Honeymoon Itinerary

Four destinations in 17 or 18 days is very reasonable, but your four destinations are pretty far apart. Check out Rome2Rio for your different travel options and the time involved. Even if you fly, when you consider the time it take to get from your hotel to the airport, getting to the airport early enough, and getting from the airport to your next hotel, you have a long day of travel.

Since, as you say, this won't be your only time to go to Europe, why not immerse yourselves a little more in a place? You'll be on your honeymoon, after all, just finished planning and having a wedding. You'll want time to just relax and enjoy being in pleasant surroundings. You could see a lot of the British Isles, or the Netherlands and Belgium, or Germany and Austria. Staying in a narrower geography will still give you plenty of variety, but you can move from place to place in less time and at a more leisurely pace.

I'd also suggest more of a mix of big cities and smaller towns. And I would not rent a car unless you want to visit some places that are really off the beaten path, in which case you can get a car for a day or two at a time.

I'm also a big planner -- the anticipation is almost as much fun as the trip itself -- so enjoy this part of your vacation! What I like to do when I'm in the early planning stages is create a spreadsheet listing the nights (not the days) and fill in where I will stay each night. You can have multiple columns in your spreadsheet for different versions. It can be a lot of fun!

As a St. Louisan, I advise you to fly in and out of Chicago if possible! Chicago has many nonstop flights to many points in Europe; St. Louis has none. Based on my research, it seems to be cheaper to fly round-trip Chicago than STL, and you don't have to put up with layovers. Even if it isn't cheaper, you will have the convenience of taking one flight and that's definitely worth something.

We are having a hard time narrowing down specific places, besides Ireland which I would like to visit before relatives pass and there isn't too much family over there anymore!

Beyond that, we are open to a lot of different places. And any more suggestions would be looked into for sure!

Lane, thanks for your suggestions and I will take them into account (the spreadsheet idea is fantastic!!)

Sarah, luckily we have free roundtrip tickets anywhere Southwest goes, so we can essentially fly out of any major airport necessary to get the cheapest flights to Europe. I have noticed that Aer Lingus has great prices out of Boston and Chicago, and it will be essentially free to get to either city, so I'm trying to keep an open itinerary out of the US to maximize our budget and get there cheaply!

All the places that you have suggested are large cities where a car will be an inconvenience. If you do decide to hire a car, hire for each country and fly between destinations.

Flying will probably take over 6 hours door to door for each change of country, which curtails your visiting time. You could easily fill your entire time in Europe just by visiting one of the countries that you have noted. I would limit yourselves to three countries max as your honeymoon is meant to be relaxing, isn't it?

I would suggest maybe adding Paris at the expense of either Amsterdam or Munich ...

Fly into Dublin >> Fly to Amsterdam >> Train to Paris >> Eurostar to London
or
Fly into Dublin >> Fly to Munich >> Train to Paris >> Eurostar to London

Paris is never a bad idea, especially on your honeymoon.

One big concern with your plan in my opinion is to use your Southwest tickets to get to Boston or another city to get your flight to Europe. Should your SW flight be delayed or cancelled you might have major problems, especially if you plan to do this on the same day as your European flight. If you use those tickets a day in advance then this means a hotel stay and an extra day. I personally think this is too risky. Just something to really consider. Also as someone said, when you travel from one location to another in Europe you will lose about half a day for travel time.

Okay, so after suggestions on here and other travel blogs, we've decided that we are going to just see Ireland and the UK. Next time we come to Europe, we will do Germany and the Netherlands.

I appreciate all the advice you guys gave, and I am going to be posting more questions as I think of them in the specific forums for each country.

Gail, I see where you are coming from with the possibility of flight issues, but currently, we would have to drive two hours to STL from our hometown in Missouri to fly to Chicago/Boston anyway to catch a flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus. If we even took a flight from STL to Dublin, we would be rerouted thru other airlines to different cities as layovers, which leaves plenty of room for problems flying from STL too. I will definitely consider flights to Chicago/Boston that leave plenty of time for error!! Thanks for the info!!

Southwest flies to Midway. International flights go from O'Hare. They are not linked by ground transportation. You will have to take a (very expensive) taxi or book a shared shuttle ride. Traffic is miserable in rush hour. I'm not extremely familiar with rush hour times, but figure rush hour on the expressways starts around 7 and doesn't clear up before 10, then the afternoon rush hour starts by 3 and clears up around 7.

You have made a wise choice in limiting your travel to Ireland and the UK. There is so much to see and do in both countries. Limit your time in London to 3-4 nights if budget is a concern---accommodations are much less expensive elsewhere.

Boston is also a lovely place to visit, especially in October. (We were just there last month ourselves). I suggest you use your free SW flight to go to Boston the day before your flight to Dublin, and enjoy a night and half-day there. This will minimize the stress of the connection and be a fun way to start your honeymoon trip. It may also offer a less expensive flight to Dublin than From Chicago.

Chicago: The L train connects the airports but the connection is messy with a lot of stairs (elevated train to Midway, subway train to O'Hare).

Paris is nice for a honeymoon and quite a bit less expensive than London, so you could just consider Ireland and France. Of course purchase your ticket to Dublin than return London (or Paris) to save backtracking.

Lots of airlines to Europe price the tickets as one-ways, so you may not even need to purchase an open jaw round trip. Aerlingus does this, as does Icelandair, so check out buying 2 one-ways.