Four Months in Europe, Lots of Flexibility, Should We Wing It?

I've done the "wing it" approach a few times and it has worked fine for me - if you are even asking, I assume you'd be flexible enough for it to work well for you too. Obviously some places get booked at high season but you'd be avoiding most of the touristy season past September. It will be be especially easier if you have an internet-capable device with you to make last-minute reservations.

At the risk of offending you, do you understand the Schengen zone visa requirement? If you do great, but always have to ask because it influence the answers you will get. Secondly with the internet, various booking sites, etc., it is very easy just to wing it. Third, assume Toulouse is not a working gig. Only real busy time will be Christmas/New Year that would require more advance planning and September tends to be busy as the main tourist season winds down.

Thank you Andrew H and Frank. I'm doing my research on the Schengen requirements now. I am not familiar with the guidelines and very happy that you mentioned it.

I have lived in Saudi Arabia for five years, Germany for four and since getting the kids through college and reaching retirement in 2010, we have traveled extensively.

When we lived in Germany, we had to budget our travels, but we could just hop in the car and go where we liked. We did a lot of winging it. We had a couple of experiences that warned us about having no advance planning, like showing up in a city were a festival was going on and all (I mean ALL) hotels were booked. We had to drive (at night another 60 miles to find a place to stay. On another trip with no plans, the city was fully booked and fortunately the hotel put us in the maid's quarters for one night, since we could not drive over the snowy Alps.

We have done bus tours, rail tour, taken trips by rail, trips by car, cruises, river cruises and more.

I enjoy planning, since it gives me an opportunity to find out in detail what is great to see while in a city or town.

We had a wonderful 4 week drive tour of Wales and England that we planned out to the day with B&Bs and sometimes day tours.

I would advise you to do some advance planning, perhaps for your first two weeks at a minimum. If you know where you generally want to go, then at least pick out the cities or towns and the key places, museums or historical sites that you want to see. If you have a computer, you can do planning for the rest of your time in Europe. One thing, beware, using wifi, even in hotels can easily lead to viruses on your computer.

Cruises are great for visiting places like the Greek Islands that are not easy to get to otherwise. For major cities like Rome, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Barcelona, Madrid, London, and more, at least pick out 3 hotels (not booking) ahead of time as alternatives that you can book later. For major cities plan on staying 4-6 days.

Be sure you have more than one ATM card to get local currency, since if a machine eats one card, you can still get cash.

There's some misleading information about the Schengen limits out there, even in one case on a US government website.

In brief, you can only spend 90 days out of any rolling 180-day period in the entire area that constitutes the Schengen Zone. Both the day you arrive and the day you depart count. Exiting and re-entering doesn't reset the clock to 0; it just pauses the count. It appears that you will need either to obtain long-stay visas (not a trivial task) or spend a considerable time in countries that are not part of the Schengen Zone.

The above assumes that you are not the lucky holders of EU passports.

I'm usually a wing-it traveler myself, but if your destinations tend to be fairly far apart (mine typically are not), those last-minute train tickets can be extremely expensive--as in 2 to 4 or even 5 times as expensive as the super-bargain fares available if you buy tickets the day they go on sale (which is some months in advance).

In addition, if you are likely to want to go to highly popular sights, you will in some cases need to book the tickets well ahead of time. The number of sights falling in that category seems to increase every year.

The Schengen zone visa is easy. It is always a look back to the prior 180 days. You are allowed 90 days in any of the Schengen zone out of any prior 180 days. For a list of countries - goggle Schengen zone. That covers most of Europe with the exception of Great Britain. And that is days, not months. So if you planning on four months in you need to find at least 33, 35 days outside of the zone. And it can get nasty if violate the rule.

PS I disagree withacraven's comment that last minute train tickets can be extremely expensive. Train travel in most Europe (excluding England) is fairly reasonable even at the walk up fare. Some discount fares are super cheap but the restrictions are severe and each country's rail system has it own interesting set of discount tickets.

Sounds like a great time! Just be aware, that some cities, some attractions really don't have an off season. Barcelona comes to mind. I was there in January and it was still pretty busy and advance reservations were necessary for most venues. I think Versailles is always busy and if the Alhambra is of interest, tickets should be purchased 3 months in advance. Also, for many countries, it makes a lot of sense to book train tickets in advance, and typically a few months in advance, to save money. I've saved significant amounts in France, Spain, Czech Republic and Austria by purchasing ahead. In Bavaria, Germany, the "Bayern" ticket is very reasonable and you can buy day of. In Switzerland, we had a Swiss Travel Pass which might have saved us some money, but it was great, because then the train travel is very flexible. I envy you, it sounds like a grand way to visit Europe.

My husband and I recently returned from 7 weeks in Europe, mostly a road trip. This was September and October, off season. We had reservations for the beginning and the end points and a rough itinerary for the middle. What screwed things up a bit is that we also made a few reservations for the middle because I did not want to miss the Alhambra in Granada and it requires way in advance reservations.

We did not have ANY problem getting reservations one day, two days or even no days in advance (i.e. reserving that morning for the night's lodging). We used Booking.com almost exclusively. (I hate AirBnb.)

On our next European trip, I am going to try to loosen things up even more by having reservations only at the beginning and the middle and leaving the middle flexible. We may need to give up on one or two attractions that require advance tickets, but I think that's OK. That's the way we traveled all over North America, including Alaska.

Have a wonderful time, whatever you decide!

We've done a bit of last-minute mucking around from a homebase the last few years. We haven't had any problems even in summer months. We planned a couple weeks ahead each time and it worked out: Normandy D-Day tour with Overlord Tours, Switzerland including lodging in Murren, many areas of France, Brugges, etc... just watch out for the places already mentioned and Paris in September, which is convention and trade fair month (but you'll be in Toulouse then anyway). The other caveat is that train tickets will be more expensive the closer to the travel date. We did most of our travel by car with a leased car (Renault USA or AutoEurope.com for leases)

Off subject from you questions but...
BTW, we booked 10 nights in Toulouse through Sejour in Toulouse and friends spent a sabbatical semester there using this apartment agency.
And if you are working with a group at the university in Toulouse, would they be able to get you a visa so you can stay beyond the 90 days?

Thanks to one and all for sharing your experiences!! Lots of wonderful tips in your messages.

My husband is the academic so perhaps the University of Toulouse can assist us with visas. I do think we'll end up in Vienna for Christmas/New Year's Eve so we will definitely plan early for that. We're starting in Iceland and then will head to Scotland and Norway...maybe. Should be easy in September. I'm hoping Krakow, Warsaw, and Prague will be easy to navigate without too much lead time. Before Toulouse we plan to explore the Basque region and Barcelona (will plan ahead there). We will be at a friend's home in Provence (a small town called Grambois) for Thanksgiving where family will join us, and then we have a gap in early December until we arrive in Vienna. Maybe Côte d'Azur?

Again, you are all very kind to share your knowledge and tips. Thank you!

Do not wing it. You should write an itinerary listing at least every town you want to sleep in and the dates. Then make reservations, before you leave home ... never have a situation where it is 2 hours or less before your bed time but you have not reserved a room yet... I don’t understand why people keep wanting to leave home without having reserved hotel rooms, hoping to just show up at a hotel and expecting that they will have a room available.

Sorry Mike but we do it all the time and have never slept in a railroad station yet. Even follow the same pattern in the US. I have no idea how you could lay out four months of travel and make hotel reservations for all those nights. It is impossible. The few time we make reservations ahead is when we know that there is a festival in town or a holiday weekend. "Knock on wood" in nearly a years travel we have been burned, yet !!

Bj -- you really need to understand the visa business or potential problem. It is not to be taken light if you overstay your 90 days, it can cause serious problems - financially and legally. With all of the immigration problems, the country are very serious about enforcement. To get a long stay visa you would need to be temporary resident of a country and apply to that country. And the university may be able to help you obtain a special visa but you should be checking with them today for that possibility. Or just plan to be out of the Schengen zone for about 35 days.

Thanks, Frank (and others). We will look into this right away.

I don’t understand why people keep wanting to leave home without having reserved hotel rooms,

Because our experience has proven it is not a problem, especially when you are traveling off season and you're flexible.

If you prefer not to travel that way, fine for you!

Your route sounds similar to mine. Between Provence at Thanksgiving and Paris at Christmas, I chose Nice (free place to stay), Turin, and Colmar (for the Christmas markets), connected via the Bernina Express. Keep in mind that December 8th (hey, that's today!) is a holiday (and a great day to e in Lyon, I guess, because they have a festival of lights that sounds pretty).

If you are not planning to lease a car in France (which you should look into if you're at all inclined as it does make winging it easier--info and links on this site under Travel Tips), I highly recommend The Man in Seat 61 (www.seat61.com), which is a comprehensive guide to train travel throughout Europe. It's a great way to get ideas on how to connect two cities together.

When I started, I had the first third of the trip plus Christmas extensively planned and booked, and a sketch of the remainder. I have drawn outside the lines of that sketch several times, but I do book ahead (accommodation and transportation) about 30-60 days. My total trip length is one year, and I'm traveling with a child, so I have to answer a lot of "Are we there yet?" type questions that your husband likely won't ask.

Have a great time!

Because our experience has proven it is not a problem, especially when you are traveling off season and you're flexible.

If you prefer not to travel that way, fine for you!

We have traveled frequently to Europe, and have no problem winging it. With 2, I think in this day, it's quite simple. booking.com, AirBnB, other websites allow a booking to be made easily 1-3 days in advance.

Some prefer planning. We got very decent rates using the above approach. To be clear, we are not picky about places to stay, and are happy to stay in hostels, cheap hotels (Ibis), and other low-end places. We do not stay in $200/night hotels.

Assuming you have that Schengen imposed time constraint in order, I would recommend doing both: plan and wing it too. Have both options available.

You don't have to lock yourself in to having reserved hotel rooms all the time in Germany, if you know where to go. Other than during specific events times, eg, trade fairs or Oktoberfest, etc , you can always find decent to good places to stay in Germany. You know where to go, no problems.

A friend suggested that one can go to the TIs in the train stations for help finding day of accommodations.

The days when the TI was virtually always located in the main train station are long past, though you will still sometimes find offices there. I remember seeing them in Padua, Erfurt and Nice. I'm sure there were some others I overlooked, but I've been through over 200 European train stations in the last 4 years, and I've made an awful lot of detours to TIs between the train station and my hotel. These days, I more often find the TI at the center of the tourist district. It's not a bad location, but it's a pain to have to traipse over there with luggage in tow. Or, as I have sometimes done, to have to return to the left-luggage counter at the train station after visiting the TI.

I'm not sure how many of the TIs still book hotels, either. I know the policy varies. In 2015 I obtained TI assistance in Catania and Siracusa, but the staff in Palermo pointed me to a table that had some business cards on it. I gather from posts in the Scotland forum that it's common for the Scottish TIs to provide accommodation assistance, though I don't know that they all do.

I prefer the quality of the places I find on booking.com to what I have gotten on the (relatively few) recent occasions when I've sought the TI's help. It stands to reason, because I'm a budget traveler, and only I know what corners I'm more willing to cut to stay in that price range.

I feel like I typically see TIs in train stations, but I'm a little skeptical, sometimes of their primary function. Some seem to be less TI and more to sell tours. I book my rooms in advance, but look forward to the time when I can travel for extended periods of time and go where the spirit moves me on any particular day.
Re. Malta, several of my daughter's friends were in Malta for the month of January and absolutely loved it (and the weather!)

My husband and I have "winged it" in Europe for months at a time for many years and NEVER had a problem, even in the summer when it's high season. It's great to have the freedom to stay longer, leave earlier, go where you want, and change your plans based on recommendations and things you hear about along the way.
I was just in Spain for 6 weeks this summer and never booked more than two days ahead.
Booking.com is your friend for this. I prefer this listing service because they don't only list big hotels...they also include small privately run places, monasteries/convents, pensions, farms, b&bs, etc. You can filter it for what you want and it's very easy to use. Get their app, use it frequently, and you will start getting their "genius discounts" which are pretty good deals!
The only month that big cities can be a little harder is September when there are conventions occurring across Europe.
Most people who think you can't travel without reservations simply have never tried it and have heard stories about how it's impossible from people who don't really know either! Ignore that advice...it simply isn't true at all. Just go and have fun!
You'll love the area around Toulouse...there is so much to see! A beautiful corner of France.

In Germany there are TI in the train stations or just outside, if you know where to look.

Whether you might them useful in providing the needed info on accommodations is another story...possibly. As an option you can most definitely go to the TI to check out info offered. I have not used the TI to get accommodation info for a long time since I mainly choose to stay in the train station area but I see them anyway.

You've gotten a lot of advice. I'll just give one other suggestion: consider just planning/booking your first and last accommodations. Then wing it in between. That gives you some flexibility, while knowing you have an exit strategy.

This question is directed at those posters that indicated that they prefer winging it.

Do you perform any research on the potential places that you plan to visit? For example, going to Madrid, do you look at what cities are great day trips from the city? I particularly enjoyed Toledo and Segovia.

Do you check to see if an important place is open to the pubic on the day you plan to be there? Example, the Doumo in Florence is not open one day a week. Do you find out what day it is closed? Do you make advance reservations for museums like Academia or the Uffuzi Museums in Florence? If you go to Rome, would you plan on missing the incomparable Sistine Chapel by not having reservations?

Do you check any of the places you tentatively plan to visit to make sure a festival or event is planned that will sell out all the hotels?

Do you make advance rail reservations, which are far cheaper than on the spot purchases?

@geovagriffith: I've both "winged it" many times and I've also planned ahead before even touching down in my ultimate destination. There's no one "right way" here - you do what lies in your particular comfort zone. From personal experience, I can tell you I've had more enjoyable times on the trips where I was winging it.

And you should understand that one can wing it in terms of where and when they will be staying, but still be prepared by doing their research in advance. I've never missed out on getting to see the things I came to see - I do my homework. If I really want to see something, I've educated myself on what days that particular place is closed, or if it's a really busy place that attracts big crowds, I've made sure I know if there are specific times of the day when it's best to show up, special entrances where ticket lines are shorter, extended evening hours, special city-wide museum passes that can be purchased last minute and help me skip lines, etc. I've done my homework well ahead of time by looking to see if there are going to be any festivals, big conventions, concerts, sporting events or other activities happening that might significantly impact my ability to find lodging that falls into my budget zone.

That said, have I paid a few Euro more for last minute train tickets because I was winging it when I could have booked my ticket weeks or months in advance and saved myself some cash? Of course there have been times I have paid more for those train tickets. However, spontaneity and flexibility does have a "value" to some people. If you aren't one of those people, that's cool - you do you.

Outside of maybe booking something ahead during Christmas and New Year's, the OP is traveling mostly during the low season which means winging it becomes even easier provided that they do their homework.

The others have provided lots of good information on the Schengen Visa issue. Given that your husband is an academic, there might be a possibility that the university he's dealing with in Europe will be able to arrange a longer stay. As mentioned earlier, one method you could consider is to stay in the U.K. for the first part of your trip, and in the Schengen area for the last 90 days (NOTE: that limit includes your arrival and departure days).

You may find these websites helpful....

• https://www.immihelp.com/visas/schengenvisa/
• https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-visa-types/

Good luck!

Geovagriffith, I'm another who does a great deal of pre-trip research. I have a long list of towns I want to visit (more than I'll have time for). I know the hours of operation for the key attractions I want to see, and I travel with a list of holidays/fiestas that might affect my plans. My reasons for (usually) winging everything except my first and last stops are:

• Ability to respond to weather conditions. Although I love many museums, I spend a lot of time just wandering around appreciating the streetscape, and that's not fun if the weather is poor. This is more of an issue if, like me, you are dependent on public transportation.

• Most of my destinations are still first visits, and I have no crystal ball that allows me to predict with accuracy how much time I will want to spend in the various museums (for example, 20 hours in the Gdansk World War II Museum). That means I need the ability to extend my trips to museum-rich cities after I've been in town for a day or two.

I have usually been able to add nights when I need to, but it is occasionally a problem to do so on the spur of the moment. What happens to the nightly rate in that situation varies. Sometimes you get a good deal by booking in person. Other times you need to go to the internet. And I have once or twice found my hotel full for the desired additional nights. The one time I really, really needed to stay (bacterial gastro infection), the hotel somehow made it happen for me.

Inflated prices for train tickets are a predictable by-product of my travel technique, but I tend to visit a lot of places in each country, with the result that my train trips are typically relatively short. Many of my trips are between cities served only by regional trains (no inflated last-minute ticket prices), and others are short enough that opting for a regional train or a cheaper bus isn't irrational, given the length of my vacations.

I completely agree that if your travel time is limited, it probably makes more sense to pin down hotels and inter-city transportation.