Traveling Europe!

That is a lot for two weeks. What are your priorities? Look at a map and try to group things to save travel time. You could easily spend two weeks in Italy or Germany. When you decide on your destinations, it's best to fly into one city and home from another so you don't have to backtrack. It's called an open jaw or multi-city flight.

Rail passes are rarely a good deal. Usually you will save buying point to point tickets, purchased in advance. There are other low cost airlines besides Ryanair.

When I plan a trip I look at how many nights I will spend there. Two nights gives you one full day there, 3 nights = 2 days, etc. Then I factor in how much time and money it will cost for the amount of time I'm allotting it. Then I start eliminating places and adding time to others to get the best ratio. One night stays should be avoided. I am planning a trip now, and besides one 2 night stay the rest of my stops are at least 3 nights.

jon,, is it safe for me to assume you are younger?
I think you need to edit a bit.. and remember, unless you die in a sudden freak accident or have a terminal disease , you can assume you will make it back to Europe one day!! lol

Your picks for Germany are interesting.. Neuschwanstein is super cool to see.. but to go all the way there for that one sight.. its not really close to anything except Fussen,.. its about 100 miles from Munich though.. and Munich is a pretty cool city to visit .

As said.. railpasses are rarely a good deal.. often a pain in butt too needing reservations for some trains and extra fees. Buying point to point tickets well in advance gets best prices. Ryanair is ok,, but not for Paris, they use a airport thats like an hour an half away.. use Vueling or Easyjet.. or Tuifly. etc.. there are many cheapo airlines.. look for ones from or to paris that use Orly or Charles de Gaulle.. NOT Beauvais. Find out the decent airports for other cities.

jon,

That's a fairly ambitious number of cities for such a short time frame. Some additional information would be helpful. For example.....

• Where are you travelling from? No location is shown in your Profile.
• Is this your first trip to Europe?
• What are you interested in seeing in each of the places you're visiting? That will have a bearing on how much time to spend in each city.
• Are you using Guidebooks to plan touring, etc.?

Rail passes may or may not be the most cost effective option. Keep in mind that passes don't include the reservation fees that are compulsory on the premium trains. Especially in Italy, if you're caught without valid reservations for the train you're riding on, you'll likely be fined on the spot and it WON'T be cheap (on the Freccia trains, fines are about €50-60 PP).

You'll also need to be sure that you're fully informed with the various aspects of using RyanAir. The cheap prices quickly disappear once all the extra fees are added. Also in some cases RyanAir uses airports such as Beauvais (Paris) which are a considerably outside the cities, requiring both time and money to reach them. I'd suggest looking at other budget airlines as well.

Good luck with your planning!

Let's say you pare it down to Berlin, Paris and Italy (the 3 cities you mention are served by good, fast rail connections).

Check the Easy Jet and Ryan Air websites to see how much the flights are, which airports are used, and how to get from city center to departure airport and from arrival airport to city. For instance, if you have a 6 a.m. flight out, you may not have many (or any) bus/train service and may have to use a taxi - or spend a night in the airport. If the flight is in the middle of the day, you will lose an entire day's sightseeing. You'll use up at least half a day anyway. You will probably have to check luggage, so you'll need to be at the airport long before flight time. The budget airlines are usually very strict about hand luggage, the number of pieces, the size and the weight.

Use the German rail site bahn.de to find train schedules (for some reason, results are better if you choose UK English, not US English). An overnight train may be your most efficient option, provided you think you'll be able to sleep. For trains within Italy, use trenitalia.com.

When I plan trips like these to multiple destinations, I often make a lot of changes in the early planning stages, simply based on these travel options and constraints.

I'd cut either all of Germany or Berlin & Paris.
Option 1: 13 nts (1 nt flying in)
fly to Paris
Paris 4 nts, fly EasyJet to Venice
Venice 3 nts, train to Florence
Florence 3 nts, train to Rome
Rome 3 nts
fly home
Option 2: 13 nts (1 nt flying in)
fly to Frankfurt, train from airport to Heidelberg
Heidelberg 2 nts, train to Fuessen
Fuessen 1 nt, train to Munich then night train to Venice (1 nt)
Venice 3 nts, train to Florence
Florence 3 nts, train to Rome
Rome 3 nts
fly home
There may be an extra night in there if you can spend 14 nights, so insert where you want.

Thank you for your replies. I just threw in extra places to get an idea. Our main focuses were Berlin, Paris, Venice, possibly Rome. We would be flying from FL to Copenhagen and the next day out to Berlin (Or alternative). The flight to Copenhagen is just because it is cheap ($292) we don't really have any interest in staying there. It's our first trip to Europe, as for what we want to see lets just stick with whatever is within those cities there are hundreds of cool places and scenery. (I know there is a lot, but we will plan were to go as soon as we find out 100% where we are going) As for rail passes what is the recommended sites/locations for them, I noticed trenitalia.com for Italy and night trains is an option. Anything is an option. Although we are four months away we are still in the beginning stages.

Thanks,
Jon

OK, now we are getting somewhere. Berlin-Venice-Paris is a huge triangle, best negotiated by air. EasyJet has flights to all of these for reasonable prices. What airline goes from FL to Copenhagen? Is it RT or can you fly open jaw?

Sam the airline we are taking is Norwegian Air. It's a one way ticket to Copenhagen from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We haven't bought a ticket back because we don't want to back track and fly back to Copenhagen and then back to Florida if we don't have too.

xbox.. before you buy that cheap ticket be aware... you are assuming you will find an equally cheap return ticket from another city and you likely will not.. so that cheap ticket will be no deal at all if you have to purchase a one way ticket back home that costs 1000 bucks right.. So find a return flight deal before you purchase that one way.

Also.. keep checking that deal may already have dissappeared,, flight prices change daily sometimes,, even hourly.

And 4 months out is not too soon at all to be planning.. a train ticket that may cost you 30 euros now , may cost 100 closer to date.
For example 2012 we took a train from Paris to Nice.. I purchased ticket for 39 euros , first class.. about 120 days in advance. We befriended some folks on same train as us.. just seated across the aisle. They bought their ticket 2 weeks before trip. Their ticket was 200 euros.. I had to show them my ticket to prove how little I paid.. buying ahead makes a big difference.

I'd say look at nailing down your return flight, from either Venice or Paris. We flew back from Venice once on SAS with a connection in Copenhagan, maybe you can factor that in with a return on Norwegian. There is also a USAir flight from Venice to Philly where you can connect to Fort Lauderdale. Paris should be no problem, just a matter of cost with you already having a one-way over.
If you save Venice to the end, you can work your way by train from Berlin to Paris. Heidelberg is about halfway, so that would break the trip up. Fly EasyJet from Paris to Venice and then head home. That would make a good 2-weeker. I suppose you could also look at a return from Rome and sneak that city in as well. It is only about a 3 to 3 1/2 hour train ride from Venice.

I have already bought the plane ride there, the deal has been there for a month now. The plane ride back from Copenhagen is around $400 so If need be I can get a flight to Copenhagen from our last destination. It'll just make the last day or two nothing but returning home.

So is berlin, Paris, Venice to far of a stretch?

Thanks,
Jon

I was just checking the skinny on Norwegian. You can get flights back from Paris on the 14th for a good price. You could also take an EasyJet on the 15th to Copenhagan and spend the night for the flight home on the 16th. So it might look like:
Copenhagan 1 nt, fly to Berlin
Berlin 3 nt, fly to Venice
Venice 3 nt, option night train to Munich then train to Fuessen
Fuessen see castle, 1 nt, train to Heidelberg
Heidelberg 1 nt, late train to Paris
Paris 3 nt, fly to Copenhagan
Copenhagan 1 nt, fly home
Maybe skip Fuessen & Heidelberg and fly direct to Paris, depends on your hotlist.

14th,, wow,, that makes trip 2 days shorter.. making it only 11 days .. I think if you exclude the travel days you arrive and leave the 3rd and 14th.. that only leaves you 9 days..

You already know about budget airlines in Europe so this may be redundant. My favourite tools for finding the low-cost alternatives are www.skyscanner.com and www.whichbudget.com
It's hard to reconcile moving around a lot with holding down costs. I'm with the posters who think less is more: See fewer cities but see, and understand, them better.