area during the winter. From reading other threads here I can tell you that there's a risk that some tourist sites will be closed (or perhaps open only on weekends) if you travel in the winter.

I don't like driving on potentially icy roads even at home, so trains would be a no-brainer for me during the cold months (which is most of the year in Finland, I believe). Sticking to trains and public buses will probably somewhat limit what you are able to see in Scotland, though.

Although some small hotels and B&Bs have the occasional room without a private bath, they are the exception. You will have no difficulty finding rooms that will please your husband. I believe the term "en suite bath" is sometimes used. However, in small towns whose tourist season generally runs from spring to fall, finding lodgings that are even open in mid-winter may be a challenge. I've even run into that in Italy in October.

I suggest that you research the hotel options and sightseeing possibilities in the specific cities/towns you want to visit before booking flights for a winter trip, or even an early-spring trip. Places like Edinburgh, Strasbourg/Colmar, Liverpool and Helsinki will not be an issue.

You need to do some more research and planning before you'll get much useful from this forum. Like when will this month be? Where will you be coming from? What kind of budget, i.e. what's your upper limit on a hotel room?

Start with guidebooks covering the areas you want to visit (you can probably get from the library), and Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door, a good intro to Europe travel. Along with the book, this website can give you a lot of info about places to see, train vs. car, and such.

Your destinations won't lend themselves to a single structured tour, though you might benefit from one in places like Scotland and Finland if you don't want to drive yourselves. Renting cars makes sense for seeing smaller cities and rural areas, trains generally work better between larger cities. For Finland you'll want to fly, probably from Britain or France.

A month is plenty of time and if you like cold weather you'll find plenty of it in winter, along with short daylight hours. Consider the spring or fall "shoulder" seasons when it will still be cool and less crowded than in summer. Keep in mind that the days you fly to and from Europe, and most of the days you move between cities or countries, will be taken up mostly with that travel. Also that jet lag means your first day in Europe shouldn't be too ambitious. Use this forum's search feature for lots of prior discussions about jet lag, moving around in Europe, packing, specific destinations, and other topics. Post more specific questions than you have here for more helpful responses. Have fun planning your adventure!

You probably will fly between the various land masses; see www.skyscanner.com to find many budget European airlines.

At a glance, Rick’s Train Travel Time & cost Map gives you an overview of faster train travel times in hours, as well as regular (full-price) 2nd-class fares.

When you're further along, How to Look Up Train Schedules and Routes Online gives you the DB train schedule link and tips for using it.

To all who answered this is the first step and I will read suggested materials and return to this forum. Looking forward to this journey. thanks again,
s

Hello shanlantz,
If you can be at Europe and Britain for one month, I think that is great !
But the four places that you mentioned are far apart. I recommend traveling to
England,
Scotland,
France.
An area where I think you will want to rent a car is Alsace in France. An other place where a car is very desirable, for one or two days, is the "Cotswolds" in England (northern Gloucestershire), if you are willing to drive a car on the left side of the road. As this is your first trip to Europe, I highly recommend reading the first half of the book "Rick Steves' Europe Through The Back Door". It has information and wisdom on how to plan a trip in Europe. That book has a chapter on traveling in railroad trains.

Rick Steves guidebooks are a great resource for first time travelers to any region in Europe. He covers logistics and price details better than anyone else. He also does a fine job of narrowing places down. By all means read Europe Through The Backdoor and get his individual country or region books when you have decided where to go.

But in deciding where I suggest you check some Insight/Eyewitness Guides out of the library. They are not very useful for logistical purposes, but they do have exhaustive pictures and street by street sight and architectural maps. Use them to you decide where to go. Then buy a real guidebook to take with you and to aide in planning.

I would look at a structure something like this ...
Fly in to Frankfurt
Week 1 - Rhine, Alsace, Paris
Week 2 - London, Liverpool
Week 3 - Scotland
Week 4 - Finland
Fly home from Helsinki

As suggested in the first reply, I would also highly recommend reading Europe Through The Back Door prior to your trip. The provides a lot of good information on how to travel well in Europe, and the differences you'll encounter. After that use the country or city-specific guidebooks to plan sightseeing, hotels, transportation, etc.

Where are you flying from? Many of the group on the forum provide at least a rough indication of their home location, which makes it easier to provide more specific travel suggestions.

Have you worked out a budget for the trip yet? Of all the locations you mentioned, Finland will likely be the most expensive (although the U.K. is also pricey, depending on what your home currency is).

It's not likely that you will EVER share a bathroom. The guidebooks mentioned above provide good hotel information, so you'll be able to choose hotels with ensuite for all of your stops. The practice of "sharing a bathroom down the hall" is much less common these days, and I've only encountered hotels like that on a couple of occasions.

When is this trip taking place?

+1 Rick's Europe through the Back Door

Your first time in Europe should be leisurely enough for you get comfortable and see a bit of the path and off-the-path.

Sounds totally doable to visit Finland, Scotland, and then France in a month. But I'd recommend for your first trip you see London, Paris, Munich or some more on-the-tourist-map spot before doing Finland or Alsace-Lorraine. It's a curious house for your fisrt Europe visit... Though you may have a reason for it.

Hi,

Sounds like a great trip planned...from Scotland to Finland, very doable, I certainly would. Use the discount carriers, Helsinki and Strasbourg are hubs. ferries, (a combination of ferry and night train it there is no flight between Helsinki and Strasbourg), day and night trains if that suits you too.

Hi Shanlantz!

Tell us a couple of your dreams: what would you like to experience? Alsace is great in spring/summer/early fall. The same is true with Cotswolds (lovely area, but you must rent a car to get to the most charming villages)

The only place, where it is worth going in winter, is Northern/Central Finland. Elsewhere it will be slush/cold rain/short days.

I would fly to Britain, take a train to France, fly to Helsinki and maybe take an overnight train to Rovaniemi in Lapland.

Lovely places, all of them!

Hi,

If traveling in the cold is no problem, there is a disadvantage to train travel in the winter, ie, the schedule is different from that in the summer not only in dep times (no big deal there) but also fewer connections, whereas in the summer getting from A to B is a direct shot and in the winter, you may need to transfer once or twice. That's one reason I go in the summer.

If you end up choosing Finland in the itinerary, (I almost went Finland my first over too), Finland is well served by ferry links to Germany if you decide on that. A very doable itinerary in a month, just requires some planning as to transportation routes.

I would suggest too "The Rough Guide: The First Time Europe." It may provide some needed info you might find useful.

I hope you love cold weather, because all the places you are going during the Winter will have very short cold days.

Probably the best place is Alsace Lorraine.

I lived in Bavaria for four years and Winters a long. I didn't care for the cold weather. It would get dark in late December around 4:30PM.

If you rent a car, you may have to deal with driving in the snow and ice, although the Gulf Stream may help you in Liverpool and even Scotland.

I second the recommendation for rick's "Back Door" book, because it is a kind of manifesto for how to travel, which will help you enjoy your trip so much more.

Basically, I'd suggest concentrating on an area that is geographically contained, so you spend your time enjoying the sights, not sitting in airports and trains. So many posters on this board make the mistake of planning whirlwind trips through a dozen countries.

And of course, "Assume you will be back!" Take your time.