HELP ! Advice Needed For October 2015 - 3 to 4 week Tour !!

I count 19 destinations on your list. A question that hopefully other posters will help you decide is: whether it's a good idea for you to try to experience 19 destinations in roughly 21 to 28 days.

By the time you deduct for the flying there and flying home days, your time for actually doing things may be more like 19 to 26 days for 19 destinations.

It will take some research, but figuring out reasonably accurate travel times between your destinations will be important and you can determine those from the usual sites: google, viamichelin (specializes in Europe), mapquest.

gdmplc66,

im not into planning others vacations for them but others can.

If you care to learn how to do it yourself or some of it yourself, its not that difficult with the www at your fingertips. It takes some time, but i find that planning my own trips makes it much more enjoyable and if anything goes wrong, i have that tools to get back on track. Also by planning myself i have an idea on what I'm going to see/do/eat/sleep so if i want to make adjustments to my schedule i can and have an idea on what i will miss or add.

also, what Kent states will make a big difference on your trip. Think about how you would like to spend approximately 1 day in a city and move to the next. If you decide to do a "whirlwind" trip, then go for it, but you can do some work and see if all of those place are truly warrented.

What you can do if you care to:

1. Get/print maps of the region you wish to travel to. It doesnt have to be detailed, but enough to make marks on the maps. You can make prints from google maps and if you do make several.
   
2. from the above you may see some pattern evolve. Either, circular, linear or some mix. try not to chris-cross your path so that yo won't be wasting your time & $$$. Note that every time you move, you loose time somewhere.
3. from that you may see where to start/stop
4. from those points then you can do some addition work to determine travel distances/times.
5. use bahn.com or bahn.de for train info.
6. there is also seat61.com all you need to do is to use the drop down menus and see whats what.
7. there is a rail map of Europe too, but i havent used it yet.
8. if the train times dont feel right to you, then there travel by air. look at skyscanner.com or kayak.com. There are many others.

note. you can put all of that info on an excel spreadsheet. Whats nice about doing that way is that you can add/delete rows and columns at will. Then there the $$ and time aspect. you can sum up the time you're on the road vs not and also add up the cost of the travel between places.

as far as when to go, thats up to you. I prefer to travel in September and have found it less crowded in some places, but not all. Also the weather has been decent for me and what I'm accustomed to. Next September i plan on being in Lisbon and Madrid along with other places and it appears that September will still be "tourist" season in many places and warm(er).

just something to ponder. On my trip this past Septmeber i went to: Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest & Krakow. i spent 3 FULL days in each city and all were connected by train. That took me 3 FULL weeks! when i want to Paris and Amsterdam, i had alloted 4 FULL days for Paris and 3 FULL days for Amsterdam. Note NO, NO day trips outside of those places. Again, if you want a whirlwind trip, you can do it.

also, what you can do is to look at Rick Steves "Europe through the back door" and get some insight as to how he travels and see if that floats your boat. His books has info as to "connections". Those "connections" is info as to how to get to other destinations close by or to near cities even in other countries.

good luck and Happy trails.

gdmplc66, I am probably one of the least experienced contributors on the board. That said, having completed a ten day, nine night, four city tour, we're glad we had a minimum of two nights in each city. London and Paris alone demand 3 nights or more each (my opinion perhaps) and while we dedicated the most time to Paris (3 nights), it wasn't nearly enough time to cover everything on our list, and that was without the desired and highly recommended (by others) trip to Versailles. But our goals will not have been/be the same as yours.

Initially when I was jotting down everything we wanted to do, I included day trips to various surrounding locations depending on where we were, which if I understand correctly, is what you're thinking of doing? And other than our "set in stone items" -- (connections between cities and a few advance tickets for sights), we decided to play it loose with the itinerary and "try" to keep our expectations in check, and we're so glad we did. For us, the extra locations didn't work out, and that was fine. We saw so much in a relatively short amount of time in each primary city that our trip was full to overflowing. It was a thrilling and busy trip. We didn't run ourselves into the ground, but for the most part we slept very well each night. :)

But, it's your trip and you know your limits, or you will fairly quickly. So plan away. I kind of think the picture will start to clear up once you begin to solidify your plans.

As for the nuts and bolts of planning, we used the resources on Rick's website extensively, along with his guidebooks for each location. For example, he mentions using skyscanner.com for flights within Europe, which we did, and progressed from there. For train schedules we used bahn.de and raileurope.com, also as he suggested.

He has suggestions on accommodations and dining "along the way" as well. The best thing for me, as I was starting from scratch, was to start by reading his Europe Through the Backdoor Guide and then progressing through each city guide. And yes, I read them from cover to cover. Also, his three part travel skills video series, available on youtube, and probably on this site somewhere(?), along with his destination videos, were also incredibly helpful.

All the best to you.

Definitely fly open jaw. I would cut this down to two countries. Fly into one and out of the other. France and Italy, France and Switzerland, Italy and Austria, etc. October is a good month overall. November gets dicey in mountains and beach (the Cinque Terre is virtually closed) but can be great in cities. Why Genoa? It's not usually a first-time-in-Italy sort of place.

It's not feasible in 3-4 weeks. You will be traveling the entire time, just passing through places.

Which of these places are a must do? Which are on the list because you'll be "in the neighborhood"? If you can sort that out, then get out a map of Europe as suggested above. If you can't take anything off the list, just go for the map. Check the Rail Europe site and it will give you an idea of rail times and distances. Which could be day trips from a central location?

Start a page listing each day with travel times as they are known. This helped me start to narrow things down, so maybe it'll do the same for you.
E.g., Oct 1st -- leave Miami 4 pm flight, be at airport by 1
Oct 2nd -- arrive Amsterdam 11 am

I'd do open jaws to save some travel time for vacation time. Do you want to spend time getting from Berlin back to Amsterdam or spend more time elsewhere?

Think about the pace you want to go. I want a minimum of 3 nights per place except in very limited circumstances. By the time you travel, most of that day is gone. You probably have part of the afternoon and evening, but sometimes not that. With 3 nights, I usually have time to wander around some after I arrive and get settled, get plenty of rest that night and then hit the ground running the next day. If I can arrive early morning and there are only a few must see sights for me, I might go for a 2 night.

But that's me, not you. I want to enjoy my vacation, not come home and have to recover from it. I want to stay in a place long enough to know I've been there rather than go to lots of places that end up a blur. Others prefer a faster pace and don't seem to mind the blur as long as they have pictures.

I second or third using venere.com or booking.com for finding hotels. Have fun planning!

Try to get a handle on what you can or cannot do. Take a look at Rick's 3 week European tours. Those are organized tours - with door-to-door bus service to hotels and to some sights and a guide who knows the way. On your own, it will take you a good deal longer. You will have to get from hotel to station/airport to hotel. If you aren't traveling by car, you'll have to go from the station to the hotel to drop your luggage before you can start getting oriented to a new place, figure out the public transportation and get to sights, possibly wait in line for tickets, etc.

As an example, it's about 3-1/4 hours by train from Amsterdam to Paris on the fast, direct train. There's an 8.17 train and a 9.17 train, the one after that is at 11.17. You'll get up early in the morning, pack, have breakfast, check out and get to the station about 15 minutes before the train leaves, to find the platform and board. How long will it take you to do all that - allow time for traffic too. When you get to Paris, around mid-day, you need to get to your hotel to drop your luggage. Lunch? You've used about 1/2 day just changing location.

Another example. Bruges is not a daytrip from Amsterdam. It's about 3 hours each way on the train, not counting getting to from the train station to the sights/your hotel.

Of course if you can travel light - literally backpacking - and are very energetic and efficient, and plan everything in advance, you can move a a pace close to that of a tour. I suggest you read this trip report https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/europe-9-weeks-23-countries to get an idea of what you're thinking of doing.

Thank you so much for these outstanding / informative initial replies.

Let me add some clarification:

The itinerary is "blue sky" at this point and the destinations in brackets ( ) are several cities where I would only consider staying in one of these.

We are a young athletic couple that has experience traveling light in Europe, including a RS Italy trip.

I agree that the trip is most likely too "ambitious" for the time available.

I will resubmit to the forum with a revised itinerary.
With that in mind ---- Any suggestions at this point with destinations to delete and/or modifications to routing to allow for a month long journey ??

Thanks again for reviewing and posting !!

Any suggestions at this point with destinations to delete and/or modifications to routing to allow for a month long journey ??

i still think you all need to sit down and plot out where you all would like to go and go from there. many times geography will make a decision for you.

also, you can spend a month in any one country easily and not see/experience everything.

happy trails.

gdmplc66
a couple of suggestions - drop Bern and make Luzern your one stop in Switzerland. Drop Genoa, Prague. Some of these places - CT, Tuscany, Venice - are places to relax and contemplate, which you wont have time to do on your schedule.

Even if you are youthful and fit, there is just no way to create more time in a day. It takes at least 1/2 day to pick up and travel from one of these places to another, even if by plane. For some, it will take a whole day. By car you would be exhausted just from looking for parking spaces.

You obviously have to drop something. Logistically best would be to drop something which is out of your way. I would suggest Switzerland and Genoa. Going from Vienna to Berlin by train you will go via Prague therefore I would not drop Prague. It is 4 hours from Vienna to Prague then 5 hours from Prague to Berlin.

You have to decide which places you most want to see. As other have said, it's best to go in a more-or-less straight line and fly open-jaw. You may be limited in flights by the airports nearest you. Start by seeing where you can fly - look at airlines that fly from where you are to Amsterdam and Paris, then see what more eastern cities they fly back from. rome2rio.com is a good place to start.

Then plot the cities on a map and see which ones take you from your starting point to your ending point. Now go to bahn.de (the German train website) and find out the trains available from place to place - how often they are, how long they take, whether they are direct or require 1 or more changes. Choose a date that's close - the schedules don't change very much and you'll get a good idea of how much time you'll need to get from place to place.

Once you have these basics, come back with your plan. Then you'll get real help here on what's feasible and how much time to spend in each destination. You will probably get suggestions for side trips or other stops along the way. In your next post, tell us again (sorry, most of us won't remember you) that you're young and energetic. Add a little about what you're most interested in - food/wine, hiking/biking, history, culture, art - you get the idea. Whether you choose September or October will depend somewhat on your destinations. My first choice for timing would probably be late September to mid-October but it does depend on what you want to do and where you're likely to be going.

Ray already suggested reading "Europe through the Back Door," but I am going to suggest elevating it to first priority, based on the kinds of questions and ideas you are floating here. ETBD is the best itinerary-planning aid around, among many other virtues.

ETBD is the master of whirlwind travel, so I am going to add a different thought. If you are going to be on the ground for more than 3 weeks, you need to build in a break where you hunker down in one interesting place (where there is plenty to do) for 5-7 days. Provence, for instance, or Tuscany, with a car for day trips.

Quick pace is okay if you are up for it but vary the tempo or all those great places will just start to blur together, what a shame.

Hi,

You do have to whittle down the list of cities or add two more weeks. to the trip. Now, if you drop Prague, you can do Vienna-Berlin by night train. I suggest you get a rail map to use the trains, especially the long distant rides more effectively. I would drop Switzerland completely.