Tips for 2 week travel to London,Paris,Rome,Venice and 1 day in Germany for May 2015.

Ciao! That's an ambitious itinerary for only 2 weeks and involving 4 countries. Have you picked up Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door yet? It will give you good insight on planning, where to stay, and transportation.

In my opinion, you would at least have to fly Paris to Rome to make it work as the train trip is VERY long and there are budget air carriers. London to Paris and Rome to Venice are easy train trips. Your 1 day in Germany is quite an outlier.

Bear in mind with all these stops you will have only a couple of full days in each place. Plot out your travels simply, like below, then start filling in what you will do each day and how long it will take to do them.

As Zoe likes to say, you will only travel at the pace of the slowest party member. Are your 18-y-o daughters early risers and energetic travelers?

Day 0 - leave U.S. (or wherever)

Day 1 - arrive in London, get situated, clean up, take a walk, eat, crash

Day 2 - London

Day 3 - London

Day 4 - to Paris. Spend most of the day in transit and getting settled once again. Take a walk, have dinner, sleep.

Day 5 - Paris

Day 6 - Paris

Day 7 - Fly to Rome, get situated, oriented. You know the drill by now.

Day 8 - Rome

Day 9 - Rome

Day 10 - Train to Venice, get situated, and if you actually take an early train (09:00) you will have 1/2 day to do something in Venice.

Day 11 - Venice

Day 12 - Travel to (unknown city) in Germany

Day 13 - Germany

Day 14 - fly home

With a party your size, apartments would be an economical move. you can easily get 2 bedroom, if not 3 bedroom places if you start looking and committing soon. BUT apartments take more time to check into and out of, and you would not have the benefit of a host or concierge that could help you with advice each day. I like to use Booking.com to find possibly hotels, B&Bs and apartments. There are many other sources, but Booking.com is a good place to start. The reviews left there are only placed by people who have actually stayed in the facility, so no phony ones, AFAIK. Booking.com reservations are almost all cancelled too, which is helpful f you find a place you want to hold while you continue to search.

Good luck and come back with specific questions once you have nailed down your itinerary.

4ryan,

1. You may want to say where in Germany you want to go.

2. I agree about getting Rick Steves book.

3. I think you a spreading you all thin. You could short change London & Paris and just about every place on your list. Think about cutting Germany out since you only have 1 day for it and add that day to some other city.

However, if you all want is just a taste, then you may get that, as long as you understand.

Also, you realize you will loose 1 day traveling to Europe from the USA??

Trains

Look at dban.com fot train info. Also look at seat61.com. he gives really good info. Spend some gray matter comparing cost (time & $$) of using trains vs planes.

Lodging.

You may want to look at hostels. SInce there is a gang of you all, you could possibly get a whole room. Note i have never stayed in a hostel since i snore and i know others that do would keep me awake. But look into hostels.

In london, You may want to look into London School of Economics (LSE) appartment rentals. I have stayed in their dorms, but not an appartment, yet.

Planning.

If you would look at a map, you may see a path of the places you want to go. My geography isnt great without a map in front of me, but.

London - Paris - Germany - Venice - Rome

Or backwards. Rome/ Venice maybe swapped if needed.

Note that im looking at Italy and Berlin next year and finding some flights out of Italy to Berlin isnt easy.

Good luck and happy trails.

" as inexpensive lodging as possible": Hostels - maybe with family rooms.

+: Cheap, instant friends for you and your daughters, some even have washing machines :-)

-: Hard to find hostels in city centers, not much privacy,

Ray has a typo in the German rail website. It is bahn.de While it will only give you prices for trains originating in Germany, it is the best site to get trains schedules for all of Europe. Keep in mind that the actual train travel time is a small part of the time it takes to move from place to place.

I think the LSE only offers rooms when school is not in session. My guess is that they won't be available in May. Anyway, here's the website http://www.lsevacations.co.uk/home.aspx#sthash.vV2Gdomz.dpbs

Many (most? all?) hostels have dorm rooms for 4, 6, and 8. They are bunk beds and usually have a private bathroom. A lot also have double rooms, with or without bathrooms. If you want a dorm room to yourselves, you simply pay for all the beds. If for instance, you want a 4-bed for the girls and a double for the moms, and there are no 4-bed rooms, you can pay for a 6-bed for the 4 girls. There are several sites that are very helpful in finding hostels - they have good descriptions, ratings, and reviews. Start with hostelworld.com In Venice there are convents that offer basic rooms (no tv, for instance) a lower rates. Keep in mind that you won't want to leave expensive stuff in the dorm rooms during the day, since they often aren't as private as hotel rooms - cleaning staff are likely to leave doors open and rooms unattended.

As for your itinerary, I too urge you to slow down and smell the roses. Most of us find that it's better to enjoy everything you see that to try to see everything (which you never will). And even though you'll save a lot of money by buying no-refund, no-exchange train tickets 4 months in advance, they still cost money. It's easy to get from London to Paris by train and will take only about 1/2 day. It's not clear why you want one day in Germany or where in Germany you want to go. With only 2 weeks, I'd drop Italy (it's just too far from Paris or Germany) and add Belgium or Netherlands or more Germany.

It's best to figure out your itinerary first, then book the flights. If you start with flights, you can box yourself into a corner.

I agree on the hostel idea, especially with you all staying in a family room. Join the hosteling International group, which can be done on line. You'll receive plenty of good information including books providing hostel listings and services. As a family with two teen aged children it was perfect for us. They often are in city centers close to public transport especially in London, Paris and Rome where we had clean modern rooms, options to cook, and lots of conversations about things to do among the fellow hostelers. Save money, have fun and meet people. Great traveling. P.S. hostels come in associated groups, like IH or independent. More rules with IH, lots less rules when independent (we stayed in both types) and were good in either.

If those are your selected destinations, then I think Laurel has you on the right track with timing and the importance of flying at least one longer leg. It does sound like only big cities, I prefer most trip plans to mix up the experience with one or two small towns, which have a very different atmosphere. One of the easiest stops to slot in would be the hill town of Orvieto, on the main train line between Rome and Venice.

If you've done some reading but still have a lot of questions, consider our paid consulting service.

Everybody is different, and you know yourselves best. But here is why, based on the information you provide, I think this itinerary is probably not right for you.

First, it's an unwieldy group. Unless you've all done this before , in which case I take it back. But 2 moms and 4 teenagers are not going to be very nimble.

And, second, you have to be nimble with this itinerary, because there is no slack.

Third, you seem cost-conscious. Well, every time you change venue, you spend money, and time. And, fourth, time; you do not have a lot of it.

You are spending a good deal of effort, not so say cash, to visit some of the greatest cities of the world. And then you spend 1 or 2 days seeing each of them.

Suppose instead you "just" visited London, Paris, and Rome. You've just traded 2 travel days for sightseeing days, which is a plus. You've saved some money. If you have a "downtime" kind of day, you won't miss everything. And you are not going to be bored either.

I'm not saying you should do that, but you should think carefully about what you are trading off.

If this advice is off base, I take it all back. You know best, and it can work. But that's what I think based on what you've said.

mom4ryan,

just an for your info.

Re: LSE apartments.

They reserve them for "vacation" rentals only. They are not student housing. They maybe located in or on the top floor of dorm housing but the location and type will vary. If you are interested, its best you check out their web site and look at availability and locations and prices. I want to try one of their apartments, but i so far i havent stayed in London more than a overnight on my trips back there.

The dorm rooms i have stayed in were not during off school season but when school was in session. They may have rooms available or not, but the only way to know is to check there web site and look for availability. They have that posted. I have stayed at one near Kings X in September 2 times so far when classes were in session. There is a mix of travelers and students. No problem and i have not had any issues with Parties - at least when and where i stayed. There is also a 24/7 checkin.

good luck and happy trails.

4ryan, being respectful of everyone's different styles (my husband and I are 'slow' travelers), I would consider cutting this itinerary back. As it stands, you'll expend 4 days of your two weeks relocating - which eats up far more time than you may think not to mention the cost on a limited budget. Along with relocation time, Day 1 in any foreign city is often a blur of just getting acclimated.

We've spent an entire week or more in three of the cities you have on your list without running out of things to do! And the caution regarding very tight itineraries with no space for anything to go awry is sound advice: wiggle room is a very good thing, especially so with teenagers who may not be fond of hitting the ground running early every day. Not sure if this applies to your young ladies but it's worth the mention?

I'd personally trim Germany and one other location from the list but I also understand how difficult that can be when it's so tempting to want to see and do it all!

First, get the daughters as involved as possible. They can (and will) make or break the experience. Second, with your time frame my thought is to only do three cities the group decides upon. Better to enjoy a few places really well than to hit a lot of places once over lightly. TC

Definitely get the teens to "buy in". Perhaps each one can choose a city (and hope that two pick the same one). Or, each person chooses one place they want to see or an activity they want to do. At any rate, get the RS or Lonely Planet guidebooks to start.

Hello mom4ryan. Will the "2 week" be 14 days ? And is that the total number of days that you will be away from your home ? Or, will you be at Europe a total of 14 whole days (not including the day you arrive at an airport at Europe or Britain) ? If you will be there (Europe and Britain) a total of 11 whole days, I agree with what Adam suggested : Fly to London and Paris and Rome. Planning that kind of trip is easy : have overnight accommodation at one hotel in each city. Airline flights between the cities. Be at London 3 whole days, Paris 3 whole days, Rome a minimum of 2 whole days. If you will be there (Europe and Britain) 14 whole days, I recommend going to those three destinations, and do a day trip from each city.