HELP with 5 Europe holiday planning questions

If you are travelling to Norway for skiing, remember that days are extremely short over there between November and February. If you really want to ski I'd pick up Switzerland or Austria, where you'd have at least 2.5 hours of extra daylight per day.

Festivals usually happen over late Spring and Summer (May-September)

For starters:

1. The land area you listed you listed, combined with the intervening waters and nations, covers much more of the earth's surface than does Australia. All have vastly different cultures.

2. The visibility of the northern lights is completely unpredictable regardless of any probability forecasts.

3. Crowds will be greatest during the northern hemisphere summer and adjacent months.

4. Group the nations by geographical proximity, including Greece with Italy and Morroco with Spain. Two nodes, contiguous or not, could be included in one trip.

5. Ninety days might be a minimal starting point.

6. You've listed no cities, so that discussion is moot.

7. The only substantial savings by pre-booking is for inter-city transportation. Neglecting the cost of partying and assuming modest accommodations, transportation would still consume about a third of your budget due to the distances involved. Again, neglecting entertainment, you'd be lucky to pull off most of it at 100 ausd per person per day. Probably double that rate for Scandanavia and Switzerland.

1. A winter trip, if skiing is a goal, might include Germany (Christmas markets), somewhere in the Alps for skiing (switzerland maybe), and some cities in northern Europe. Paris and London will be cold, but a lot of the sightseeing is indoors, in December Christmas decorations will be up and beautiful. Honestly, I'd do Norway in the summer because of the short days and the weather. On the other hand, you could do the skiing, then head to somewhere warmer in the winter. It would be a weird shift to be skiing in Switzerland one week, then on a Greek island the next, but it's doable. .
2. In the more southern countries on your list (Italy, Spain, Greece, Morocco), it gets very, very hot and also super crowded in the summer (especially July and August). I'd go May or September to these places, these really are good months pretty much everywhere, except when the goal is skiing, snow, or Christmas. Generally, places are most crowded in July and August. .
3. To travel around, planes are often cheaper than trains if you book ahead. Websites like sky scanner show you the cheap airlines. .
4. Greece…there are ferries from Italy, but really the best way I'm aware of is to fly into Athens. .
5. As far as timeframe, you may need to be more specific. You say "Italy". Does that mean Rome and Venice, or do you want to do a overview of all sorts of areas of the country? If all you want is to see Rome, you can do the basics in a few days, but to dig into Florence and Tuscany and Venice and Cinque Terra and…will take a ton of time. Ditto for pretty much every country on your list. You might want to make a list of CITIES or REGIONS you really want to see. Narrow it down from "France" to "Paris, Burgundy, and Nice" or whatever, then you can dig into timeframes more easily.

Unless you plan on spending weeks Norway, it's not a reliable place to see the Northern Lights. The atmosphere is often too overcast, so even if a solar storm happens to coincide with your visit, cloudy skies could easily block your view. If you really want to see them, head to Fairbanks, Alaska, which has a much drier climate. But there's no guarantee, even here.

However, the skiing idea isn't a bad one. Even though winter days are extremely short, Norway's biggest ski resort, Trysil, offers illuminated night skiing. The conditions are generally more consistent than in the Alps. However, it's quite abit more expensive than the Alps, and they aren't exactly cheap either.

SazMcG,

i pitch in my 0.02 worth.

1. i would group the countries where you want to go. you have it done anyway.
2. going to see the "major attractions" is vague to me, descriptive to others. The way i travel i want to know whats on my list so i can make accommodations to do/see them. I see it, if i dont know its there, i cant make time for it. The worse case is that you dont spend enough time there to see half of whats there.
3. If im city hopping from country to country, i look at travel times. If the travel time is around 4+ hours by train, then i start looking for air. Anything over 6+ hours is a no brainer for me and im looking for air transportation. There are buts tho. If its some cool train ride thu something/where, then i will book the train. But i want to get from A to B the quickest. If there is a train that less expensive i will weigh the +/- of each and go from there.

happy trails and good luck.

Skiing in Norway. Are you thinking Nordic/crosscountry/langrenski or are you thinking Alpine/downhill/slalaam skiing?

If skiing as in langrenski, a lot of the mountain areas are not packed and marked until February. Check the DNT website for the ski trail schedule: http://english.turistforeningen.no

In December we had a great vacation beginning in Munich (Christmas markets and beer halls) and then we took an early morning train to Italy and spent Christmas in Venice. I loved Venice at Christmas time.

For a northern hemisphere winter trip, you could combine skiing, Christmas markets, Spain and a bit of Morocco. 7-10 days will give you plenty of Christmas marketing from western France (Strasbourg/Colmar) through southern Germany and even into Austria (Salzburg). All quite easy by train. You'll have plenty of time to sightsee in the mornings and early afternoons, before the markets open. Then get happily sloshed every evening on hot mulled wine at the markets while eating each city's traditional yuletide foods and listening to Christmas carols. Not being a skier, I can only say that it would seem reasonable to fit in skiing not too far from there. Then fly to Spain. Andalusia has the warmest, driest climate in Europe and you could easily spend a week there (Seville, Cordoba, Granada). And there will be Christmas-y festivites there too, I'm sure, though undoubtedly much different than in northern Europe. There are budget flights from cities in Andalusia to Marrakesh and Fez. Fly into one and out of the other. Look at Vueling, RyanAir and EasyJet. There is also skiing near Granada (and ???), I believe, though I don't know if December might be too early for good conditions. This would all fit into a 4-week trip. You could even start in Paris, then take the TGV (very fast train) to Strasbourg.

Thankyou everyone, your advice is really helpful and given me lots to think about.
So I think I will split my trip into two, one winter trip starting in December, try and catch the northern lights in Norway (hopefully) and then head to the Netherlands and then to Germany. We have some friends in Munich so we will be spending Christmas with them and going to all the markets and skiing there. Then we were thinking of hiring a car and heading up to Berlin for New Years.

1. We might have some time after that to go somewhere else, any suggestions?
2. This trip will be 4 weeks maximum … does this seem reasonable?

So then for the ‘summer’ trip still needing so help with a time frame please, I definitely understand what some of you guys are saying and I do not want to just whirlwind through and miss some great adventure so I want to make sure I time it right to have enough time in each country.

1. I would like to go back to Germany to catch Oktoberfest, could you suggest a nice autumn/spring location maybe in the west to see as well?

As for other countries, in Greece – Athens, Santorini and Delphi. In Italy I would love to visit Rome, Venice, Pisa and the Vatican City. In France I was thinking Paris, Nice and Marseille. In Spain I was thinking Barcelona, Madrid and maybe Ibiza but maybe not. And finally in the UK and Ireland London, Manchester, Liverpool and Brighton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Loch Ness, Dublin and Cork, Derry, Belfast and Giants Causeway.

1. Any thoughts on a timeframe for that can of worms? Thanks so much!!!

I have not been in Europe summers or winters. I like mid-April through May and mid-September through the end of October for anywhere in Western Europe. The days are warm without being hot and cold weather is gone. Expect other tourists these months. If you plan carefully, I think train transportation is best. Four weeks is a good chunk of time for an extended European vacation. You still won't see everything, but it's a great start.