Looking for Travel Agent to Layout 2-3 Week Multi country Trip

I dont know an agent for the Prague Vienna Budapest leg of the trip. If you want to try and do it with the fourm help I know you will get good help in Vienna and Budapest. We have members here who live in Vienna and Budpaest and we have members here who have make many, many trips to Vienna and Budapest. Prague, not as much but a lot of us have been at least once or twice so we can figure it out. Here is a start if you have 16 days (scroll down a bit): https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/2-week-itinerary-help-962f2192-a096-4931-9ef2-6f7375ee5619

You will need guidebooks too. Ricks of course and for Budapest the DK Eyewitness Guide as well. There are also some videos and some ofther information on my profile page (yes, I am one of the Budapest geeks ... but not the only one).

I suggest you read the posts for the three cities. You will find the hotels, the restaurants, how the metro systems work, suggestions for multiple days and from time to time entire daily schedule have been created.

To get the most ouf of the forum the more information the better. Critical is exact dates. Age help, interests and things that bother you. Maybe places and things you have enjoyed in the past. Some want to go rafting and some are museum hounds.

If you do get an agent, post their plan here for comment. LOL, it will be fun.

You might call the Rick Steves' office in Seattle to see if they offer travel agent service. I think ....... that they did this for an hourly fee but don't know if they still do. Call 'em.. Most of the posters here are pretty independent travel oriented with good info for specific questions but hard to plan a trip for you without a lot of personal information as to likes and dislikes. You are asking a lot.

We’ve used the Rick Steves office for travel advice, they charged by the hour and they do not make any arrangements, just offered advice and recommendations. Might be a place for you to start after you have more specifics on where you want to go and what your interests will be.

They really don’t do that (serve as a travel agent), and AFAIK never did. What they used to do was offer “consultant” services (required pre booking a consultant, and charged by the hour). - but they never actually booked things (except their tours, of course). I believe the “consultants” went away with COVID, and never came back.

As I recall, what they used to do when asked for “travel agent” services was to refer customers to a local travel agent who had an actual brick ‘n mortar shop just down the street (Elizabeth Holmes - which seems to have moved about 10 years ago, and is no longer in Edmonds). Don’t know who/if they recommend anyone these days.

Worth noting: These days the RSE HQ in Edmonds is only open on Saturdays (another post-COVID artifact).

Honestly, “travel agents” are a bit of an anachronism, made largely obsolete by the internet and restructuring of commissions (how they used to make money). There are still some around (though some of those who survived may not be very knowledgeable - we see people tell hair-raising stories here of “travel agents” who seem pretty clueless, so caveat emptor). There’s a small number of travel agents that specialize in very high end clients, but it’s a tough business model. Frankly, for most people, the best travel agent they’re going to find is going to be the person they see when they look in a mirror.

Hope some of that is helpful. Good luck.

Do you beloing to AAA? They have a large travel department. We have used them to arrange our tours in Egypt and Turkey, and other family members have used their services to arrange travel to Iceland and Costa Rica.

We’ve used KimKim.com twice for trips to South America - and my sister-in-law used them for a trip to Europe. They basically do what a travel agent would do - including hotels and tours and transportation between cities. They did not arrange travel to / from the start / end of our trip but did everything else. They ask lots of questions about the types of things you like and the budget, and then you get a plan - which you can then modify as you like.

We found them easy to work with and it was relaxing having lots of the details handled.

It sounds from your description that what you are looking for is not a “travel agent” but a “travel planner.” Most travel planners will plan a trip from soup to nuts for clients and arrange for flights. intercity transportation, and reserve hotels, attraction admissions and entertainment according to your criteria.

Because of the high level of service and time involved, a professional travel planner usually works for affluent clients and the fees associated with their services are quite substantial. For a three-week itinerary, fees often range between $5,000-$7000. EuroTravelCoach is one company specializing in European travel planning.

I know travel planners who work solely within organizations for members within the organization. Others may have personal experience with independent travel planners who can be hired by individuals,

Good luck to you.

While you are looking for the the magical travel agent, you can do a bit of planning on your own.
Your trip has 2 parts,
1. Amsterdam to Bastogne
2. Prague to Vienna and on to Budapest.

Since Luxembourg to Prague is a 12 hour train trip, you might want to fly. Luxair has a direct flight several times per week for 1 1/2 hours in the air.

Prague to Vienna to Budapest is a straight forward easy plan with frequent rail service. Your only decision is picking hotels and what you want to do and see while in these cities. Plan 4 nights each so you 3 full days in each.

That leaves Amsterdam to Bastogne. What other places do you want to see along the way? You could do Amsterdam to Brussels to Luxembourg. You can do all of these by train. In Luxembourg, rent a car to go to Bastogne, then return it to Luxembourg airport for a flight to Prague.

We have friends who have used Audley Travel for 10 trips. They highly recommend, but are not inexpensive.

I found 2 companies for our trip to Japan on line. I read their websites, studied their itineraries, and asked a few questions via email.
I then asked here about each company and got a few responses here.
They asked us our wants and wishes with regard to cities and activities and sites. They came back with an itinerary. With said yes or no to items, asked about adding a few and finally settled. We received a printed booklet with detailed info and vouchers for a few activities. Upon arrival at our first hotel we received actual tickets such as local train passes and high speed train tickets etc. We also had a contact name if needed.
Same scenario with our Egypt, Jordan, Israel trip in 2023.
I’m sure there is a company out there that does this for Europe. You just have to do a little digging and research.

The toughest part may be finding the right tour guide for the Bastogne part of the trip. You will need someone with knowledge of the battle and experience visiting that huge area over which the battle took place. Even for the overwhelming number on this forum who do not use travel guides, an expert tour guide in Belgium makes sense.

Mr. E could chart the Central Europe segment, which at a minimum should be 10 days and probably should be longer because of the travel time involved.