Need Help Streamlining Itinerary!

How are you getting to London to fly home and on what day? Doing it the day of your flight is not recommended, so will you be leaving Paris on Day 15 to overnight in London? Are you taking the train? You are going to 7 cities in 6 countries in 15 days, which is really way too much. What do you plan on seeing and doing in each of these cities?

Yes, I will be taking a train from Paris to London on day 15 because my flight is in the morning of day 16. I don't have set plans in each city except for a few. Mostly, we just would like to explore the cities as we go. However, in Amsterdam, we'd like to see the tulips at the Kukenhof Gardens and visit my ancestor's village that is nearby, so Amsterdam is a must in the itinerary. We'd like to do a one-hour Rhine River Cruise in Bacharach and see some of the castles. In Salzburg, it would be nice to see some of the sights from the Sound of Music, but not necessary. In Venice, a gondola ride. In Rome and Paris, we'd like to see the popular sights (Eiffel Tower, Colliseum, etc)

Jen, IMHO, your Itinerary is somewhat "ambitious" and could be problematic if there are any disruptions in your planned route. Have you accounted for the fact that you'll lose the first and last days in travel times. You'll arrive in London the day after you depart the U.S. Have you bought your air tickets yet? If not, I would highly recommend using "open jaw" flights so that you don't have to return to London. They may be slightly more expensive but will save the time and cost of returning to your starting point. When will this trip be taking place? Keep in mind that the Olympics will be in London (July?) so prices will be HIGH. As this is your first trip to Europe, I'd highly recommend reading Europe Through The Back Door, as that provides a lot of good information on "how" to travel in Europe. The county-specific Guidebooks have lots of detail on touring, transportation, etc. I'd use a more efficient route: - London > Amsterdam: Use budget flight. EasyJet offers flights from Gatwick, Luton or Stansted with prices as low as £25.99 (plus fees). - Amsterdam > Paris: Use Rail, as short as 3H:19M direct. - Paris > Bacharach: Use rail, 6H:34M with one change - Bacharach > Salzburg: Use rail, as short as 6H:39M with one change - Salzburg > Venice: Travel during the day will be faster, about 6H:43M with one change (part way by Bus). - Venice > Rome: Use train, 3H:43M direct - Fly outbound from Rome My suggestion would be to skip one of the locations on your list, in order to allow a bit more time in the other places and a more relaxed travel schedule. Are you planning to use a Railpass or buy P-P tickets? Will you be staying in Hotels or Hostels primarily? Good luck with your planning!

Ken, Thanks for all your feedback. My trip will take place end of April through beginning of May 2012. Day 1 is arriving in London at 10am. Unfortunately, my tickets have already been purchased as RT through London. I was planning on using a global rail pass and will stay in hotels/B&Bs along the way (2 of the nights will be overnight ferry and overnight train). I have already read "Europe Through the Back Door" and got a lot of great information from it. His suggestion for seeing certain cities in 14 days didn't seem too far off from my choices, but I do agree my itinerary is a bit more ambitious. Your recommended route would have been perfect had I not already secured my tickets. Open jaw would have seemed the way to go in hindsight. Knowing that open jaw is not an option is where I am stuck trying to figure out which location(s) I need to cut out.

Unfortunately, the geography doesn't really work for the amount of time you have. You'll lose a lot of time traveling, finding your hotel, getting checked in, getting oriented, etc. It really does take longer than you think to change locations. Since Amsterdam is a must, I would definitely fly vs taking the boat. It's a 45 minute flight, plus the time you spend in Gatwick. As bad as it sounds, I would drop Paris. You only have one full day there plus two half days. You will find that getting to Europe the second time is a lot easier than the first. Plan on coming back sooner than you think. A railpass is not always the best deal, especially where high-speed trains are involved. You should try to price out point-to-point tickets and see how much it will cost. With a railpass, you will have to pay extra for faster trains. Good luck!

James' ideas, and those of others give a more easily completed plan. Day 9 looks like it went walkies somewhere - another day in Venice, I think. Nicely balanced.... The problem with taking the overnight train, other than the inability of many people to sleep and enjoy it, is that poor Jen will miss out seeing any of the Alps from her train window. Don't see much in the dark, especially with closed (or trying to be closed) eyes....

Is it possible that even with a change fee and a slightly higher multi city fare you still come out ahead by not needing the Rome/London flight, and maybe Paris could still be done at the beginning?

If this were my trip, and I know it is not, but if I were gifted your trip, I would have to cut either the Germany/Austria portion and or the Italy portion and add it to your other big cities. In my opinion i feel the towns you listed need this many nights to make it worth your while: London 4 nights, Paris 4 nights, Amsterdam 3, Bacharach 2, Salzburg 2, Venice 3, Rome 4. Which totals 22 nights.. Guess what, you only have 15 nights. You have lots of distance between most of your cities, you will be losing more than a half a day just to get there. I would fly into London 4 nights, go to Amsterdam 3 nights, hang out in Belgium (Ghent or Bruges 2 nights), then do Paris 4 nights, and then get to London 1 night to fly home the next day. It has taken some mistakes to learn from but the older I get and the more I've traveled, I've learned to be practical with my trips.
Good luck and have fun no matter what you do!

I agree, too much here, and the geography is inefficient. I think you have two primary choices: 1. Reconsider your flights, and fly open jaws. Yes, I know, you say your flights are booked. Nothing is etched in stone, though, and you do have the option to change your flights. Sure, that would cost you something. The question is, is the extra price you would pay (to arrange more rational flights) worth it? If you can fly in to London and out of, say Rome, that would "buy" you another 2 days of usable time and save the costs of returning to London. Is that cost worth it? That's up to you to find out and decide, but you should at least consider it and run the numbers. Because if you don't do something like that, then I think your only other reasonable option is to... 2. Cut out a large hunk of your itinerary - I'd suggest lopping off Italy entirely, or that bit of Germany + Austria (maybe Amsterdam, too) that you're trying to squeeze in. Also - be honest with yourself about how many days you really have. Don't count your arrival or departure days, and it looks like you have just 14 full days. Most people are at half-strength their first day (jet lag, exhaustion, disorientation, etc.), especially on their first time to Europe, and double-especially when flying from the US west coast. With your plan to fly back to london for your return, you effectively lose one more day, so you're really down to about 12, maybe 13. You've got too many places, that are too far apart, for the number of days you have. Good luck, hope that helps.

All good advice so far. Another option to consider would be to secure a low-cost airline flight to Amsterdam that might allow you to fly there immediately - without entering London. Then subtract locations leaving you with something like; Amsterdam - 3 nights Rhine/Mosel River, Germany - 2 nights Salzburg - 2 nights Venice - 1 nights (1+ full days, then night train) Paris - 3 nights London 3 nights That's 15 nights, leaving out Rome (which is terribly shortchanged anyway) Or... If you can eat the change fee for flights... London - 3 nights Amsterdam - 2 nights Rhine/Mosel River, Germany - 2 nights Salzburg - 2 nights Venice - 2 nights
Rome - 4 nights & fly home from there (you could also conceivably take a budget airline from Rome to London to catch your current London flight home, but then you would be at the mercy of that flight arriving as scheduled & making the connection) That's 15 nights (no night train), leaving out Paris (a great excuse to return to Europe) You could also ignore all of this advice and go just as you planned, but that's going to cost you a lot both in time (perhaps up to 1/4th of all your time awake could be spent moving from one location to another) and in the cost of that transport. You can still have a great time, though, and don't let all this subtracting/changing advice (good as it is) blunt your excitement.

Hi Jen, I agree with part of Randy's plan. Upon arrival in London, fly on immediately to any of your European destinations except Paris. If you will have checked baggage, to expedite this, try to stay with the same airline or at least the same "alliance."..................Line up your other continental destinations in whatever order makes the most sense - I leave the "lining-up" to others more familiar with those destinations................... End your time on the continent with Paris, then take the Eurostar to London. Enjoy some time in London, then fly back to California.

Thank you so much to everyone who has commented so far. You have given a lot of great ideas and advice and other options I never thought of. I'm really appreciative!!