Alright me and my boyfriend are doing our first backpacking trip around europe, we dont have too much time so were aiming between 3 weeks and 1 month and want a well rounded trip, we want to be busy and squeeze a lot in but obviously want time to relax too!
cities that interest us are :
Vienna, salzburg, bruges, dibrovnik, praguge, london, paris, provence, munich, maybe santorini or hydra, budapest, dublin, venice, the cinque terre, florence, siena, rome, tuscany, naples, amsterdam, krakow, lisbon, barcelona, bern or gimmelwald. So obviously this list is crazy long and barley any of them will make it onto the final list, London is a must as we have family there! I'm super interested in history and he just wants to be "doing" things all day, but we want a well rounded trip and trying to incorporate all aspects of europe into our trip,
Any suggestions to help prioritize cities?
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
Although budget flights can bring different countries closer (see www.skyscanner.com), cutting off all the furthest points or least convenient transportation is typical strategy. That could mean no Dublin, Dubrovnik, Krakow, or Greece. Of course, if any one of those were really important to you, you'd build around it. Rick's book Europe Through the Back Door is a great primer on European travel skills, itinerary building, and his favorite places; it's one that you read before you go. Articles at https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/trip-planning and other parts of the online Travel Tips section are drawn from that book. Once the wish list is narrowed down, separate country and city guidebooks can fill in lots of details. For a wide-ranging 3-4 weeks, Best of Europe covers many destinations on your list; the new edition should be here in September.
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6525 posts
Good advice from Laura, of course. You've listed 24 places for 21-30 days, about one day per place. That would mean spending a large part of every day just moving by train or plane, checking in and out of hotels, packing and unpacking. Not much of a vacation, as you recognize.
Pick an area that interests you most and focus on that. If London is a must, then look at Dublin, Paris, and Amsterdam on the list you provided, all within a few hours of London. And look at some other destinations nearby, like other places in England, Ireland, northern France, Belgium, and/or the Netherlands. You could build a 3-4 week trip around those destinations. Many people would say London and Paris alone would be enough for that amount of time, with day trips to nearby sights.
Or spend some time in and around London, then get a budget flight to another region, like Italy or Spain/Portugal or Greece, for the other half of your trip. But don't try to do it all. When you say "we don't have too much time," I hope you mean just on this trip. Hopefully this won't be your last trip to Europe, You'll enjoy this one more, and spend less money moving around, if you focus on one or two areas.