Italy, Austria, Germany and France with KIDS

With 4 countries (France, Italy, Austria, Germany) and 6 travel days at your disposal, I think you are fairly limited in the scope of what you can do. With start/end points set at Nice and Paris, perhaps you are looking at something like this....
2 destinations in Italy - Tuscany & Venice
1 destination in Austria - Vienna
2 destinations in Germany - Munich & Rhine
Travel Day 1. Nice to Tuscany
Travel Day 2. Tuscany to Venice
Travel Day 3. Venice to Vienna
Travel Day 4. Vienna to Munich
Travel Day 5. Munich to Rhine
Travel Day 6. Rhine to Paris

Thank you Syd, I should clarify - we have 19 days to spend (not including the 2 airport days at the beginning and end of our trip) and 6 days of rail travel. I appreciate your feedback!

This seems a rather difficult puzzle to put together. You'll be very tired on September 26. You've booked just one night in Nice so it sounds as if you don't really plan to tour that city. Personally, I'd stay a second night in Nice, even though that limits what you can do before heading to Munich. Either Florence or Venice will be at least a 7-hour train ride from Nice, and that's not counting checking out of your hotel, getting to the train station, etc. And if you don't get an early start, I think you'll either have a 9-hour train ride or another very late arrival in City #2. I can't imagine wanting to do that the day after you arrive in Europe late in the evening.

Assuming you do leave Nice on Sept. 26, you have five days before the day you have to take the train to Munich. To me, that's barely enough time for two destinations. So probably two of Tuscany / Venice / somewhere-in-Austria. Or I suppose you could take it slower and spend all the time in Tuscany with a car.

If you choose to include Vienna, you'll have another long ride from Italy (about 8 hours from Venice or 10 from Florence). I don't know how that would work with young children, but I suspect not well. When you leave Vienna it will take 4+ hours to get to Munich. That's a lot of train travel for just 1-1/2 days in Vienna, so I'd suggest somewhere in Austria that's not as far east. (Actually, I'd suggest not going to Austria at all, but...)

So now it's October 1 and you get to Munich in the evening and spend 3 nights there, departing on October 4. Counting October 4 you have eight full days before your travel-to-Paris day if you're due there on October 12. (Is that right? You need 3 nights there, not 2, if you are arriving Oct. 12 and flying home Oct. 15.) That's enough time to move at a slow pace and hit a couple of different areas with some side trips. Or you could try to squeeze in three smaller destinations (I wouldn't).

David's idea of the Rhine might work well. A Rhine boat would introduce a different mode of transportation, and there are castles to see. Then maybe Alsace-by-car? I like both those areas, but there are some similarities of architecture; you might prefer more variety. Then again, if you haven't managed to hit Venice, the canals might be a hit with your daughters.

I don't have any experience traveling with young children, but six major travel days out of 19, spread out between Paris/Nice and Austria, feels very hectic to me.

I'm about your age, have done the backpack thing in my early twenties and have now lived in Europe with my two kids for about 9 years. In those 9 years, we have taken dozens of trips with our kids with at least two trips each year of 2-3 weeks. Your instincts are correct that you need to travel differently with kids, no matter how good you think they can travel. My kids are absolute pros.

We have found that the best way is to pick one destination for each week. The destination should have lots of day trip possibilities and include indoor and outdoor activities. You then save a lot of time checking in/out of hotels, traveling and unpacking. We also typically rent an apartment for the week, which will have a washing machine. You can also cook your own meals, which is a big help with kids, especially when they are off schedule with jet lag.

Destinations which have been great week long hubs for us include Lucca, Bologna, Seefeld, Barcelona and Zadar. I am sure that you can find something similar in the areas you are concentrating on. I would suggest Bologna (2Italia has great family apartments), Seefeld (Hotel Princess Bergfrieden has excellent two bedroom apartments) and a third location near Nice (should be easy to find a place).

I'd also comment that a pass from Rail Europe is a complete waste of money. When you were 20, it made sense, but not anymore.

Finally, David's suggestion above is not a 6 day itinerary, but a suggestion of how you can use your 6 travel days.

Until you've taken this trip, you won't know how your girls will handle the long flights and the jetlag. Don't underestimate the toll it takes on everyone when you change locations frequently, packing up, making sure nothing gets left behind, figuring out how to get around in each new place. I understand the idea of being flexible, but I've found that it's impracticable. If you don't have places booked, you may end up spending a lot of time looking for 4-bed rooms with a cranky backpack-toting bunch.

My 6 days were your travel days only.
I realise you have 20 nights to fill, which isn't much at all.

Sep 25. Nice - 3 nights
Sep 28. Tuscany - 3 nights
Oct 1. Venice - 3 nights
Oct 4. Vienna - 3 nights
Oct 7. Munich - 3 nights
Oct 10. Rhine - 2 nights
Oct 12. Paris - 3 nights

If it was me with 20 nights, I would have chosen 5 destinations and booked 4 point to point tickets.

Thanks everyone! Good insight, I appreciate it! I'm bummed the rail pass was such a bad idea, when I'd started adding up point-to-point tickets it seemed this was more cost effective. We got one travel day free (paid for 5 got one free) and the 10% off for traveling together, and of course kids were free - so I guess I was too easily fooled. Oh well, I'm sure we'll use it. Live and learn :/

I think the base camp thing sounds like a good idea, preferably something in smaller towns out of the traffic zones. I'll check out the spots listed for Italy in the north. I'm thinking of perhaps doing 2 days in the Nice area, then going to the Dolomite region for the next few nights - until our Munich reservations. A bit more relaxed but still beautiful - sound reasonable? I can get a taste of Italy but not head south which is out of our main focus. Originally we were thinking Alps and Dolomites, but got side tracked by the thermal hot springs of Tuscany :)

The con with the rail pass is that the sites which sell the passes only show full, walk-up fares for comparison. Nobody buys walk up fares anymore. The best way to buy train tickets is from the national rail carrier online and in advance. The sites of these rail carriers is also the best place to compare fares vs. passes. Can't you return your pass? I can't imagine how expensive it was and I bet that even if you had to pay a penalty, you would still save.

Anyway, as you said, you live and learn.

Okay I'll try that. I've tried Bahn.DE (recommended by RS for all Europe, but doesn't have prices) and SCNF (only does France). Is there another site I should try?

@ wanderkins....Did you exceed the 92 days when using DB website. If it's beyond that limit, the prices don't show up. Try putting in dummy dates, say 80 days in advance, Heidelberg to Munich, Munich to Bremen, Frankfurt to Leipzig. . I use the 92 adv discount tickets from time to time, ,ie certain rides, unless you want sacrifice all flexibility just for savings by locking yourself in to a date and time specific train. The other times I use the Pass.

Wanderkins, the others were much more succinct than I was, but I see we're all on the same page.

I urge you to ditch the rail passes. You can turn them in for an 85% refund. I think you'll come out ahead. Re-work your ticket list with more realistic destinations, check second-class prices and see what you think. Don't forget that if you travel on trains requiring reservations, you're still going to have to pay for the seat reservations with a rail pass, whereas the ticket prices you see online normally include the mandatory reservation fee (but not if it is optional). And there are sometimes exceptionally good deals on individual tickets for people traveling together; I know this is common in Germany.

Aside from the excessive cost, there's an additional problem with rail passes in France that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. The rail pass does not guarantee that you'll be able to buy a seat reservation on just any train, even if the train is not full. There are capacity controls on the number of seats allocated to pass holders on French trains. Personally, I think that is dreadful--first they sell you an overpriced rail pass, then they don't let you use it. You are starting and ending in France, and this could really affect you. If you are going to use reservation-only trains leaving Nice and going to Paris, you don't actually have total flexibility because of the rail-pass limit.

The Dolomites are lovely. I highly recommend that area. But if you spend two days in Nice (3 nights) and then head out, I wouldn't recommend the Dolomites as your next stop. The valley city of Bolzano is more than 8 hours from Nice, then you hop on a (frequent, scenic) bus to go up into the mountains. Figure at least another hour for that, probably more. So that's a lost day. Munich is about 5 hours from Bolzano, plus the time needed to get from your mountain-village hotel down to Bolzano and get from the train station in Munich to your hotel. That day's pretty much gone, too. All that traveling for what is basically just 2 days and a few hours in the Dolomites. I think you'll want more time there. The scenery is beautiful, there are very nice walks, from strolls to challenging hikes, and it's very different from big-city Nice and big-city Munich.

After two days in Nice (which I think is an excellent idea), I believe your next stop needs to be one that is easier to access since you are not flexible about when you arrive in Munich. Venice is a dreadfully long train ride from Nice, but it fits better with the time you'll have available than a mountain destination. Another possibility would be to stay in Nice until October 1 and fly to Munich on one of the budget airlines. Skyscanner.com is the place to check schedules. I'm having trouble with that website at the moment, so I can't tell you who might fly between Nice and Munich.

I'm sorry to nitpick your schedule, and I realize that you don't want or need to pin down your exact destinations now (I make reservations only 24 or 48 hours ahead myself), but I think you'll end up covering considerably less ground than you were originally planning, and that makes the rail passes an even bigger waste of money.

You could have a lovely vacation in just France and southern Germany. The latter has mountains, lakes and picturesque towns galore. You'd need to be careful about crossing Swiss territory, though, because those trains are very costly per mile.

Wow well I feel rather terrible about all my choices. Not sure if/how I can salvage this trip. Sounds like I've screwed up everything by buying us rail passes. Not sure if I can get a refund, not sure how to make anything work at this point.

Not to worry. You'll have a fabulous trip even if you end up having overpaid a bit for your train transportation! Buying an unnecessary rail pass is a very, very common mistake.

This webpage provides info on refunds of Eurailpasses purchased directly from Eurail.com. If you ordered your passes from a different source, contact that source to see whether and how a refund is possible. The reason would simply be "Change of Plan".

If for some reason you can't manage a refund, just proceed with planning a great trip. The railpass money is spent. Don't feel that you have to exhaust yourselves taking six really long train rides in an effort to make the passes pay off. Figure out how to have the most fun you can each day. If that means you travel a bit less and see a bit more, that's fine.

Hi Wander

Do not get discouraged - re-price your point to point tickets. Since you are traveling within the next 30 to 40 days the savings tickets may not be available any way.

Also - if you pick 4 base places and do some day trips you can use the pass days for that possibly.

All is not lost - you will all have a great time.

I would definitely add a 2nd night to Nice - just so everyone can recover a bit.

I'm just curious - what did you mean by "checking out the baths"? Roman ruins, hammams in the city...?

Your children will not have to pay for Metro/Bus tickets, and you two could get along fine with one or two "carnets" of 10 loose tickets, during your stay. Kids under 12 also don't have to pay to enter museums.

Hostels should be reserved in advance, since many people will be travelling when you are.
There are both shared and private family rooms available in Paris, some with private bathrooms. Here are two of the best hostels in Paris:

https://generatorhostels.com/en/destinations/paris/

https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/paris-hostels?gclid=CjwKEAjwmMS-BRCm5dn51JLbp1wSJACc61tFtbryRmkJZ4-i5Dnlvvyu5lSIxnEO0EkfZ6VDlGJZzxoCA3Lw_wcB

"All is not lost"....It certainly isn't. I've encountered that situation in France on the quota of pass users (50%) pertaining to a certain time of departure, was told my Pass was invalid. I had a 1st class Pass then, so I asked what about in 2nd class, That always did it, problem solved. This was traveling high season, sometimes literally last minute or the night before the departure. I never had to postpone my original dep time, let alone ask what about tomorrow? Bottom line, it's not the end of the world, you work around it, certainly not something to get flustered over.

Re: just buying a ticket and see where it takes me. That can be done a lot easier in Austria, in Germany too if you have a Pass to do this type of zig zag traveling.

Thanks, I got very overwhelmed by the rail pass concerns. But like it was said, I'll use the passes if not for long distance travel - at least for day trips from our home bases. Now that I have the pass (for better or worse) I guess I can reserve on any site? So we are talking about a few home bases (every 2-3 days) and minimizing travel. I'm thinking 2 days in Nice, 4 days in Northern Italy (TBD) and doing day trips from there, then 3 nights in Munich...still working on the rest but we have 8 days to figure out between Munich and Paris - and there are so many beautiful places between those cities so we'll probably choose 2 more home bases, then 3 nights in Paris before flying home.

Sunday arrive Nice - 2 nights
Tuesday travel to home base in Northern Italy (TBD) - 4 nights
Saturday travel to Munich - 3 nights
Tuesday travel to German Bavarian home base (TBD) - 4 nights
Saturday travel to Eastern French home base (TBD) - 4 nights
Wednesday travel to Paris - 3 nights
Saturday - fly home

Still rough but I think doable (5 travel days) but 3-4 night stays between. The 6th day was a "free" bonus so we'll probably use it for a day trip, and then maybe rent cars for other day tripping - or take buses, ferries etc. depending where we are and what we want to do. I appreciate everyone's help!!

If you are keeping your passes, I don't understand why you would use them on the day trips? Why not use the pass on the longer, most expensive part of your travels?

How exciting for you and your family! We've recently returned from Italy (Venice, Florence and Rome) with our 4 and 9 year old. Traveling with children is different for sure, but you may end up surprised how great your kids keep up!

In Venice we stayed at Palazzo Minelli (through booking. com) and I'd recommend it. Our room had a canal view and the boys loved watching everyone cruising along. They also served fresh croissants and toast with jelly/butter, coffee, hot chocolate, orange juice each morning. I think there are only 3 rooms available there. It was also a short walk to St. Mark's Square, beds are comfy and the A/C worked great. Some reviewers said the room was noisy from the canal traffic but we didn't find that at all.

We followed Rick's suggestion and bought our tickets at Museo Correr and after doing a walk through there, went to Dode's Palace. We toured the museum in the morning, hopped on a water bus to eat lunch in the Rialto area, then around 4pm went back to Dode's and didn't have to wait in line at all.

If you'd like recommendations for Florence or Rome I'm happy to pass them along. :)

I forgot to add that we only used backpacks as well! My husband and I each carried one for our clothing and our oldest carried one that kept his and his brother's clothing. It worked out great! Our youngest had small child's backpack for him to carry their Nintendo DSes..

If you're looking for backpack recommendations, my husband and I used Osprey Farpoint 40's and we chose the Osprey Porter 30 for our son to carry. They were perfect for carry-on and they were great for the train rides too.

I'm not sure if you're keeping or returning your rail passes. But if you need to know where to look for the best price for tickets on a particular train route, here's a great list, from rail guru The Man In Seat 61: http://tinyurl.com/bo8x6o6

Hopefully you are over the feeling that your trip is ruined. It most certainly is not! Worst case you paid a little more than you had to. No big deal. You're going to Europe! We all make mistakes at the beginning.

I think your most recent itinerary will work fine. With four nights in Northern Italy, do consider the Dolomites. They are beautiful, and I saw lots of playgrounds while I was there. I bet the girls will love the chairlifts and gondolas. I did! We stayed in Ortisei, which was a great base and doesn't require a car. It will involve long travel days, but I'm thinking you will have fairly long travel days regardless. But perhaps others have better ideas. I can imagine the girls might also like Venice.

No matter what you decide I hope you have a wonderful time. Personally, I think renting a car for day trips will add to the stress level, so I'd try to pick places that are easy by train. I also would not cram in a lot of day trips. It's easier than changing hotels, but still not as relaxing as staying put and getting to know a place.

I absolutely think that all 4 of you will have a really nice time. You are going to special places and you will have special times - the girls will remember them and have warm feelings.

You may have spent a little more than you wanted but you will forget that after a great trip.

Thanks all! I appreciate your words of support, I'm feeling much more optimistic. I think we're putting together a really good intinerary that our kids will enjoy. Were slowly focusing in on our plan and have things a bit more firmed up. Here's what we have:

Nice 2 nights
Lake Brescia 3 nights
Venice 1 night (I know it's short but we'll have 1.5 days)
Munich 3 nights
Bad Reichenhall 2 nights
Garmish 3 nights

----here's where I get stuck....
We are planning to train from Innsbruck towards the west to Lake Konstanz then Colmar. The area from Innsbruck to the Basel is where we'd like to explore by train. It's not too big geographically but trains seem slow because of the mountains. We'd like to see the villages and do some small hikes around the mountains and lakes. Once we get to France we'd spend a couple days in Colmar, then head to Paris for the last few days before flying home. From what I can tell reservations are only required on a couple legs. Does anyone have experience on the Austrian rail in this area? How full are the trains? Any stops you'd make along the way?

Brescia sounds really interesting (I haven't been there), but it's not on a lake, though very near Lake Garda. Just wanted to be sure you realized that.

Mainau Island in Lake Konstanz has a beautiful garden. There are certainly nice walks in that area. And I think surely the Garmisch area will be good for mountain walks.

Unless I've lost count of your days, I don't think you'll have time to dally much between Lake Konstanz and Colmar. Maybe one night? I'm not sure you have time to get down to the Bernese Oberland. And cutting through Switzerland on the train could prove surprisingly costly even if you didn't take any of the mountain railroads.

I really enjoyed Colmar. The canals and architecture make it a really distinctive city, and I think it might appeal to the children. Be sure you have time to wander there.