One big trip or several small trips?

Well, if he can't leave work for that long then I guess it will have to be shorter trips. While a really long trip would be great, and cheaper. given the plane fares to Europe these days. I have had many two week trips and loved them all. Do what you can when you can. Maybe once he goes he will figure out a way to make that long vacation work. Agree that Rick is great!

I guess another qualifier for this question is that in a couple years we are going to move and were thinking of sticking the trip in between jobs and moving.

We prefer seeing one country or zone for about 3 to 4 weeks. Staying at one place for 2 to 3 nights (minimum) and not being on the move every day. Air fare is still fairly reasonable compared the rising prices of everything else so why stay for months if it does not fit into your work schedule. A short time in Europe is better than no time at all. A couple we know did a 14 day mediterranean cruise and saw quite a lot with minimum effort. PS - We would have missed a lot of Spain if it had not for ideas and info from Rick Steves' books and shows.

Bob...help me out...where are you still finding reasonable airfare? I have bought a few tickets in the last few days and they are increasing daily!(I guess reasonable ia relative...but I have paid about 50% more than last year)

Check the price of air fare decades ago and see what it would have cost you to fly to Europe. Then check what vehicles, appliances, etc. were going for then. Today, air fare is a best buy!!! Europe on $25 a day? Hotels & restaurants have sky rocketed in comparison to your flight cost.

Me, personally, I prefer long trips. We've done many that were 7 to 10 wks long and I prefer that to 3-4 weeks. With shorter trips, it feels like it's over too soon. I love being in Europe and once I've spent so much $$ on airfare I want to stay as long as possible. For me, Europe is like Disneyland for a kid. I can never get enough of it.

Like it or not, you are stuck with whatever your husband's job constraints are. In this economy just smile, suck it up and be happy that he has a good job. If it has to be 2 weeks, so be it. 3 weeks would be nicer but take what you can get. On our first trip to Europe I strung every day of vacation and comp. time I had coming plus the fourth of July into 23 days. I would not want to sandwich a trip like you are planning in between moving and changing jobs, it seems like too much stress at once along with the logistical problems of changing addresses on passports, credit cards et al. If anything gets screwed up on those fronts, you don't want to be in the EU trying to fix things at home.

Go now and go later. Even 1 month is a pretty long time to be away for an American, if your husband has never been out of the US he may experience culture shock. So few weeks to a month is a good start.

I'm like Bob. See if your husband can get three-week vacations, then focus on a particular area each trip (British Isles, Scandinavia, Spain/Portugal, Italy by itself, France by Itself, Germany/Austria, Germany/Low Countries, Balkins, etc.). I like longer trips with short travel legs because you burn the lowest percentage of your trip on the road, so you can focus more on experiences/sites/relaxing.

Bob makes a good point about of air relative to other costs. We tend to notice the rise in price in air (and gas) more than other items not because they have risen faster than inflation in general but because they tend to oscillate wildly. Airfare may be up from last year, but last year it was down from a few years before. Food, hotels, housing creep up slowly and rarely double in a year...but almost never goes down so we don't notice the jumps as much.

Flying from the west Coast, I seem to find I get more out of three week vacationsthan a bunch of two week. At the end of two weeks i am still raring to go. In three weeks I seem to get the feel of a place and finally relax. I prefer pnly 1 country at a time, but i suppose two will work out. Probably get more out of two three week trips than a long two monther. Staying in a hotel will probably get tiring in that tme