Help with planning my trip

That was supposed to be 3 days in Venice, not 2, for a totl of 14 days including travel days.

Does the $5000 include flight over and back?

Yes, international flight, hotel, and train rides between cities.

5000 is a little tight for what you are suggesting. You have a lot of travel expense because of distances. When do you plan todo this?

August. That European Destinations website quoted me at $4,800.00. You think this is unreasonable? Flights are about 1,400 per person, so that leaves about 2,200 for hotel and train purchases. I guess that is pretty low. Do you know anything about that website?

Jamie, As I recall, you had another Thread here that I may have replied to? I can't remember the details so hopefully I'm not repeating myself. The plan that you list above absolutely seems "doable", and is nicely paced. I'm not sure where the Travel Agent came up with an estimate for $7000 for a two week trip, but that seems a bit extreme. I suspect the T.A. estimate assumes you'll be staying in "posh" Hotels, which is not necessary. You can find clean, safe and affordable accommodations at much cheaper cost, without staying in Hostels. I would strongly suggest going to your local Library ASAP, to see if you can find copies of Europe Through The Back Door, as well as the Guidebooks for Amsterdam, Paris, and Italy. You'll be able to find listings for good Hotels as well as lots of details on sightseeing, transportation, etc. For booking the flight from Paris to Venice, I'd suggest EasyJet. Be sure to read the "Terms & Conditions" carefully, and if you think your checked luggage might be over the allowable limit, pay the extra fees at the time of booking. If they find it's overweight at check-in, the cost is much higher. Also, note that many airlines in Europe allow ONE carry-on item ONLY (of the approved size, and they WILL check!). I don't bother pre-booking trains most of the time. You can buy your ticket from Amsterdam to Paris when you arrive there (since you'll probably be at Amsterdam Central anyway). One important point to note is that you'll need to use cash to buy tickets in Amsterdam, as they ONLY ACCEPT "Chip & Pin" credit cards. continued.....

Jamie - Part 2..... For the Venice-Rome trip, you could also buy tickets when you arrive in Venice. You can buy tickets at Venezia Santa Lucia (which is the station you'll be using) either from a staffed ticket window or from the automated ticket machine. You'll be travelling via a "Freccia" (fast) train, so reservations are compulsory (those are included in the cost of the ticket). However, you could also pre-book at Trenitalia, and perhaps get the discounted "Mini" fares. Note that those will "lock you into" travelling on a specific train at a specific time, so if you miss the train you'll have to buy new tickets at full price. Some of the group here have reported that the purchase process is sometimes not too "user friendly". I haven't tried it yet, but may have to do that for my trip this year. There's an excellent description on how to purchase tickets on the Ron In Rome website. It's quite lengthy, so will take you a while to go through it. With just a few rail trips, I'd just buy the tickets when you arrive there, since you'll be able to buy them several days before you'll be travelling in each case. Getting back to your cost estimate, I suspect you could manage with less than $175 a day (for both of you) if you choose Hotels wisely and don't dine in expensive restaurants every night. Hope this helps. Happy travels!

Really helpful Ken, thank you so much!! I will definitely be booking the train rides while there and I think I am going to end up just booking everything separately and on my own.

Try checking Skyscanner.com for airfares--they are a good source for intereuropean air travel. It's just a search engine (although a really great one), but it will direct you to other booking sites or you can try the airline site directly once you find a schedule you like. I've had really good luck booking hotels directly through the tourism websites for the cities I am visiting (just Google the city). Some just list the options so you can go to a website or email the proprietor; others have their own booking systems. And there are several good booking sites that list hotels online, including smaller, less expensive pensions and such. I booked a few of my places through Booking.com (or used them to find some candidates and then booked through the pension/hotel website directly). I'm sure others can suggest other websites they use, too. Another way to find some hotel candidates is to look through the hotels listed for your cities on TripAdvisor and see what some options are in your price range and what others say about them, to see if they fit your criteria. Just a suggestion: You may really want to try to get A/C in Paris, Venice, and Rome in August, depending on how you deal with heat and street noise. It might be worth a little extra so that you can sleep well on your trip :-).