Summer trip

Hi Neighbor!
Must your transatlantic flight begin at PDX or SeaTac, or are you willing to connect to another US airport prior to flying across the Atlantic? I ask this as some airlines with low fares don't serve either airport well.
For example, I recommend Norwegian Air so often, they should be paying me. However, they currently don't fly out of PDX and their SeaTac flights only go to London Gatwick.
However, they do fly from Oakland or LAX non-stop to many Euro destinations, and very inexpensively. I just returned from Paris -
$179 one-way on Norwegian. Summer rates will be higher, but you can check their prices at their site right now. They fly 787-300 series Dreamliners - a nice plane. This is a no-frills flight, but you can customize your options (seat selection, meals, luggage, etc.) for added costs. If your dates are flexible, that can really help, too.
Or, Delta now has non-stops to Amsterdam from PDX.
Icelandair have wonderful service from PDX to KEF with connections to other European destinations. Have you visited Scandinavia?
Isn't planning fun?

There are other options, but I like to use Google Flights for checking schedules and fares for my transatlantic flights. I like the ability to explore for cheaper departure days and cheaper destination airports, though it appears that such exploration can only be done with round-trip rather than multi-city itineraries.

When it comes time to buy, multi-city is very often the way to go. Still, it's good to start by knowing what week (and even what day) seems to offer the lowest fares. After choosing flights (including multi-city itineraries) you can ask the website to track the fares for you, but for me there is no substitute for checking fares daily (if I remember); some fare sales last only a very short time.

If you decide to explore options like Norwegian out of an airport you would have to fly into, remember that if there's a problem with your initial flight, you may lose the transatlantic leg and have to buy replacement tickets. And if you miss the outbound transatlantic flight, the return in normally canceled. If you think you'd only be comfortable flying to the US gateway city a day in advance (that would be my approach), that adds hotel costs and wastes a day of your vacation. There would have to be a really huge airfare savings to make that worthwhile for me.

We fly out of SeaTac, and there's non-stop flights to Amsterdam & Paris with Delta. But, we've also flown in or out of cities in the countries you're considering - Venice, Milan, Rome, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich with just one connection,

Places that we loved in the countries you're considering: Switzerland - Wengen (but Switzerland is expensive). Austria - Salzburg, St. Wolfgang, Vienna - all lovely! Italy - Venice, Siena, Rome, Verona, Stresa among others and we also love the Dolomites, staying at Moena the last time. Italy is my favorite European country, but we enjoy all of them. For Italy, the train transportation is cheap, especially if you buy your train tickets when they first are available ~3 months ahead. And, Milan-to-Rome is quicker by train than car, for instance.

Enjoy your planning!

You might check Condor Air from Seattle to Frankfurt. I see fares in Economy just under $1000 a person for selected summer dates in late June/early July. I did not check later in the summer. This is a direct flight. You could also fly from Portland, but it adds a stop somewhere en route, and adds to the cost.

Two weeks in Italy would be time well spent.

Flying out of Rome may give you the most choices for return to the US., from Italy.

"When" to buy tickets? If you ask 3 people, you are likely to get at least 5 answers. Buy when the you find a price you are comfortable with, is my suggestion.

Like acraven, I am a big fan of Google Flights for research and tracking. Using the calendar feature, you can find a lot of information on the less expensive times to fly. I like to develop a sense of what the cheapest fare is for my target cities by scrolling through the calendar. For my city, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday flights are almost always the cheapest.

Like others, I try to do at least a quick check every day when I am looking for fares. Perhaps coincidentally, several times I have found flash sales occurring right around holidays (always for the following summer). I have found good fares looking just a few days before Labor Day, right after Thanksgiving, President's Day weekend, etc. My unproven theory is that most people are busy thinking about what they are doing those days and not looking for flights perhaps causing those mysterious airline algorithms to drop prices briefly. Hard to say, but it has happened enough times that I religiously check for fares in the days leading up to and immediately after holidays.

As for where to visit, we did both Italy and Switzerland last year. Loved them both, but as others have noted, Switzerland is EXPENSIVE. Be fully prepared for that. Murren is amazing and I highly recommend it for a beautiful Alps experience.

Happy Planning!

No brainer. Visit Budapest.

Non-stop from Budapest to Basel can be as cheap as $50.

Maybe into Budapest then Basel (less than 30 minutes to Kandern) then do a tour of Switzerland or ....? Actually Basel has great low cost connections to some pretty great places like Krakow, Venice, Skopje, Sofia; as well a destinations in Spain and Portugal.

Condor also flies nonstop between PDX and Frankfurt, with connections to Italy.

We flew Condor RT from PDX to FRA this past June. We purchased premium economy tix for about what we would have paid for basic economy on a legacy airline. I encourage you to look into Condor.

We spent 3 months in Kandern way back in 2006. (One only goes there for BFA or one of the mission agencies, right?) You say you’ve been to France, but if you haven’t been to the small towns (Eguisheim, Riquewihr, Ribeauville, …) just West of the Rhine on the Wine Road that might be interesting to you. That’s a day trip from Kandern.

For Switzerland, you could train from Basel to the Lauterbrunnen Valley for visiting the Alps. And, of course, easily get to many other Swiss locations (see the RS guidebook). And then you might continue into Northern Italy to visit Lugano, Stresa, Milan, Verona, and up to the Dolomites. From there head to Munich, for instance, for a return flight. That’s probably too much for two weeks, but it gives you an idea of some possibilities.

Galen - Yep! BFA......our son is a guidance counselor and our daughter-in-law is an art teacher. WE'd love to see where they are living and working :) Thanks for the ideas, We plan on being there 3 weeks :o)

April

I start with air. I shop for price and duration rather than included services. I don't need a checked bag, meal or entertainment but those may matter to you. I keep the duration as short as possible. The flight is the most miserable part of my vacation but I can't justify paying 50 percent, or more, of my total vacation budget to make those two days marginally less miserable.

In general, you're going to get better prices around June 19th than August 1st. Keep an open mind, search for different departure and arrival airports, different dates, etc. Only you know whether flying out of Vancouver BC, or flying on Wednesday vs. Saturday, is worth it to save money, for some it's a definite yes, for others it's not. For me, it's always a balance of how much I'll save vs. the inconvenience.

I create as many alerts for options as possible beginning as much as six months in advance. Prices usually reach their lowest about two months to six weeks out. I get an idea of prices to start with but I don't book until I either see a great deal or get to about two months out and I know it's a good price.