Please Help- 3 weeks in summer 2017

Sounds like a fun time! I suggest you start by reading Rick's Europe Thru the Back Door for basic tips on European travel. To me you have way too much for 3 weeks because your destinations are pretty spread out. I would cut Barcelona and Athens for your first trip as well as the cruise. Where were you thinking about cruising? I would add Venice and Florence which would be easy to do via train on the way from Germany to Rome.

Remember that flying over you will leave on Day 1 and most likely arrive on Day 2 after an overnight flight. That first day on the ground you will probably have some jet lag so you may not be able to see as much as you like. Flying home you will leave and arrive on the same day.

Count your time by nights in a certain place, knowing that 2 nights gives you one full day for sightseeing.

In my opinion, you need a minimum of 4 nights for London (3 full days), 5 is better (4 full days) and 4 nights for Rome (3 full days). Amsterdam, you might get away with 3 nights (2 full days). The destination of Germany is pretty broad....since it's a country and all your other spots are cities. There is a vast amount of information on this forum on rail passes vs point to point tickets with rail passes rarely winning. Do some searches on the forum for rail passes and read the comments before you commit to anything.

It's natural for any travelers to want to see as much and do as much as possible on their first trip. After years and years of traveling had and fast, I've now seen the light and are traveling slower.
Don't forget that your first and last days of any trip are wasted going to and from the airport. And every time you move from city to city, you've also lost a day in transport.
The places you want to go don't necessarily flow well, as they're more in a circle than a straight line. And any great European city is worthy of at least 4 days visit. Distances are greater than you sometimes realize when traveling by car. My suggestions are:

London--5 days Then leave town on the Eurostar.
Paris--5 days Then leave on a fast train to Spain.
Barcelona--4 days Take budget air carrier Vueling to Germany.
Munich--4 days. Rent a car and head south into Bavaria and Austrian Alps. You could also go 2 hrs. east to the very popular Salzburg. Fly home from Munich.

Rome, Athens and Amsterdam should be saved for a future trip as they're all out of the way.

Your $12,000 budget is twice what we'd spend on a trip. And we prefer to save money by traveling in Spring rather than in the very crowded and hot Summer.

Thank you for the tips. I guess we are just feeling like we might not get the funds/time to be able to do this again, so we were wanting to see a lot. We don't want to be running like idiots, but we also want to see as much as possible.

Germany- we thought of taking a train/plane from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, and renting a car and driving south. I lived on a military base in Pirmasens as a kid, and have always wanted to go back and see the area again.

As far as the cruise goes, we just thought that it would be a way to see the other places, although we know that we are giving up time in each place. Have you ever done a cruise like this? We have only done one cruise (Caribbean) and it was more of a relax experience, than a sightseeing experience.

What do you think of the budget? Is that enough?

Thanks for your help and thoughts.

David- Thanks for your thoughts as well. We are seeing that maybe we have tried to pack too much. As far as your itinerary goes, we just don't have a lot of interest in Paris or Munich, so although they are more "on the way", we just feel it would be kind of a waste for us. Even though it might cost a bit more, we were hoping it might be possible to see some other places instead. we have calculated the travel to/from days, and should have 21 days in Europe.

As far as the budget goes, are you including travel costs? It just seems like we are at like 4-5000 in travel costs alone, from the flights/trains/ etc. that we have looked at.

Your budget is generous as long as you aren't looking for American-style hotels with spacious rooms. You should have a LOT of money left over for your next trip. If you are able to book your city-to-city train or plane connections way ahead of time, you can take advantage of the very low promotional fares available when tickets first go on sale. It varies by country, but those promotional fares can be as little as 1/3 of the full fare, sometimes even a bit cheaper. So one thing you need to decide is whether you want your trip to be flexible or intend to schedule it all in advance. If the latter, the sooner you can set your dates, the more money you'll save on transportation within Europe.

There are cheap flights available, including one-way flights, between many city pairs on the European budget carriers, so it is definitely possible to fly to an outlying destination that you especially want to see. But it will take more than half a day in each direction. Shorter train trips may cost less time, but still you have to take time checking out of and into hotels. What I like to do is plan a generous stay in each city ("generous" depending on how many things I know I want to see there) with an idea of at least one really interesting day-trip I can take if I'm ready to move on but still have another day where I am. It's a way of being sort of flexible but still having all your hotels booked ahead of time (if that's what you prefer).

Be sure, when looking for your flights to and from Europe, that you price out the "Multi-City" option that allows you to fly into one city and out of another. That will avoid the cost (time and money) of having to loop back to your starting point. London tends to be a cheap European gateway, and I've seen comparatively low fares to Frankfurt and Milan mentioned on this forum. It does depend on your US/Canadian point of origin, however. I'd guess that you'll be able to find a trans-Atlantic round-trip somewhere in the US $1000-1500 range per person, and there may be something cheaper available if you live on the east coast or near an airport used by Icelandair or the Norwegian Air Shuttle. It's not too early to start looking at flights for budget purposes and to figure out what city might be a good one to return from. Many of us like Google Flights; it allows you to set up price alerts.

Definitely drop Athens from this initial trip unless you reconfigure the whole thing to allow time to see more of Greece. It's too far to go just to see Athens. It has important museums and some ancient ruins, but it's otherwise not a particularly engaging city, unlike most (all?) of the other European capitals. It would be pretty criminal to go to Greece and not see any islands or other parts of the mainland.

I might hold off on Rome and make it part of an all-Italy trip. There's just so much to see in that country--a huge variety of sights.

I've never take a cruise, but be careful about the exact location of the ports. Quite a lot of folks show up here, looking for information on how to visit the city they want to see from their cruise port. It isn't always easy. When the distance and/or complexity of the port-to-city transfer is too great, many people end up opting for the very costly packed-bus cruise ship tours because they're worried about not getting back to the cruise ship on time. In addition, there's the issue of seriously inadequate time to see a major city. I would be really uncomfortable having 6 hours or so to see a city like Rome or Barcelona. What's the point? Cities that aren't an hour or more from their ports are best, and I'd prefer ports near smaller cities where I'd have the time to enjoy the destination and not feel as if I had left 3/4 (or more) of my top-priority sights unvisited.

Tell us more about your interests and folks here can suggest other interesting spots near your target cities.

We like cruises but not as a way to visit cities. A ship is about the slowest way to travel and you don't have that much time for all you want to see and do.

I agree with others that 5 big cities and a big country is too much for even 21 full days in Europe. If you assume that it will take most of a day to travel between them, door to door, that's 6 days spent moving around and 2-3 full days left per place. You're younger and faster than many of us who post, but it still seems like a whirlwind -- too many memories of stations, airports, countryside whizzing by, and such. And, whenever you move, you're spending money as well as time.

Athens and Barcelona -- your geographic outliers -- will be there when your kids are old enough to come with you. We took our first trip to Greece last year with a 10-year-old and a 3-year-old (and, thankfully, their parents), and seeing it through their eyes brought a wonderful new dimension to the trip. Hopefully this won't be your last hurrah in Europe, and you'll be able to visit again and again as a family after a few years.

For this trip, I would skip Barcelona and Athens. They are just too far out of the way. I would definitely add Venice to your list. It is an amazing city unlike any other city in the world. I would also stop in Florence on the way to Rome.

You tour sounds very ambitious, and I understand the idea of "seeing it all" but I honestly think you might regret so much long distance travel in three weeks. I can think of no more romantic, beautiful and full of joy countries for you to visit than Italy, I love London and Paris, but if you want to squeeze as much joy and memories as possible out of this I think if you stick to one country is so much more enjoyable. we just finished 3 weeks in Italy we started in Rome with three days on our own, Rome is a wonderful city for all ages, we met young people that were just going out on a night tour of Rome as we were heading home to bed! then we joined the Rick Steves heart of Italy tour and it was amazing and worth every penny, after the tour was over we spent three extra days in Florence with a side trip to Siena and then took the high speed train to Venice, you have to stay in the heart of Venice at night, when its just magical, do the night time gondola ride, its lovely. then after 2 days we took another high speed train to Verona, a beautiful city to spend time in, gorgeous little restaurants with balconies over the river, and really lovely people, we finished off on lake Como in Bellagio did the little boat trips around the lake, any age group would have love this. I saved time and hassle by buying our high speed Ferrarossa train tickets on the internet, just be sure to print them off so they can scan them on the train, book any hotels ahead of time, I have so many weary travelers 'winging it" in misery as they tramp for one full hotel to another our budget for hotels was around 300 CAN dollars a night and for that we got charming perfectly located hotels. We also booked our flight to exit a city close to the end point of our tour, entered Rome Exit Milan, pack light and smart, you will have a wonderful time!

Your plan shows six countries in 20/21 nights. That's 2.5 nights per country.

You might think about London-Paris-Roma-Venezia, with a daytrip or overnight in between to have some time away from major cities.

Thank you all soooooo much for the advice. It is really sounding like we just have too much going on, and might need to slow down and just focus on a few cities, or change our philosophy, and maybe plan on taking another vacation to see other areas. We are hoping to be able to travel more later in life, but definitely feel like it is a different experience when you have kids. Not bad or worse, but just different. We were really hoping to see a lot of things before we have the new responsibility and change that comes along with kids. (state of mind is dramatically different)

It is good to hear that our budget seems to be adequate(maybe more than adequate), as we were getting concerned about that. We may have to ask some more questions, as to how you locate these budget fares and what not. The research we were doing (cheaptickets.com) definitely seemed like the flights would be more expensive. Also, we read quite a bit about the budget airlines sometimes being very difficult to travel on. It sounds like there can be a lot of fees, delays, or outright cancellations, which can leave you scrambling. What do you all make of this?

It sounds like a cruise is not a bad idea for a relaxing time on its own, but not recommended if you are wanting to actually "see" or experience any of the locations. We are getting somewhat torn thinking of what we want. It is all so difficult, as neither of us have jobs that will allow for much expendable income (she teaches, and I work with individuals with disabilities). Her having the summer off, is what is allowing the possibility of the trip, and I have to save up all the vacation I get. Would you say that we are right in thinking that if we were going to travel to Europe, one week is not enough time? We initially thought about going out to one city for a week, but thought that it might be better to save up time.

There is so much to think about when planning a trip, especially that first Europe trip when you don't have experience.

Look at a map and try to look for a logical route, ( either a circle and get a round trip airfare ticket or a line and a "multi city" ticket flying into one city and out of another) and keep in mind distances between places and if you plan to drive, fly or take trains. Plan to drop a car in the same country you rent it in. Think about the time involved in that transportation: getting to the airport early or train station and then getting into and out of each hotel. Most moves take at least a half a day or the better part of a day if you are flying. So, the more you move the more time it takes away from your sightseeing. Use viamichelin.com or google maps to see distances and debahn.com for train routes and times, skyscanner.com is a good site for flights within Europe. Then narrow down your desires. I think a minimum of 4 nights for large cities is good, and most other places 3 nights, very small towns 2 nights. As we travel more and more we find this many days are really a perfect fit. We are on the go all day, everyday, but it gives us a chance to get a real feel for the city/village and make lots of memories. If you go too fast it can turn into a blur and you don't remember much. If you have must see's for a particular area maybe you can find a home base and travel off of that. We love a trip that mixes countries, and mixes cities and countryside. It is a nice break from a city to take a few days away from the noise/crowds.

Most people that have not been to Europe have an idea that everything is close and you can see many countries on one trip. That is true if you stay in bordering countries, but not as easy as most people think.

A cruise is a great way to "SEE" a lot, but not a great way to "experience" Europe, IMHO. I cruised to Scotland, Ireland, France and parts of England (with my dad) but if someone asks if I've been there I usually say no without even thinking about it. I was there for a few hours but no real experience to hang a hat on, but I did see a lot.

We love a rental car to go as we please and explore where we feel like going, but everyone has a different travel style, so you need to think about what feels right to you.

As far as budget. That is easy if you do some research. Look at airfare costs, look at accommodations on something like Trip Advisor, VRBO for apartments etc. for a given area (once you find a place that looks interesting then go to that hotel/B & B or apartment website) and then RS has an estimate of what to plan for any given country for food, museums etc. Just look at his guide book for each country you visit. We plan more money for France and Italy for dinners than for Germany, so it can vary. We try to get our breakfast included as much as possible, we also prefer the small B & B's, but also rent apartments. I've also looked up restaurants online and read menus to get an idea of how much money we would likely spend. Look up Auto Europe for car rental costs. Look at the different maps for miles and estimated gas costs. Make sure you look at the exchange rate for your costs in Europe.

Your trip sounds very exciting! Great plan to get away before those babies come!

Too many places not enough time.
You have some great suggestions, especially from James.

Your budget is more than adequate for three weeks.

I would skip Barcelona, it is a great place, but out of the way from your other locations. Also, unless you fly, Athens is out of the way. Also, I think going to Greece and just visiting Athens is a mistake. You have to go to the islands.

Save Athens for another trip.

London is good for 4-6 days, Amsterdam 2-3, Germany, suggest focusing on southern Germany, especially Bavaria. Check out the Romantic Road. Munich, Romantic Road, and either Garmish or Salzburg deserves 7 to 9 days, Rome deserves a week, but you many have to adjust depending on time in other cities.

Honestly, within reason, a longer trip is always better. It allows you to spread the cost of the trans-Atlantic flight over more days, and you really get to settle into a European mindset. The day you arrive (which would be 1/7 of week-long trip) isn't worth a lot for many people because of jet lag and getting very little sleep on the plane. I always consider it a sort of wasted day. One wasted day on a 2- or 3-week trip isn't quite so bad.

It sounds as if you live frugally at home. If you are willing to be careful in your lodging choices and just look for a place that meets your basic needs rather than a special/stylish/fancy place, and if you have time to do the homework on transportation deals (with guidance from the country experts here), you will not spend your budget even if you stay 3 full weeks. (And I do recommend 3 weeks if you can scrounge that much time off from work.) Honestly, if you don't cover too much territory geographically, you could probably travel for three weeks for not much more than half your budget. There should certainly be enough left for another trip (perhaps shorter) the next year if there's not already a baby on the way.

I've been traveling in mostly smaller and mid-size cities the last two summers, though I included Rome last year and Barcelona this year. I have no one to split the hotel cost with me, and my daily expenses (excluding trans-Atlantic airfare) have averaged under €150, probably under $150. I try to get one good (not fancy) restaurant meal each day, and I wouldn't be caught dead in a McDonalds.

I'm not hopping from capital to capital, and for sure London and Amsterdam hotels are more expensive than those in the cities I've visited. Still, I found a tiny but modern, clean, air-conditioned, centrally located hotel room in Barcelona for about €80 per night; it would have been about €90 if I hadn't opted for the non-refundable deal to save money. I'd guess you could get a decent-sized double room for €120-140/night in that city without too much difficulty. Small and medium-size German cities will be less expensive than Barcelona (as will Berlin if you get that far north and east). Smaller cities--aside from the tourist-swamped places like Florence and Venice--are nearly always far cheaper than the large and heavily visited cities like London, Amsterdam and Rome, so your choice of exact destinations and time allotment will have an impact.

No, do not go for a week. Save your money, plan it well, don't rush and really enjoy your trip. It will be fabulous! I wanted a trip before babies and we didn't do it. It took 13 years before it happened...do it now!

A caveat about 3rd-party airline booking sites - approach with caution! Many here and on the Trip Advisor Air Travel forum recommend you book directly with the airline. Sometimes the prices you see on the 3rd party sites are not live - they post up some price then get back with you on the real price. The prices on the airline sites ARE live and do change for the good and for the bad, lol.

Before you book any 3rd party site, do yourself a favor and search the TA Air Travel forum for complaints.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g1-i10702-Air_Travel.html

I'll start you off with a search on that site of cheaptickets. com
https://www.tripadvisor.com/SearchForums?ff=10702&geo=1&scope=2&q=cheaptickets.com&pid=34633&s=D

The Eurail Global Pass for 5 days of travel within a month is the cheapest version of that 28-country pass, but far from the only option. There are also single-country passes and Select passes covering 2, 3, or 4 specified countries; see https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains. It's much easier to compare a pass when the trip is more planned out.
I do agree with flying a couple of your longer routes; see www.skyscanner.com. And Eurostar trains from London to Paris or Brussels are not covered by rail passes.

Since you need to cut something... Rick's warnings about the summer heat in Italy and other southern European destinations should absolutely be heeded - stick to north of the Alps this time.

Kids: We took ours to Europe 6 times between the ages of 9 and 18. Had a fantastic 9 days in January in Rome, Florence and Sienna. Some of our best memories ever. As Rick says, you'll be back.

With 3 weeks here's what I'd suggest
- 5-6 nights for London (and another place in England - Cotswolds? Bath?) then...
- 3-4 nights for Amsterdam (with an outing to Volendam or Zaanse Schans) then...
- 3-4 nights for Germany (see the Rhine and Mosel Valley towns and castles... Burg Eltz = Rick Steves' favorite in Europe... and try some local wine on the way to Pirmasens.) Then...
- 3-4 nights in the French Alsace - Strasbourg, Colmar - and maybe the Black Forest to the east. Then...
- 4-5 nights for The Swiss Alps - that's the best time of year to visit there. Fly home from Zurich?

And I'd do all that by train.

None of these average highs for June are deal breakers for me. As they are averages is will be cooler at the start of June and warmer at the end of June. So start south and move north. Of course you cant control mother nature so it might be hotter, colder, wetter or dryer.

London 70F
Paris 73F
Barcelona 79F
Rome 84F
Berlin 72F
Frankfurt 68F
Amsterdam 66F
Budapest 75F
Strasbourg 75F
Florence 82F
Siena 74F

James E and OP: Average temps for end of June + beginning of July will be hotter than average temps for June. Can't say how much hotter. And can't say exactly what 2017 will bring either. And of course humidity plays a huge role. Where I live, 90 really isn't uncomfortable. But 90 in Vicenza can be nearly unbearable. Was for me.

Your correct, only G-d knows. But its a subjective subject. What Rick thinks is too hot, my friends in Texas don't have an issue with. Best you can do is look at the data and hope that the weather is somewhat "typical" when you get there. This is probably the most comprehensive site for weather: https://weatherspark.com/averages/stations

Still best to travel early rather than late. Not just for the temperature, but for the crowds and the prices. Everything goes up as the summer progresses. I always say that I wont travel in August, but i did this summer and will again next summer. I just cant seem to get these countries to move their holidays around for my convenience.

Back to your question. I just got done putting together numbers for my trip in December; Fishing in the UK and unwinding in Eastern Europe for: 18 days. I travel with a fairly high degree of comfort and convenience and my budget for two is a lot less than your budget.

I would expect your budget to be more like this for a 3 to 4 star trip to the locations you first mentioned.:

Hotel 21 nights at $150.00 = $3,150 I stay in first class apartments & a few nice hotels so this is an average of both

Plane tickets to Europe and back 2 at $1,350.00 = $2,700

Food Tourist Junk, local transport 21 at $100.00 = $2,100

Trains and Planes between stops 8 at $100.00 = $800

$8,750 total, so figure $10,000

Thank you all for the time and feedback.

We are talking now to try and decide which places we are going to try and visit. We are both not a fan of hot and humid, and as we likely will not be able to change the dates(right now it is looking like about 6/24-7/15) it sounds like it will be pretty hot in the south. Right now we are thinking that this itinerary might work:

London/Amsterdam- 7-8 days total
Germany- 5-7 days rental car and working from north to south.
Barcelona- 7 days (don't mind the heat, as we were thinking of just beaching it for awhile. )

This is still very tentative, but just trying to lessen the amount of places, and get some real experiences in the places we do visit. Based on what I am seeing, I don't think that the $12,000 is going to be that much over budget, according to the last poster. While we don't plan on spending extravagantly, it really seems like the total is going to start adding up, and the initial/return airfare is going to be a large chunk (seems like about 3-3500). We plan on trying the google flights thing, and doing research on the sites and places that everyone has suggested.

It really does seem like, if you want to experience them, Italy and Greece need to be 2 week vacations on there own. We have decided to set a goal to try and visit Greece for sure, as we both feel like it is probably our top destination in Europe, and want to be able to really experience it as much as we can. It is tough for me, as I lived in Pirmasens, on base, from 92-95, and travelled to all of these places at that time. However, as I was 12-15, I was not really able to appreciate what I was experiencing. I recall searching for corn dogs and chicken fingers, on the beaches of Barcelona and Crete. It hurts to think about how much amazing food I missed out on :( hahaha.

You can get a decent idea of your hotel costs by going to booking.com, entering the approximate dates you expect to be in each city, reading some hotel descriptions and reviews, and looking at pictures. For most of us it's a trade-off between more time (even if spread over more than one trip) and fancier lodgings. You get to choose.

Lots of great advice and options! Definitely look for multi-city tickets rather than roundtrip.

I think your budget is generous; even if you spend $400 per day, plus airfare of $3500, you are slightly under budget. I travel solo and average $125/day, you could do it easily on $300 if you have some "skinny" days and some "splurge" days. Check booking.com to compare prices, locations, amenities.

Geographical oddities

Rome is north of NYC
Budapest is north of Quebec City
Athens is about parallel to Washington D.C.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001769.html

The major difference that I have encountered is that the Europeans don't have the same appreciation for air conditioning that Americans have.

"Germany- 5-7 days rental car and working from north to south."

Greece is great. Try springtime for fewer crowds, nice temps. Only problem we had was the limited frequency of ferries.

For a peek at Greek history in northern Europe, make a stop in Trier as you head to Pirmasens.

http://www.germany.travel/en/towns-cities-culture/towns-cities/historic-highlights-of-germany/trier.html

Actually, the ruins in Trier (Porta Nigra, others) are Roman, not Greek. Very interesting city, I spent only two nights there, could have used a third.

Wow James E - those city latitudes really are odd! Thanks for sharing those.

Zoe is of course correct! Trier is Roman. Brain flatulence. Uggh.

nsrider165 - We traveled in 2013 and 2016 on almost the exact same dates you are going to be traveling. You are correct about the airfare being at least $3000 and maybe closer to $4000 from the US to Europe, unless you luck into a fare sale or some cheapo airline. We used FF miles for one ticket each time so we were limited to Delta and we are particular about which seats we select so that cost a bit extra. If you're set on doing this for a certain amount of money, take pen to paper and figure out exactly what that will look like. If you only have $100 per night to spend on lodging, you're going to be limited to certain kinds of accommodations. That's fine, but you need to know going in what your budget for each thing is. Our hotel in Paris was $300 per night for two nights, and it wasn't particularly luxurious. It was all about location. You can stay cheaper. You're smart to begin planning this early because you'll need the time to work out the details. All that said, you can totally do it for your proposed budget but you'll have choices to make and you won't be in 5 star hotels and fancy restaurants every night. Not in the middle of summer.

https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0#search;iti=MCI_AMS,ZYA_2017-06-17*ATH_MCI_2017-07-10;tt=m

I think for the period discussed RT from the center of the US is in the neighborhood of $1800 RT on an open jaw. Cheaper on a same city RT; and I am certain that in the next few months prices will drop to an average of $1500 along with some really great bargains.

Hello all! Thank you so very much for all of the advice! We are having so much fun planning this trip and couldn't do it without all of your input. After some snipping and adjusting, we have decided on the following itinerary:

London for 5 nights

Train it to Amsterdam for 3 Nights

Train it to Cologne, Germany

Rent a car in Cologne and drive to see other German cities (possibly Frankfort, Pirmasens)

Spend a total of 7 nights exploring this part of Germany

Fly from Frankfort, Germany to Barcelona

Spend 6 nights in Barcelona

We would love your input as to how long we are staying in each place and if there is something that we aren't taking into consideration. Also, we would love to hear your ideas about places to see in Western Germany.

As far as our budget goes, here are our estimations. Please let us know if you think these are accurate.

$3,000- Flight into London and back from Barcelona

$3,150- Hotels @ $150 a night (we know that we will spending less some places and more others so this was just an average)

$1,000 Trains from London to Amsterdam and the flight from Germany to Spain

$300 Rental car in Germany

Thanks again for all your help as we try to get our dream trip planned!

I think the latest itinerary is pretty good, given your stated priorities. Sounds like Barcelona is a must-see for you this trip.

I do wonder if you might not find it better to start in Barcelona, fly to London, execute the rest of your itinerary, and then fly home form Frankfurt.

The argument for this is, first, best to start in the south when it is coolest, and second, the airfare might be better. (Maybe not, though.)

None of these tings are of top importance however.

Have a really great time.