Milan as home base

Milan for one month is a bit much.

Yes, staying in one place simplifies things for your lodging, but you waste a lot of time in transit to where you go.
I can see Milan to visit Switzerland and Northern Italy to some degree, but not for a month.
Do your research and determine where you wish to visit and WHAT you wish to see.
I have traveling all over Europe and used the trains quite a lot. Italian trains can be late, especially the regional trains.

Check out places like Lake Como, Lucerne, Interlakken, Lugano for Switzerland. Geneva might be too far, but determine how long it would take to get there. There are many scenic places in Switzerland that are a bit remote and not large cities.
As for northern Italy, Venice might be too for to visit, but Genoa, Turin, Bologna and Verona are possibilities.

Consider two weeks in Milan and two weeks in Tuscany and/or Umbria.

How to say that in a friendly way?
Why do you think using any city one month as "home base" is a good idea?

Day trips with 2-3 hours radius means 4-6 hours in the train for 5 hours in the tip destination? Bad idea because any larger city needs minimum 1-2 days for exploring surfacially.

By the way: with Milan as base you will not reach one German city by train in 3 hours.

I recommend to fully rethink that idea to make the most of your time and money.

Also rethink the Eurail Pass. That is rarely a useful thing to have in Latin Europe. Something tells me that you are not very familiar yet with trains in Europe.

Note that there are no places in France, Germany or Austria that are within day trip distance of Milan. The only place as you could conceivable visit are a few in Switzerland.

This is very helpful feedback, thank you all! Definitely inexperienced travelers here and in the very early stages of planning. We should also clarify that we’ll be traveling with an 11-month old at the time, so that’s especially why we considered staying in one location to avoid having to transport luggage, portable crib (because most AirBnbs don’t provide these), stroller, supplies, etc. I’m open to sticking to one country (Italy) to explore it in more depth, but what would be the most effective way to visit multiple countries within a month span? Should we jump “home bases” every week or so? We’re also trying to stay cost-effective, and AirBnBs seem to have the best deal when staying for longer periods of time.

I’m open to sticking to one country (Italy) to explore it in more depth, but what would be the most effective way to visit multiple countries within a month span? Should we jump “home bases” every week or so? We’re also trying to stay cost-effective, and AirBnBs seem to have the best deal when staying for longer periods of time.

I understand with a young child the desire to have home bases. Shorter day trips might be a good idea as well.

If you want to visit multiple countries, I’d suggest a week in each of four places at most.

Sounds like Italy might be the leading edge favorite so perhaps a week in Verona or Padua, smaller cities between Venice and Milan, allowing some nice day trips in the Veneto.

If you choose to stay in Italy, another week could be in Siena or Florence, easy to get to by train. Day trips in Tuscany by train are a little limited but bus service is good. If you base in Florence for a week, you can visit Lucca, Pisa, Cortana and more, plus allow several days for Florence itself. Then maybe head south to Assisi, Orvieto, Rome… If you really plan to stay in Italy, let us know and you’ll get many ideas.

If you want to go to other countries from the starting week in the north I suggested, Luzern, Switzerland may appeal. Easy enough to get to by train (4.5 to 5 hours). From Luzern there are many day trip options by train and it is a lovely city.

From there, perhaps you can consider going to France or Germany.

I agree an AirBNB or VRBO or other vacation rental (Booking.com has them, too) is efficient and economical for a family. Eating in helps the budget and the baby’s schedule, having separate spaces is nice for a longer stay.

How about sharing a few of your main interests and to collect ideas from the forum which cities / areas might provide the best benefit for a week incl. day trips?

Also vague date of planned journey would help.

Another option is booking a cruise, e. g. on Mediterranean Sea, so the home base provides every day a new town to explore.

I am widely against AirBNB and Co because abusing housing space for renting to tourists created real bad housing situation for poorer families in a lot of twons and locations in Europe.. So, if you stay in an apartment you block it against poorer local people. If you want to travel social responsible I recommend to use hotels. Save money by avoiding large events in a city.

I am widely against AirBNB and Co because abusing housing space for renting to tourists created real bad housing situation for poorer families in a lot of twons and locations in Europe.

What's creating the housing shortage in certain European places is the lack of new construction to meet the demand. The localities that suffer from this problem need to incentivize new housing rather than discouraging it.

What's creating the housing shortage in certain European places is the lack of new construction to meet the demand.

Dozens of European towns and cities have counter measures against this business model (e. g. ban on misappropriation of housing apartments) because it creates a lack of thousands of housing units in their communities. You can sarch any European city which is a top 50 destination and will find 0% support for this model of destroying local housing market by greedy landlords using housing units 100% for renting to tourists.

A different valid topic would be that some countries see high numbers of refugees from the Ukraine and Syria plus illegal immigration. Example: Whole EU hosts 4.4 million registered refugees from the Ukraine; more

Building new multi-family housing blindly makes no sense in the current market because the rents of new projects often end up in regions which are over the financial possibilities of young families. So, mixed projects are realized since years.
Many EU countries offer since decades massive funding support to realize private housing, e. g. KfW in Germany.

Every traveler can change the situation every night that local poorer families find no housing by choosing hotels for overnight accomodation.

I've studied this issue at some length. And I acknowledge that your anti-business attitude has, in this instance, a kernel of validity; some landlords indeed have converted former long-term rentals into short-term, often at the expense of local citizens seeking decent housing. But a kernel is all; too many European cities and even nations have erected barriers to new construction that have greatly harmed citizens seeking affordable rental housing. Pretending otherwise betrays a socialist credo that the market is a bad thing and the state should control commerce.

Your suggestion that "building new multifamily housing makes no sense" at a time of housing scarcity itself makes little sense. It's like claiming the solution to hunger is to stop growing food.

As a final remark, I'll just note that I know a couple of multifamily developers who are avid Europe travelers, and who saw an opportunity because of the housing shortages in several European cities (in their cases, Italy). They did some initial due diligence to ascertain feasibility, but fairly quickly abandoned their projects. The reason? Bureaucratic delays, barriers and impediments made the effort unworkable.

Just as a rule of thumb. In my opinion day trips should not exceed a two hour one way train trip. Leave by 8:00am or earlier and return after dinner. Daily day trips will take its toll on you after a few of them in a row. If you are traveling for a month, at the minimum, have a home base in each of your selected countries if day tripping is your plan of travel.

It is natural to seek a variety of cultural experiences on a one-month trip. However, you don't necessarily need to leave Italy to accomplish that. There is a lot of variation among the various regions in Italy. There are towns in the Alto Adige/Sud Tirol where German is more widely spoken than Italian, and the food shows a significant Austrian influence.

Options for practical daytrips heading to countries north of Italy are limited to non-existent because of the mountains blocking the path. Those train trips are not very fast. You can explore the logistical challenges on the Italian (trenitalia.com), Swiss (sbb.com) and Austrian (oebb.com) websites. There are other parts of Europe where it's easier to take short trips across borders.

Switzerland is a beautiful country with a well-engineered rail system, but it is a very expensive destination from the standpoint of hotels, restaurants and rail fares (per mile).