Relaxed and slower paced itinerary 30 days in Europe by train starting in London?

All great European cities are worthy of at least 4 days. And remember that your first and last days of your trip are wasted days. Every time you change cities is also a loss of a day.

London--Paris--Amsterdam is a good start. Then you could take the train down to Cologne and up the Rhine River toward Koblenz or Bacharach. I also like Munich and the Austrian Alps of Tirol.

London--Paris--Barcelona--Madrid is another great trip. We found inland Spain to be great to travel in--and relatively inexpensive too.

You could also fly into London for a few days and catch a WizzAir or Ryanair flight down to Budapest. Then take a train up to Bratislava, Vienna and Prague.

I like to travel in a straight line to cities that compliment each other. I'm okay on a train for 3-4 hours but any longer and I'm flying EasyJet, Ryanair or one of the other budget airlines around Europe. Flying also allows you to take in one region and then fly to a completely different part of Europe. These are just some thought starters.

For slowing down Scandinavia is always a good idea. The culture in these countries and what you can explore there is also unique.

Regarding your travel period I like to recommend to spend the full May 17 (national and specially celebrazed holiday) either in Oslo or in Bergen, connected by a scenic train connection with stopover in Flåm with option for a 3 hours cruise on UNESCO world heritage Nærøyfjord. Search for Norway in a Nutshel (NiN).

Idea for list of destinations can be:
London
Copenhagen by plane (3 full days)
Oslo by overnight ferry
Flåm by NiN train
Bergen by NiN train (May 16-18)
Amsterdam by plane
Paris by train
plus X or fly out

The good thing that you can easily change the order of these places.

If you want to spend more time in Norway you can do a very scenic cruise on ships of Hurtigruten or Havila starting in Bergen along the scenic coast - either the full trip or until Tromsø. One ship starts every day.

Start by prioritizing which places you really want to visit. Then connect the dots with some in between places.

It would also help if you prioritized what experiences you seek. There are so many options. You could travel 90 days hitting a differ ent city daily. I know that’s not what you want but how to sort them out? Great food, history, architecture, things to do, photo opportunities, natural wonders, museums, etc?

Many first time travelers want to hit the big name places. But these places often give the worst experience with crowds, scans, high prices.

If you watch this week's Monday Night Travel you will see Rick's recommended route for exactly such a scenario as yours. One he has been doing since his hippy days, and a refinement of The Grand Tour of Europe (by rail) which travellers have been doing since Victorian times.

EDIT- I've found his route now going back into the video- London to Paris to the Loire and the Rhone then Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, French Riviera, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Salzburg, Bern, Munich, Frankfurt, Bonn, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and London.

OK- That is a basic route with many possible variations (like I would say to take in Berlin, Poland, the Baltic Countries and Finland then only CPH once, but you get the basic drift).

You could easily spend a month just doing Germany, Poland, the Baltics and the 4 Scandinavian countries for instance.

Q. Why did you go there?
A. Because they were close to each other.

Q. Did you enjoy them?
A. Sort of, but really wanted to see _________

Q. Why didnt you go to __________?
A. Because it wasnt close to where we started.

Q. Will you see ____________ next time?
A. No, that was our one trip. I will never see ___________.

Q. Happy about that?
A. Sure, didnt enjoy as much, but saved $160 on our $5000 trip, and saved 6 hours of travel time.

What do you want to see? Scenery? Art Museums? History? Churches? That will determine your itinerary.

Where to go is really up to you. It depends on what you want to see.

You've told us you want to spend time in both Paris and Amsterdam. Great. It gives something to work on.

Get yourself a map of western Europe. (Paper or digital, your preference.) Find Paris and Amsterdam. Now look in between the two. Are there places you want to see between those two cities? Brussels? Bruge. Luxembourg? Can you use Paris and Amsterdam as bases for day trips. Give each at least four nights.

Next look at what is past Amsterdam? West into Germany? North into Denmark? Which calls out to you more?

When you've started to figure out where you want to go, next look at the train schedules. For generic travel, I like to use Deutsche Bahn to get generic schedule but purchase my tickets directly from the train operator.

When planning, try not to backtrack and keep in mind how you are going to get back to London for your flight home. You could do this by planning a circle route via train or just plan to take a flight from your furthest destination back to London.

If you don't have your airline tickets yet, think about flying open jaw meaning you fly into one European city and fly home from another.

Will you be attempting to “wing it” or booking trains and hotels? My most recent trip this month included canceled trains. Since 2022, every other trip I’ve taken to Europe had at least one strike or major train schedule change - all different countries.

In long past decades, I have traveled with rail passes and few hotel or sight seeing reservations, but I wouldn’t find that enjoyable now. Too many are traveling and headed to the major tourist sites and museums to assume guaranteed access without advance ticketing - depending on venue, sometimes months in advance ticketing is needed.

I’m also thinking that whatever you decide, you might want to also research the air routes available point to point. Low cost carriers often make this a fine alternative. Flixbus is another option for back-up if your plans are disrupted. I have had to use a back-up plan and was very glad I knew where to start booking.

If you love the romance of the rails, fine. But often a 90 minute flight takes LESS time than a 5 hour train ride. Accept that and your options get a lot larger. Cost difference? Depends on how you travel. With discount arilines and carryon luggage a flight isnt much more expensive than a train ticket. On the major airlines you can still have a lot more options for a couple of hundered dollars more on a trip that is costing you thousands of dollars. So go and see your dreams.

I agree that flying in Europe is a good way to travel, but will lightly quibble with the idea that a 90-minute flight is significantly shorter than a 5-hour train ride. As a tourist transit time to the airport is almost always much greater than to the train station, and then security, and having to show up a certain amount ahead of time. When the plane arrives at the gate it takes significantly longer to get off than a train, and then often a longer walk through the airport, and then the commute into the center.

In my estimate a 90-minute flight and a 5-hour train are about a wash, train being a more pleasant experience.

One tip for the OP: on a one month trip, plan a vacation from your vacation about halfway through. Go to a vacation destination where Europeans go, do four nights, and don't have a lot of agenda. Something like a village on the coast in the south of France, a lower elevation town in the Alps, a village in Alsace, Lake Garda or Lake Constance, a small Dutch city, etc.

Get an apartment, do a little grocery shopping, do laundry at a relaxed pace, just kind of live in a place for a while.

Then you'll be re-energized to get after the more active tourism again :)

Hank, the vacation in vacation is an excellent idea.

On the Train vs Plane, I didn’t say significantly, I said often. Some difference in meaning with my wording. These numbers I had on hand:

Train: Budapest to Prague
Transfer to the train station and prearrival time. Some will claim they done need so much time, but I think 45 minutes is a fair easy schedule number. Train time 6:45. Transfer from train station to your hotel by taxi (probably the fastest way), I would budget 30 minutes. Total: 8:00

Flight: Budapest to Prague
Transfer to the airport and prearrival time. 3 hours. Flight time 1:15. Get off plan, get luggage and transfer to your hotel 1:15. Flight delays 0:30. Total 5:00

That’s 3 hours faster by plane. It the train were 5 hours and the flight were 1:30 (as in my statement), then it would still be 1 hour faster by plane. Of course this is with two easy airports that are fairly close to the cities that they serve. If we are talking Paris and London, then it’s a different story. Even if the train ticket and a carry-on discount airline ticket are about the same price (they are in the Budapest to Prague scenario), there is a fairly large difference in the taxi costs when you fly. So that will add maybe $30 to the trip (divided by two in the taxi still isnt that bad).

Sure, but you moved the goal posts. 7 hour train trip vs 1:15 flight.

Something like Paris to Nice is more like your original proposal of 5 hours vs 90 minutes, albeit a bit shorter flight and a bit longer train ride. Paris to Nice I would take the train ten times out of ten. Total time spent would likely be the same, or maybe even shorter, and so much more relaxing.

I will agree though that over 6 hours on the train you might start to see significant enough time benefits from flying. But still I think this is dependent on which cities and which airports.

Sure, but you moved the goal posts. 7 hour train trip vs 1:15 flight.

No, i tried to head that off. Read the rest.

That’s 3 hours faster by plane. It the train were 5 hours and the
flight were 1:30 (as in my statement), then it would still be 1 hour
faster by plane.

But still I think this is dependent on which cities and which
airports.

And I said the same, which harkens back to my original post which said "often" not always.

Of course this is with two easy airports that are fairly close to the
cities that they serve. If we are talking Paris and London, then it’s
a different story.

Its okay, sometimes i read fast too.

The point really is that there are no rules, no formulas. I think its a good idea to test every option as those that argue one extreme or the other are never always correct. I ride a train to Vienna for instance. But I fly to Bucharest. And LHR to Chucky D? Nope. Not happening. The train and I dont care how long it takes.

OP here....just want to thank everyone who took the time to respond to my post and offer tips/advice. My wife and I will be reading through everyone's responses later today when we have time.

If you want a super relaxed trip, spend all 30 nights just in London. If you want to lose your mind, try to do 30 cities in 30 nights.

Someone above made the excellent point that you have to assume you lose a day whenever you change cities. I always count nights. For example, five nights in Paris essentially means that you only have four days to do stuff between checking in and checking out.

Big cities like London, Paris, Rome or Barcelona require an extended stay to do them justice, in my opinion, a minimum of 5 to 7 nights in each.

Even if you have 5 to 7 nights in a big city, you never have enough time to see everything. If you want to relax, don't try to see every "must-see".

You can go to smaller towns to try to "relax". However, they are often out of the way and you may have to deal with slower trains or buses. A one-night stay is usually not enough in my opinion.

I assume at this late date that you probably bought return tickets for London. That means you will have to use up time to return to your starting point. It would be best to come up with an itinerary where you do an efficient loop. In the future, or if it is still possible, you should try to book open jaw flights where you fly into one city and out of another city so that you do not have to expend time and money doubling back to the starting point.

Good luck.

funpig, of course you are correct.

Big cities like London, Paris, Rome or Barcelona require an extended
stay to do them justice, in my opinion, a minimum of 5 to 7 nights in
each.

My first trip to Vienna I planned 6 nights and left after 3. Been back a few times and still not my cup of tea, so one night shopping visits.

My first trip to Budapest wasn't even planned but I ended up there for 3 nights, now I live here. So the question, what else have I under estimated and over estimated?

I have worked hard to be able to travel. The bucket list is so long that if I did each one of them "justice" I would miss half my list and spend too much time in places that didn't speak to me. So I prefer a long stay where I know I will enjoy and a few short stays for discovery. The short stays that I loved this trip become the long stays on the next trip. I learned my lesson with Vienna.

Unless I'm crossing water, I'm almost always taking the train. It provides a great way to see the countryside, even if one is on a TGV. You don't see that in a plane. Plus taxis from the airport into town are expensive and IME stressful.

Each to his own, of course.

David, thanks for the great feedback and tips. Your Budapest Vienna Prague suggestion is very enticing. It’s one that we are going to think about.

MarkK, we have never been to Scandinavia! We want to spend time there so we will see if we can plan to do it on this trip. Thanks.

RailRider, wonderful advice on not over focusing on the big name places. We tend to prefer second cities when traveling. This will help us plan our trip. Thanks!

isn31c, thank you for the show recommendation. We didn’t know he had a new episode on this very topic coming out! Your itinerary is a little faster paced than we had considered. We appreciate the suggestions especially adding Poland to the itinerary!

Mr É, thanks for the reminder to not lock ourselves into a rigid itinerary and to refocus on why we are planning our trip to Europe in the first place.

Cala, yes, you are correct. These are great start questions to help plan our itinerary. Thank you.

Frank II, hank you for your practical and great advice. As we sit down to plan our itinerary we will use your tips.

ORDTraveler, we appreciate your advice. Travel has changed so dramatically and it’s not as easy as it was in the past. Thanks for the reminder and great travel tips.

Hank, interesting. Thank you for this perspective. We agree with you that a train ride is a more pleasant than air travel. We recently had a flight delay for a 90 minute flight in the US that became four hours.

FunPig, all excellent advice. We have historically visited one country and one city for monthly stays and it is still our preferred mode of travel. Thanks for the reminder!

jpghbucks, you do see more scenery when you travel are on a train. And my wife feels that trains are more romantic so I think we know which way we’ll be traveling!

Sorry in advance for the long post, but here are our experiences.

Our family of four went to Europe in 2022 to celebrate our daughter’s college graduation. Through blind luck, we were in Europe just as it was re-opening up from Covid, and we left before the travel industry began to burst at the seams. At the time, we were 66, 54, 22 and 20 (hubby, me, daughter and son). We were there a little over 3 weeks and we stayed in Rome, Pasteum, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and London. Flew into Italy and out of Heathrow. We travelled by plane, car, train, bus, tram, boat, subway and low cost airline. We all love European train travel, and it is our preferred method of travel. Having said that, due to time crunch and cost, we flew Easy Jet from Venice to Amsterdam. Other than a strike which fortunately ended one hour before our flight (which created a little stress) we had no issues with easy jet—just remember they weigh and measure luggage. We are willing to use easy jet again. However, this was a lot moving and the more energetic 20 year olds said they loved the trip but would prefer future trips to entail longer stays in fewer places.

Hubby and I took this guidance to heart and the two of us returned in 2023. We stayed in Italy, flew into and out of Rome, and went Florence, the countryside (where we have distant relatives) and Florence. We stayed at least 5 days in one place and took trains, but rented a car to go to the countryside. We were quite happy with this pace.
We are returning later this year for 6 weeks to celebrate my retirement (hubby has been retired). We are flying into Amsterdam and staying for 5 nights, then a night train to Zurich, and a high speed train to Milan. After Milan, 6 nights in Venice, a week(ish) each in Bologna, Rome and the countryside again. We will use trains between major cities.

So, how did we come up with the latest trip plan? Semi leisurely research— This forum, Rick’s books (initially checking them out from the library) YouTube and various websites. There are lots of channels which provide some really good information, and there are lots of people on this forum that provide really good suggestions. In terms of looking for accommodation, we have had some good fortune with booking.com—to post a review, you had to have stayed there, so we put a little more stock in what is said (we don’t just look at the number, we read what is said). When we travel, we do not plan something every day, we spend some days just walking, bike riding and taking in the beauty, atmosphere and food of where we are staying.
So, London, Paris and Amsterdam, you can make that a month long vacation—fly into London and out of Amsterdam. Each city has plenty for a week, but can also be easily used as a base for day trips, or as others have suggested, look at a map and connect the dots. There are lots of options, and sometimes the hardest thing is narrowing down the options. Other items to consider, I don’t think I have read of anyone saying the wished they had moved hotels more during their trip. Also, I agree with the sentiment to focus your vacation on what interests you and your wife, and not the generally considered “must sees” of Europe.

my wife feels that trains are more romantic so I think we know which way we’ll be traveling!

If you know what's good for you. ;o)

Salbeachbum - thank you for your detailed post. We really appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences with the different ways you travelled to Europe in the past two years. The way you travel is similar to the way we do it except we prefer self-catering/airbnb over hotels. That alone usually requires more time in each of the locations we visit. We are reminded of this as we read the responses to my post.

Glad my dissertation was somewhat useful.
I would still suggest perusing booking.com Booking has apartments as well as hotels. Even if you do not use booking.com to actually book a stay, many apartments / homes are cross listed on booking.com, air bnb, vrbo, so its another resource for vetting a proposed location. We stayed in an apartment in Venice booked via booking, and our proposed apartment stay in Bologna is also booked in this manner. Our stay in Amsterdam, both in 2022 and later this year, while technically I suppose its a hotel stay (only six rooms), the room has a refrigerator, coffee maker and kettle; so we only eat out one meal a day. If you download the app, you typically get a slightly better rate.

However, I will caution that if you book a non-refundable rate, they do NOT refund anything. There is an article about one person who made a $10,000 error (they were pricing a study abroad stay) and as of a few weeks ago, no refund had been given. When we book, we always book a rate that does not lock us into paying for our stay until a week or less prior to arrival. We prefer to pay a little more and have some grace if something comes up, but that is just our approach.

If you are not looking for just major cities, I would consider the following:

I would consider Eurostar from London to Lille, France. From Lille you may want to visit Belgium (Ghent and Bruge) on your way to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam I would make my way towards Germany, particularly the Rhine river, to Koblenz and visit many small villages south along the Rhine by train down to and visit Basel, Switzerland. From Basel I would visit Lausanne, Switzerland then head into France to Lyon and then into Paris. You would have to plot your nights accordingly. The scenery and cities/villages are very nice in those areas. This trip can be paced to your liking. Enjoy.

Salbeachbum - thank you again for the great suggestion about looking at Booking.com. We will definitely search through the site and download the app.

Threadwear - thank you for the itinerary recommendation. We both like it and both have always wanted to see the small villages along the Rhine.