How do you book your trip?

Everything "a la carte", using a variety of resources (online and hard copy) particular to that location. There's no "one" travel site that will give you everything you're looking for - there is a wealth of good, not-so-good, duplicate, and sometimes useless/ outdated info out there on the internet (and in paper guide books) so you have to take time to parse it all and pick out the things you need. I use hotel and air fare comparison sites to save time and look at my options side-by-side - that has been invaluable. I've never used a travel agent.

You may find this related thread interesting:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/favorite-travel-reseach-non-rs-book-website-etc

The only "best way" is the one that works best for you given your priorities and the value of your time spent on research and planning. If anything, I would say the most valuable time spent is reading and trying to learn about the places where you'll be visiting (their culture, language, history, etc). It's never wasted time... even if you don't end up going for whatever reason, you've still discovered things you didn't know before and opened up your world just a bit more.

The way I recommend people to start is to read Rick's Europe Thru the Back Door book before you get too far in to planning.

For myself, I love Rick's tours, so I usually do a combo of his tours and independent time. I book my own airfares since I fly out of a teeny airport in Idaho and have really limited choices of airlines and now with experience I know either Seattle or SLC can get me to Europe in one hop. I also book my own hotels for my non-tour days. I use a combo of Rick's guide to each area, comparing his hotels to reviews on Trip Advisor along with booking rooms at the first and last hotels the tour is using.

As far as activities, I read both the RS forum and the relevant Trip Advisor forums. I am cautious about posting question on some of the Trip Advisor forums until I have read the postings daily for months. Some of them can get pretty snarky with novice questions. I also read the relevant RS guide book to where I am visiting and will also go to googlemaps and just look around a certain area to see what looks interesting to visit, then follow up with more internet research. For instance for my trip this fall I saw on both this forum and on the TA forum that there was a local bus from Salisbury out to Stonehenge and Old Sarum. I researched on the internet, found the website, continued to follow posts on here and TA, then booked days in Salisbury to take advantage of it. It worked really, really well! If there is not an RS guidebook for general information, I do use other guides as well.

I do not use a travel agent as frankly at this point I may have traveled as much or more than some of the local ones. I would use a travel agent if I had a difficult itinerary to a not-so-easy place to visit. However, on a RS tour in 2014 there was an Air France strike on the day many tour members departed. Some had used the Travel Agent Rick recommends for airfare. That Travel Agent rebooked their flights, emailed them for an OK, contacted the RS office who contacted the guide and also discussed options with the pair. I was so impressed with this proactive work on the part of the Travel Agent! Also, be aware that if you are using a Travel Agent to book hotels they may book you into larger hotels where you might want the experience of a smaller hotel. If you do use a Travel Agent, be sure to ask if they personally have traveled to the area and how they might select hotels for you.

If you also live in an area where there are RS travel meet-ups, this can be a real tool for connecting with people who have some experience. The groups are usually thrilled to have a new victim to help out!

I have been to Europe a number of times. I typically book everything on my own. The only exception is that I took a river cruise through the Netherlands and Belgium in 2013. Since I typically use frequent flyer miles for my trips, I try to book air tickets as far in advance as possible (330 days) to get business class seats. These "free seats" sell out quickly so your options are limited. I usually fly open-jaw. For my next trip, we are flying into Munich and out of Madrid. Once I have the flights, I usually start planning my trip on the ground. We will spend a few days in Munich, a few days in the Rhine River Valley and then fly to Spain going between Sevilla and Madrid. I start looking at hotels (based on guidebooks, tripadvisor and other ratings) for a base camp and ground transport between base camps. A good option for hotels is booking.com or tripadvisor.com. You can usually book well in advance and cancel without a fee closer to your travel dates. I usually check hotel rates multiple times and reserve/cancel based on price. If you know you are going to travel via train, look to the seat61.com website. For example, if you want to travel between Venice and Florence in Italy, you can get super economy tickets on Trenitalia 90 days in advance of your travel date. These fares are cheap (I had purchased 9 euro fares on this route in November) but are not changeable.

Travel agents and tour groups will likely be more expensive than a do-it-yourself trip but they do provide a great service for a fair price. So I guess the big question is - how much work do you want to put into it to save some $$ and flexibility? If you post your "dream trip" itinerary, I am sure you will get all of the advice and help here that you could ever want!

Hi Bill, "A la carte" for me. I book my flight through the specific airline - in case there's any issues, I'd rather have less hassle. I book hotels through both Expedia & Booking.com, depending on the price. I prefer to pay when I'm reserving the hotel, which Expedia allows sometimes; otherwise, I'm using Booking.c more often now.

Typically I'm purchasing the flight, first, followed by the hotels. But, this last year I found the perfect hotel I wanted in Vienna, so I reserved the hotel, followed by the flight a few weeks afterwards.

I keep an overall picture of the status of the planning through an Excel spreadsheet: each location & dates, and flight dates. As I reserve hotels or train tickets, I mark them in "green" with the cell filled in whether it's already paid or I need to pay at the location. As I make reservations, I print 2 copies of each, and that goes into 2 booklets with the front page being the Excel spreadsheet. One copy goes into my husband's suitcase and the second one is in my suitcase. As we arrive at hotels, I tear off the reservation from my booklet. When we're back home afterwards, we have my hubby's copy to keep (or use during the trip if mine was lost).

1. most importantly for me is to pick out a PART of the country I want to visit. Emphasize Part of the country, because in my experience spending more time in fewer places makes for a better experience and more ability to enjoy the people and place.
2. Spend much time looking at the area on print and google maps, and then figure out how a public transportation route would flow. By flow I mean the best way to plan a roughly circular route without backtracking.
3. I use Rome to Rio a lot. Very useful web site to get an idea of how to get from one destination to another,includes, train, bus, car, taxi options.
4. Research which places to stay, minimum 3 nights, more if the place has opportunities for day trips, which I define as no more 2 hours from the "base". Remember that if you change locations, you lose at least a day of your precious travel time.
5. I use booking.com because it has a range of options from hostels to 5 star, majority can be canceled with not penalty.

a la carte:

1. Figure out where, broadly, to go (reading, maps, travel shows, internet, my own very long list)

2. General itinerary along the lines of 3 nights here, 4 nights there, etc. This is broad at this point, but I need a timeframe and to know what I can cover.

3. Book flights. Use kayak.com to compare schedules and costs, book on the airline website. Fly open jaw whenever my trip covers different cities. This means fly into one place (i.e. Venice) and out of another (i.e. Rome), bought on one ticket. Saves a lot of money and time in backtracking and doesn't cost much more than a regular round trip.

4. Nail down how long in each place - read guidebooks to see what I want to do there, read trip reports, blogs, tripadvisor, all sorts of sources to know that I may want 4 nights in city X, two in city Y, and three in city Z.

5. Book hotels. FInd them using some combo of guidebooks, trip advisor, booking.com, and other sources recommended on this and other forums. Book on their website whenever there is that option.

6. Book trains between cities if these are high-speed trains with discounts for buying early. Otherwise just research the trains so I know a general plan and cost. For example, if a certain train doesn't run on Sunday, or only leaves at 5AM...I need to know that.

7. Book any attractions that need to be booked ahead. In some places this may come earlier in the process (The Alhambra in Granada, and some Eiffel Tower visits book months ahead! Rick Steves guidebooks will let you know).

8. Keep reading about my destinations, learn things like phrases if I don't know the language, get a general sense of how the busses/subway works, all the nitty-gritty that will help to know ahead of time.

9. Make a more specific itinerary if I feel like it. I.E. "the Louvre is closed on Tuesday so on Tuesday I'll do the Eiffel Tower, a Seine Cruise, and some shopping, Louvre on Wednesday, Thursday will be Left Bank and Cluny since they are close to each other..." Some people like this super specific, some prefer to arrive in Paris with no plan for each day, I prefer to have a guideline that is flexible.

10. Enjoy!!!

Very useful tools are:
http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Maps: very clear maps (much better than Google Maps) with handy buttons to show tourist highlights, hotels etc.
http://www.bahn.de/p/view/index.shtml: train timetables from high-speed international trains to the smallest local ones for almost the whole of Europe (advance buying of tickets for major trains must be done on the sites of the national railway companies).

Hey Bill,

We've always done things on our own. We actually do things backwards from the other responses.

We pick a few places to base in based on what we'd like to see in a particular area. We try for 3 night stays as a minimum. We don't use booking sites for places to stay, instead we look up the town or village website and start compiling a list of places to stay that look appealing to us, usually in the countryside and are always smaller family owned B&B, Pension and Gasthof style places. We usually have about 4 places and put them in the order of our preference. We'll look at sites like TA just to see if there are any reviews of these places. On occasion, we've "messaged" reviewers asking questions we may have about a particular place.

We then check the closing days of sights and activities we'd like to see and do. After this we can put the order of places to stay and dates in place.

We then email the places we want to stay and get a reservation, usually about 4 or 5 months out.

We then reserve our rental car.

While we start checking prices and availability of air fares many months in advance, we have always booked and bought our airfare last. This has worked out to be about 2 to 3 months before we are leaving.

With a months notice, we feel ok if we need to cancel our stays and the rental car if we absolutely can't go. Just to add, the car is fully refundable and we've never, in 11 trips to Austria, Germany and the Dolomites, been asked for a deposit for our room at these type of places. So far, we've never had to cancel a trip or a nights stay.

It's not hard, and we actually enjoy "working" on our trip planning. By the time we leave, we've read and researched so much that we go with confidence and feel like the trip started months before. Not a bad thing at all.

Paul

For Europe hotels we book directly. We send an email with the booking request and usually get an answer within 24 hours. Then, if credit card info is needed to secure the booking, we call them on the phone, give them the information, and they email us a confirmation. Have never had a problem using this method. If a change needs to be made we contact them directly and all parties are on the same page. For airlines we do our own research, pick out what we want in the way of flights, seats, and etc. The we have a travel agent (whom we have used for years) actually do the booking. Yes, there is a small fee involved for doing this, but it is worth it to let someone else handle the details -- especially if a cruise is involved and there is no fee involved for that. If a problem arises, we have someone to go to bat for us that knows our situation and wants our repeat business. We never use any third party booking sites for anything. Personally (and this is just my opinion) I think third party booking sites are parasites leeching on the local hotelier. We managed to travel quite well before they ever existed and continue to do quite well without them.

Bill, my first trip over in 1983 I used a tour group booked by an agent and then spent 4-5 nights on my own. I went in the middle of September and did not book any of the nights I spent after the tour. For all of our trips over since then we book our own air fare. For hotels, on a number of occasions we may only book the first night and the last night before flying out. We travel mostly in September but we have also gone in March and November. For research I rely heavily on this website and roaming the internet. When we decide where we are going, we plan out what we want to see and do and we also wing a lot of it. The last 2 trip over have been for searching family history along with general sight seeing.
We all travel differently and I do not believe there is a right way or wrong way. Determine what works best for you and plan accordingly.

Bill, you have to know your comfort-level and style of travel. For some people, that means big-bus tours, American-style business class hotels, and avoiding strange food and people who don't speak English. Most US travel agents have never done independent travel in Europe and will be happy to book you into those kind of tours or hotels. If your interests are closer to the style that Rick Steves shows in ETBD, his guidebooks, and videos, then you can pretty much plan and arrange that on your own. It can be intimidating to a novice, but there is enough information available to anyone to pre-plan all the details, or not plan anything beyond flights, and just wing it.

I do sometimes use a travel agent (paying a fee) to book flights, if there is anything complicated, or I'm having trouble getting good connections. But with internet, they won't really have access to better fares, or better guidance, than you can find on your own

A la carte traveler here.

Unless there's some screaming 40% off sale, plane ticket is booked direct with the airline. I am a magnet for flight delays and other airline weirdness, and in the event of irregular operations, you can go to any open airline customer service representative and have them handle your ticket rebooking issue. If you go through Orbitz and the like, the airline reps tend to tell you to go back to Orbitz to get rebooked and Orbitz doesn't have the resources to force a decent rerouting like the airlines own fourth level customer service ninjas do. (Thank you Robin from Delta who changed our fare class and sent us on a different partner airline to an entirely different country in order ot have us lose as little time in Scotland as possible.)

We are introverts with dust/mold allergies and thus outliers here because we like the chain hotels for their less obtrusive service and modern climate control. (and hey, the typical Ibis or Motel One is going to have a lower American guest content than a mom and pop recommended in a big US guidebook) So I'll also book direct with them and get any elite status benefits if I'm at an IHG hotel or a few Delta miles if it's an Accor property.

Car I actually book through Expedia on the first pass a few months out because I like their nice useful price and car class comparison grid- reservation only for cars, never prepaid. And since car rental rates make less sense than airline fare categories, I'll recheck the car rates every week or two when I get a hotel or airline e-mail announcing they've got a special sale partnership with tiier rental car company pal du jour. Usually it's no better than the usual AAA-Hertz discount, but I cut 25% off a week's rental in Colorado this summer when, about a week before the trip, LaQuinta Hotels sent out a discount code that actually was cheaper than our standing reservation.

Train reservations- as soon as date is more or less firm because those ticket prices generally only go up.

Plans for attractions- only very roughly done because they're probably going to get changed up once we're on the ground. Exception- reservation required attraction that sells out quickly. (ie. Eiffel Tower advanced purchase tickets)

I have gone to Europe 13 of the last 14 years and have taken 13 RS tours. It is getting easier and easier to pick out where we will be going next as we are getting down to only a couple of RS tours we still want to take. Besides taking one of his tours while we are in Europe, we spend time either before, or after, or both, of the tour. Booking a RS tour is the easy part - just look elsewhere on this web site. After picking out the tour we want to take and the dates for the tour we want, we schedule out air fare. We fly out of Seattle and choose to fly on European airlines so that we can fly non-stop (as opposed to direct). We book our airfare directly with the airlines. As far as places to stay while not on the tour, we contact the place we have picked out (from previous stays or from recommendations from guide books). We send them an e-mail and if we do not hear from them in a week, we call them direct being aware of the time differences. If we are asked for a credit card # to hold the reservation, I tend to sent them my number in three different e-mails since if I call them, who knows who might be answering their telephone. We have never used a travel agent but have spent lots of time up at the RS headquarters in Edmonds, WA, only a 30 minute drive from our Seattle, home get advice. Once we have settled on which tour we are taking and wherever else we are going we but the guide books that cover those areas. We always start this process by booking the tour during the "Early Bird Discount" offered by the RS folks, ending this year on December 1st. That saves us $100 each.
We also take out travel insurance, lately with Travel Guard, since my Medicare does not cover me in Europe. We also pay a deposit on that insurance the day we first make any payments towards our trip (usually the tour deposit) so that pre-existing conditions are covered. Sorry to be so long winded. Hope I did not discourage you. Happy travels.

Hi,

Using that phrase, I'm one who books "a la carte." In the past , ie, the 1970s, '80s, and '90s I used a travel agent or went directly to the airline office in SF to have the flight booked. The last time I went through a travel agent to have the proper flight all set up for me was in 2007. Since then I book on-line after doing my own research, weigh the choices as to price, time, place of arrival, be it FRA, London, or CDG, then I do it on-line.

I order a rail Pass from Eurail, shipped free, never had to pay for it, book hotels using Booking.com (mostly) or call them up directly in Austria, England, Germany, say regarding a B&B or Pension in whatever town, to reserve a room that way. There are still Pensionen in Germany which do have a website with its phone # indicated but reserving on-line is not a feature, ie, you have to call them up, (that's the reason for their phone #), just as in the old days, followed by an e-mail confirmation by you or you send a letter of confirmation the old way. No credit card confirmation is needed or asked for to hold the room, especially in Germany when I've reserved at a Pension. Your word over the phone or in written confirmation is good enough. I've done that both ways. Whichever way the hotel reservations is done, on-line or the old way by phone, I do that normally 3-4 months in advance, which means by March/April since the trip will be in early summer (May/June) or the summer, same with the hostel, just to get it out of the way.

I use Rough Guide, Let's Go, sometimes Lonely Planet for hotel consultation. I don't use Trip Advisor at all. For transportation: sometimes I've booked on-line 90-120 days out the DB discount train tickets where I sacrifice flexibility for savings and always for EuroStar senior tickets. Reserving is no problem, overcoming the lethargy and procrastination can be the problem, esp if savings are involved. The train routes are worked out using the DB website along with others, noted down on 3x5 note cards, along with contingency routes (sort of like a reserve plan) since that could be needed in light of train disruptions due to construction, repair, migrants, strikes, and so. One of the flyers I saw plastered in one of the major stations this past June in Germany stated plainly: "Mit Behinderungen muss gerechnet werden" ie, you better count on disruptions. No translation of that in any other language. Planning helps as long as you can switch to somewhere else using a reserve plan.

Things I have learned (some the hard way):

• do not book your flights until you have decided on your itinerary.
• do not decide on your itinerary until you know it's feasible (budget, hotels, train schedules)
• there's no single go-to website for anything. Invest the time at your computer, follow links, read blogs, check multiple sites for transportation options
• ask questions on the forums (not necessarily limited to RS, though the folks here are wonderful resources)
• if you're looking to save money, check more than one website. Booking directly with an airline can be cheaper. Calling or emailing a hotel may get you a better deal than using an online booking agent or even the hotel website.
• avoid U.S. connections when flying home. You will have to go through immigration, collect your luggage, go through customs, then re-check your luggage, probably change terminals and maybe even airports (be careful when you book!).

It's a science and an art, I think. I always do the planning myself.

I start with a big map. I decide on where I want to go, often based on some particular thing I want to see/do. A guidebook is a good source for this part of the planning, as well as internet research if you have a particular interest (Caravaggio paintings, wineries, sports car factories). Then I put the destinations in a logical order. Sometimes some backtracking is required, but I take long trips so it's not that inconvenient; I have to work around blocks of time that I spend in Europe for conferences (10-14 days total), and for meeting up with friends for two weeks. These are the "musts" for the trip.

Once I have an itinerary (which I begin working on while flying back from the previous trip, if not sooner), I buy the airline ticket, usually multi-city (open-jaw). This is usually 6-9 months ahead of departure.

The next thing to plug in is transportation between cities (buses on Sundays may be a problem, museums tend to be closed on Mondays so that's a good travel day). This is the part that requires the most planning, for me. Then I book train tickets as far in advance as possible in order to get the cheapest fares (often these are non-refundable and no changes are permitted; Trenitalia and Italo allow booking up to 120 days in advance). I like to arrive in a city in the early afternoon, when hotel check-in is available, but if a great fare gets me there in the morning, I'll take the early train, drop bag at the hotel and walk the city before checking in.

Then I book hotels, through booking.com if I haven't stayed in the hotel before (always take the "free cancellation" option), or directly with the hotel if it's one that I know. I like booking.com for several reasons, but the main reason is that I book 20-30 hotels per trip (89 days) and it's more convenient to book that way.

I do a spreadsheet (including daily itemized budget), but also keep a small spiral-bound notebook with a page for each day, write the hotel and transportation info followed by sightseeing options with their opening/closing days and times, reserve ahead if necessary, and possible restaurant options. The back of the page will contain a list of photos taken that day.

Once I get to the destination, I check with the Tourist Information office about options I have not considered and that didn't show up in the research yet.

I don't think there is a "best way" for anyone, but the responses so far show a variety of approaches.

Thank you all. This is much more info than I could have ever wished for. We are making our third trip over in December and I feel a little more comfortable every time I put one together but really feel blessed to have this site for all the advice.

I've just completed my bookings for my 6th trip, next May to Paris and Budapest, and I've had good luck using Expedia and sometimes airlines directly. I would not consider a guided tour, just not my cup of tea, I love the research part of my planning and I love doing exactly what I want to, when I want to and for however long I want to. I travel solo so it really is all about ME.

I usually book the flight(s) first, then hotels. I plan carefully -- I often have definite must-dos that only happen on certain days, like Portobello Road market and Vienna's Flohmarkt, only on Saturdays. Then I consider planning day trips by train, etc, and make up a basic itinerary--I arrive in Paris on a Monday morning so I already have a pretty good idea of the museums that are open that day and appeal to me: Pompidou, Musee du Cinema, L'Orangerie and the Louvre. Or, I might just wander through Luxembourg Gardens and get my bearings, eating cheese and pastries wherever I go. I plan my days so as to make the best use of time and energy, but by no means is that set in stone, I leave plenty of time for unexpected discoveries and this has worked well for me.

Not everyone likes or wants to be bothered with the myriad of details that go into planning a trip to Europe, or has the confidence to set out using their own research, many prefer to be led or have everything done for them and it's all good, whatever gets you out into the world in your comfort zone is fine.

Ala carte, here. Many of the other posters have covered points I would make; however, I want to emphasize the importance of researching all transportation issues before expending any money. If you are going to do a complicated itinerary, for example, you need to heed the following caveats. In general, it's a bad idea to plan to pick up a car in one country and drop in another. VERY expensive. Don't make assumptions about the ease of getting from one place to another. Example: Lisbon and Seville look like they should be a short train ride from each other. Not so. Regional airports fairly near each other can have wildly different prices for flights to the same destination. Use open jaw flights unless your whole trip is in a fairly restricted area.
I am very leery about making non-refundable hotel reservations. The one time I did, we were to fly out of Dulles after attending a wedding in Baltimore. My husband forgot his passport, and it was the weekend that Hurricane Irene came through. Our son-law fed-exed the passport, but the hurricane had caused so many flight cancellations that the 3 days I had prepaid for a hotel in Madrid we actually spent staying near IAD until we could get rebooked. Bye-bye $300. I chose to pre-pay because I couldn't, in my wildest dreams, imagine any circumstances in which we wouldn't be taking the trip. So much for that. Get cancellation insurance if you go the prepay route, and be sure it covers all reasons.

Bill,

My method of booking trips is always being fine-tuned, but it usually goes something like this (in the same order).....

• ITINERARY PLANNING - once I've decided where I want to visit, I try to work out an efficient route from starting city to ending city. If the route doesn't seem to work well, I sometimes skip a location in favour of an easier one. I usually try to include re-visits to places I've been before, as well as new places. The choice of which cities to visit includes specific sights I want to see.
• TRANSPORTATION - Once the cities are decided, I plan the most efficient way to get from one to another. This usually involves trains or budget airlines, but very occasionally a Coach.
• FLIGHTS - I almost always use open-jaw flights. Once I've decided on my starting and ending cities, I research options using the airline websites. I never use third parties such as Expedia, Kayak, Priceline or others as I prefer to "avoid the middleman". We basically only have three airlines to consider here, so it's not like there are a lot of choices. I typically research flights six or more months prior to the trip, over a period of several weeks so that I can watch pricing trends. Once I've made a decision, I make a note of the flights I want and take that to my travel agent. I prefer to book international flights through a T.A. as she can often find me better options (since my trips usually involve 2-3 flights in each direction), notifies me of changes prior to travel day, and I can take care of any travel insurance at the same time. Also, here in B.C. flights booked through a T.A. are insured.
• HOTELS - I mostly use hotels listed in the RS guidebooks but will occasionally use others based on past experience or recommendations from friends. I tend to prefer central hotels with easy access to the stations and those in a mid-price range. I always check the hotel websites and sometimes also check Trip Advisor ratings to make sure I have a good idea what they're like. Once I've chosen hotels, I book each one directly with the hotel.
• SIGHTSEEING - Once all the important details are in place, I start planning sightseeing at museums or whatever in each city. This involves looking at which days each one might be closed, transportation options from my hotel, admission costs and whether it's necessary or prudent to book reservations. I list the sights I want to see in each city in order of priority, but tend to treat this as a guideline more than a firm plan. I like to be open to serendipitous opportunities which arise from time-to-time on holidays, and if something comes up and I don't get to a particular sight, it can always be added to the list for another visit. I usually manage to get to most of the items on my list.

That's basically the way I plan trips but this is still "a work in progress".

I'm dining 'a la carte' with Midwest Mira. (I love her detailed description)

Note to Mira: I only dine at Michelin starred restaurants.