Need Help on Itinerary

I've been to all of the places that you've listed. Of those, the highlights in my opinion are Venice, Salzburg & Verona. If you're staying in Innsbruck to be in the mountains, I would recommend the Italian Dolomites, instead. Salzburg is wonderful but not worth all of the hours on the train in this itinerary. Trento is in the valley at the base of the mountains - we wouldn't stay there again, and especially not two nights. Currently, you have double the quantity of hours on a train that I would recommend for an 16 day trip.

Here's some thoughts to reduce your time on trains and increase your actual "vacation time":
If you want to see Venice & Verona, I would select Ortesei or Moena in the Dolomites - either could be reached by Verona without staying overnight in Trento. If you don't want to consider flying into/out of Venice, then you might want to add Stresa as your first or last stop from Milan.

Otherwise, if your priority of this trip is Salzburg, you could fly into Munich and out of Vienna with some wonderful stops in between.

Hi NJMOM,

I figure you're from NJ and flying out and back to Newark, NJ? We've been looking at prices for flights from NJ to Munich on Lufthansa, etc. and found them to very expensive (approx. $1,650 per person). We looked into flying Icelandair and found prices of $900 per person. I have a post concerning this recently that you may find interesting.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/icelandair-to-munich-d5dff51a-3370-491f-910e-d4af1382e213

While we love Innsbruck and have stayed 5 times in nearby Hall in Tirol, I would also suggest a stay in the Dolomites. The Val Gardena (Ortisei, St. Christina or Selva) as Jean pointed out. They are like nothing else you will see in the alps. This is about 1:30 south of Innsbruck and with no need to stay in Trento you could do 3 nights in the Val Gardena and maybe 2 nights in Innsbruck.

www.val-gardena.com

If you flew into Milan or Venice and out of Munich, that would make sense also. No need to backtrack to Italy. I'd check the prices with Icelander and see where you could fly into and out of and maybe build around that. All flight have a roughly 1 hour stop in Iceland. They also allow you to stay for a few nights at no extra cost to the flight and continue on your trip after if you would like to see Iceland. We are thinking of 2 or 3 nights in Iceland just to take the "Golden Circle" tour and see some of Reykjavik.

Paul

I think a much more efficient routing would be possible if you flew 'open jaw', into Munich, and out of Venice.

Munich - 3 nights
Salzburg - 2 or 3 nights
Innsbruck - 2 nights
Dolomites - 2 or 3 nights
Verona - 2 nights
Venice - 3 nights

Hi again NJMOM,

The above by "David in Brisbane" would be ideal.

@David in Brisbane. Thank you for the advice .I checked on those flights are they are about $500 more per person and with three of us going, that is too much money. I tried many "open jaw" options and even moved the in and out airport options and they prices were high.

Thanks everyone, appreciate the feedback. Did a little thinking.

While Salzburg is not a must see on this trip, we did want to see Hallstatt. It's always been somewhere I wanted to visit. So let me ask you all this, is it better if we drop Salzburg ? Fly into Milan, go Verona (3), Venice (3), then get a car and drive up to Hallstatt(2) then over to Innsbruck(3). That leaves us with 3 nights to fill in..not sure where. My husband is open to dirving. Thoughts?

Another another option is if we end in Munich we can fly EasyJet for $61 Euro from Munich to Milan. The flight is at 6:10PM so we would have to fly in the night before which then leaves us in Milan with a 4PM flight. We were in Milan this past April, but I am sure we can find something to kill a few hours before heading to the airport. That would give is Verona (3), Venice (3), Innsbruck (2), Salzburg (2 or3), Munich (2 or 3) and Milan (1).

HI, your last option you listed: Verona (3), Venice (3), Innsbruck (2), Salzburg (2 or 2), Munich (2 or 3) and Milan (1) would provide a nice vacation with the short flight back to Milan. If you like Hallstatt, you might also prefer to stop in some smaller villages when you're near Munich.

Just looked further and found that Air Dolmiti flies mutiple times a day from Munich to Venice for about $50 to $100 euro depeding on time of day so that works even better. They fly 5 times a day and its less than an hour flight. Then we can end the trip in Venice.

Fantastic. A bit of 'workshopping' and some solutions start to flow. Go for it.

I'd check skyscanner.com for flights. I used Norweigan Air and saw some cheap flights from NYC to London. You may check those sites if you can get to NY you may save money.

Keep in mind jet lag. But I'm from the west coast so it's a little harder for me takes me 5 days to adjust.

I've heard wonderful things about Lake Garda. I only spent a few hours in Verona a few years back and that was enough for me.

Venice is a little too busy for me a day or two is enough. You have to go to Murano, just take the water taxi, you'll spend a few hours at least there. Just make sure the kid knows not to touch anything or you'll be spending money on expensive glass in Murano.

I lived in Vicenza for a couple months and it's about an hour on the slow train from Venice and lovely. The White House is based on La Rotanda in Vicenza and Palliados work (sorry for the misspelling) he is the architect there and the city is fantastic.

If I was to suggest ideas for northern Italy since I spent most of my time there, four days in Milan, tons of stuff to do there and the 24 hour metro pass is 4,50€ for adults.

I've never been to Salzburg or Innsbruck. You might want to look at flights to London then do a cheap flight to your destinations through Ryanair or EasyJet. Honestly, flying country to country is way cheaper than the Eurorail. I just went to Milano. First flew into London, took Ryanair to Milan for about 60€, then Ryanair to Malta for 60€, then Ryanair to Madrid for about 60/80€, then flying Transavia to Amsterdam from Barcelona for about $120 because I packed way too much, I know it's my fault on that one, so you could fly for about 60€ but again, I packed a ton...then flying from Amsterdam to London for about 80€ with EasyJet it will be cheaper if you keep to about 20 kg for the weight in each bag. Also, Ryanair read restrictions, they get you if you don't print the ticket, but you can't use the checkin app because if your American, found out in Malta they weren't supposed to charge me, which they did in London.

The train tickets in Italy can be purchased the same day at the machines. Just watch out for the gypsies they swarm on you when you select the English setting. I would just take the R or RV which are the slow trains but they don't have a time sensitive stamp, you can find a list of the times and docks on the walls at the stations with posted times. Just find the number and use the validation machine to punch your ticket.