How many countries in 18 days?

Forget the number of counties - - there's places you can walk in a ten-foot circle and pass through three.

Think about the number of stops and the time it takes, door-to-door, to get from one to the other. Include getting to and from out-lying airports and the need to be there a couple of hours early.

You don't need to cut a destination, you need to cut a bunch.

Sorry, but you really don't have the time to do all the cities on your itinerary.
I would suggest flying into Dublin and tour the countryside for four days.
Then fly to London on one of the budget air carriers.
The EuroStar fast train can get you from London to Paris in under 3 hours.
For 18 days, that's about all you can really visit properly. Italy is a two week trip to itself, and Munich is a minimum 4 day place to visit. I don't see budget airlines flying from Paris-Munich.

"Does this seem like too much for a trip of this length?"

Your itinerary is better than some, but maybe a bit too ambitious. You have 18 days, but you won't do too much the first day due to jet lag and little sleep on the plane, and you'll probably leave in the morning of the last day, so realistically you have 16 days.

You have 6 venues, Dublin, Dingle, Paris, Rome, Naples, and the Alps. Except for Rome to Naples, most changes of venue will take a whole day, so you're down to 11 days of dwell time in each of 6 places.

Ok, maybe do Naples as a long day trip from Rome. Naples and Rome become one long venue. So 5 venues in 16 days with 4 days to change venues - 12 days in 5 venues - give Rome/Naples 4 days, you have 2 days each for Dingle/Dublin/Paris/Alps. I think most would agree that Paris deserves more than 2 days.

Skip Dingle, spend 4 days in Paris. Skip the Alps, spend 4 days in Paris. Spend only 1 day each in Dublin/Dingle, spend 4 days in Paris. You decide.

You are young.
This will be your first, but not your last, trip to europe.
Slow down. Haste really does make waste.
When are you going?
Does the 18 days include travel to and from home?

Rent an apt and stay five days each in rome and paris, there is ample in both locations to create wonderful memories and still leave much undone. Reduce your travel stress, and increase your trip enjoyment, by packing/unpacking fewer times.

This trip, skip the alps.
Have not yet been to ireland so others will provide counsel.

Sounds like Ireland is important, so spend some time there, a few days in London, and perhaps a stop at Mont-St-Michel for a couple of days before you go to Paris. Keep the other destinations for the next trip. Trains and planes are not the memories you want of your anniversary, are they?

I might suggest scratching Ireland and Naples. Then, plan an itinerary that starts in Paris (fly in) and ends in Rome (fly out). You could save some time by doing a daytrip to Salzburg from Munich if you really wanted to see Salzburg (and even another possible daytrip to the castles from Munich) and taking a night train from Munich to maybe Venice. Then, work your way to Rome from there. There is some train time in there, but it's hard to avoid that. Just a thought.

The only thing I would drop is Italy - save it for another trip, a few days won't do it justice. Depending on your budget and your travel style you can do Ireland, Paris, alps (although not the German ones). Here's what I would do.

Day 1 - 6, fly into Shannon and rent a car, drive the west coast (Dingle, etc), end up in Dublin and drop off car.
Day 7 explore Dublin
Day 8 fly Dublin to Paris (saw direct flights for $86 on random day in June)
Day 9-13 explore Paris (with possibly one day trip)
Day 14-16 train to Annecy/Chamonix area (the French Alps are beautiful)
Day 17 train back to Paris for the night
Day 18 fly back from Paris

Of course, all this assumes that you actually have 18 days (excluding flight to Ireland), when you are going, what your budget is, how far you want to travel between places, and what your interests are.

I'd do it myself, I don't find it too rushed at all. It's an anniversary trip, make it as special as you can. And assume you'll be back.

Happy Anniversary! As others have asked, it would be good to know exactly how much time you have. Does your 18 days include your travel days? Flying from San Diego, it is a long trip and you will likely be quite tired when you arrive.

I agree with the others that Italy deserves it's own trip. It took our 4th trip to Europe before we got there. Even spending 3 weeks there, we missed so much. When you travel you have to remember that if you spend two nights in a location that only gives you one full day, three nights is two days, and so on.

I would suggest this, using your stated desires -
Fly into Shannon Airport in Western Ireland. Get a car and drive to Dingle. Spend 3 nights there. Drive to Dublin and drop your car. Spend 3 nights there. Fly from Dublin to Lyon or Geneva. Get a car and head for the French Alps. Spend 4 nights there. Return the car and train to Paris. Spend the rest of your time there. You will have ample time to enjoy the city and take a day trip or two. If you want to spend less time in Paris you could spend a couple of days in Burgundy before heading to Paris.
Remember that it's a vacation, not a race. You can't see it all, so take the time to appreciate what you can see.

Thanks everyone for your replies. It's greatly appreciated. I think everyone agrees that we're being a little ambitious for our first trip. We're traveling in October and flying in and out of Dublin. I would much rather go open-jawed but at least at this point airfare is much cheaper to go round trip through Dublin. We've got got Irish roots so Ireland is a definite keeper. Our second pick though is really a tough one if we wanted to limit it to two main destinations. My guess would probably be Rome for a few days and then venture south to Naples and Positano.

I think the fact that I've been dreaming of visiting Europe for most of my 34 years has me wanted to see it all on our first trip. But it's probably a good idea to step back and remember that this is a vacations and shouldn't be focused around airports and trains. Thanks again!

When this situation comes up (and it comes up a lot), I like to suggest that people imagine they have a pen-pal who lives somewhere in Europe, who is excited about visiting America. Imagine that they tell you they are really interested in seeing Boston, Disneyworld, Chicago, Hollywood, New Orleans and Seattle. They also want to know if they can see a bit of that Grand Canyon they have heard so much about. They have 18 days. Give them some advice....
.
You would probably tell them to limit themselves to one section of the US and then plan on returning in the future to visit other sections, one at a time. This is logistically practical. It also has the benefit of being culturally coherent (to the extent that we in the USA have an identifiable culture) since New England has nothing in common with New Orleans, which has nothing in common with the Grand Canyon or Seattle. That would be good advice. Take that advice yourself and enjoy.

Watch out for that round trip from Dublin.

By the time you pay to get back there from way the hell and gone, those apparent savings might disappear. Cost out the whole trip's transportation cost before you commit.

Randy,
Great suggestion on perspective, I will plagiarize it!

If you think you are saving money RT to Dublin, you probably aren't searching right for open jaw. Normally, for about the same money, you would save a day.
.
Do not add London or any other destinations unless they are actual priorities of yours! Instead maybe think about saving one of these great destinations for another trip. Base your choices on your true priorities, then design an itinerary to fit.

In 18 days we usually visit one country, and don't see anywhere near all of it.

Your itinerary with four widely-spaced destinations is way too much.. When you go to a nice restaurant, do you order everything on the menu? No, of course not. You make choices,mand plan to come back to try the other things. That is what you need to do here.

It sounds like Ireland and Italy are the most important to you. That is doable, but you will have to fly between the two. And it makes a whole lot more sense to fly open jaw if you are doing that. As stated above , if it looks so much more expensive than RT to Ireland, you are doing something wrong. Open jaw is booked using the "Multi-city" function, not as two one-ways.

As for "the Alps", October is a problem. Munich is not in the Alps, but is deep in Oktoberfest for most of the month. Fine if you are interested in beer culture, but it is a VERY expensive time to visit. Hallstatt might count as Alps but is probably pretty quiet October--places closed. Salzburg might be OK but just adds time and trouble to your trip. You cannot do it all in one trip. Focus on the two or three places you really want to be part of your anniversary trip.

I checked the ITA Matrix Search (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) and found what you mean about a cheaper Aer Lingus RT from San Diego to Dublin. However, remember that you will have to get back to Dublin to do that. Getting back will cost you time and money both. I didn't know your exact dates, but I put in leaving on 10/1 and returning on 10/18. I tried it going to Dublin first and returning from Rome. The one stop price was about $300 per person more than the RT Dublin fare, which is also one stop each way. I checked Skyscanner (http://www.skyscanner.com/) for flights from Rome to Dublin on 10/17 (which you might have to do because of the tight timing on 10/18) and the price per person for an Aer Lingus flight is $172. Doing that would save $128 per person over the multi-city option of flying into Dublin and out of Rome. Check it out for yourself and see what you think. Because these would be all Aer Lingus flights, perhaps the tight timing would be okay. And if you decide to skip all the places in between, concentrate on Ireland and Italy, and to fly San Diego to Dublin to Rome to San Diego, you might find something totally different directly from Aer Lingus. ITA Matrix priced it out cheapest using Delta and Air France for $1395 per person with 1 stop each leg of the journey.

You can actually accomplish this if it is your travel style and you have limited must see at each place. But for your first trip, it may be easier to limit some of the sites.

From a personal side I would pick Munich over Rome. Rome didn't have the european charm for me (but I did enjoy the Vatican).

Thanks again everyone for your help. Your analogy was especially helpful, Randy!

I've done some better search techniques and found an open jaw plan that works much better. We can fly from LAX to Rome (with a two hour stop in Copenhagen, spend 10 days in Italy getting around there via rail. Then fly from Milan to Dublin and from Dublin back to San Diego. And in the end the cost is pretty much the same as round trip in and out of Dublin. A big eye opener for me from the original plan was that we would end up spending over 40 hours of our trip in airports or on airplanes.