Traveling to Europe by myself (female) for about 17 days

This itinerary would involve a lot of flying, not just trains, and you'd need much, much more time. I also think it would be a more satisfying trip is you were to concentrate more on what's there in real life, not just movie and TV representations. With the time you have, what about focussing on 3 or 4 places in England and Scotland, or just in France, or the same in Croatia, with a possible side trip to Istanbul (which would involve flying)? Going to Italy just for Pisa would be pretty disappointing, I'd say.

For the time allotted, why don't you go to 3 places, and see them fully. Edinburgh--London--Paris? Train service would be easy between them with last leg being on the Eurostar into Paris.

Where are you flying from?
Yes, maybe UK plus Paris/Versailles would work if you flew open jaw to Glasgow and home from Paris (or reverse).
To do Instanbul and the Balkans, Turkish airlines has good prices.
Agree that going to Italy just to see Pisa would be a waste. Italy would be a 17 trip in itself.
Subway and bus systems in Europe take about a day to get used to, then its a breeze. Very intuitive.

Trimming down your itinerary and spending more time in fewer places would save money, travel time, and could be a lot more rewarding. If you go to Scotland spending a few days (at least) in Edinburgh is well worthwhile. It's a beautiful city, easy to get to by train or plane, and very easy to navigate on foot. If you're a Harry Potter fan you may find the Elephant House coffee shop in Old Town worth seeing. It's where JK Rowling wrote some of her stories, and just down the street from there is the Greyfriar's Kirkyard where the names on gravestones gave Rowling inspiration for the names of some of her characters.

Hopefully, you can finds ways to condense your trip into more time in fewer places, i. e. quality over quantity.

You mentioned that you have 17 days free – if that includes travel time to Europe, you have 15 days in Europe. I agree with the comments above – I would choose either UK in Paris, or Croatia and Istanbul. If you do want to cover all of the places on your list, you can certainly do it. Only you can judge your priorities at this time in life, as well as your tolerance for hectic schedules

Skyscanner.com is a good place for finding budget airline schedules for Europe, and bahn.com is a good place for train schedules. I suggest you figure out your transportation time between cities to decide how feasible your plan is.

Each time you change countries, you'll be dealing with some new language challenges. Also since you mentioned concern about transit systems, keep in mind that each time you change cities, you'll have a new system to figure out, and that occupies some time. Finally, each time you change hotels/locations, figure you'll lose a half-day to a day of touring time dealing with logistics and transportation.

It's very easy to underestimate the amount of touring time that is wasted when moving from city to city, and that's part of the reason you'll find many people on this site suggesting visiting fewer places.

hsi,

IMO, you have too many stops for a 17 day Itinerary, especially as the sights are quite spread out. It would help to have a few more details, such as where you're flying from and what kind of budget you're working with?

A few thoughts on the places you mentioned......

• the U.K. and Paris would be easy to see as they're all relatively close and transportation is easy. For the trip to Paris, I'd suggesting booking the EuroStar well in advance to get the best prices. Check the excellent Man In Seat 61 website for details.
• Rather than staying in Pisa, you might consider Florence instead. It's a larger city with more to see and it's easy to see Pisa, Lucca or Siena as a day trip.
• Transportation to Croatia will be more challenging (and possibly expensive). Many of the budget airlines only operate seasonal service to Dubrovnik, so getting there and back could be challenging. Whether you'll be able to see the sets from Game of Thrones may depend on whether they're filming at the time. I've been there when they're filming, and there's really not a lot to see other than a few of the props and actors wandering about in period costumes talking on mobile phones.
• I'd suggest skipping Istanbul this time. It's far removed from your other locations and fitting that in will be difficult with such a short time frame.

There are a few potentially expensive "caveats" to be aware of when using trains and other public transit, especially in Italy. Once your Itinerary is somewhat "definite", it will be easier to offer more specific suggestions on transportation.

If the OP is going in October it's probably already too late to get good fares on Eurostar and it may be cheaper to fly from the UK to one of the other places. I agree that it's too many far-flung places to be feasible and you probably have to drop one or two. I would definitely skip Italy if you're only going for Pisa. You need to map out the places that you want to go to, then research the transportation options (cost and time) and then you'll know what might be doable.

You could squeeze in Pisa, but it's much easier logistically to leave it out ...

Fly into Istanbul - 3 nights
Fly to Dubrovnik - 3 nights
Fly to Paris - 3 or 4 nights
Eurostar to London - 4 nights
Train to Scotland - 3 or 4 nights

djp - looks good on paper but not sure it's easily doable. I could not find any non-stop flights from either Istanbul to Dubrovnik or Dubrovnik to Paris. All flights between those destinations were long (sometimes very long) flights with inconvenient stop overs. I'm not sure with all of the time those flights would take that 17 days (or maybe 15 actual days on the ground) would be enough for such an itinerary. The OP has a lot of research to do.

5hr 25min with Croatia Airlines from Istanbul to Dubrovnik via Zagreb (may not be daily, and may be seasonal)
4hr 50min with Croatia Airlines from Dubrovnik to Paris via Zagreb (may not be daily, and may be seasonal)

As Nancy says, these travel days would be complete 'write offs'.

thank you guys for the pointers. as weird as it sounds, what if i take out Scotland, France, and Italy; just going to London, Dubrovnik and Istanbul. I'm saying this only because I envision myself going to Scotland, France, and Italy in the future with my family.

I'm flying out of LAX (Los Angeles), and wouldn't mind flying if that's the least complicated things to do. With that said, I've trimmed my schedule to UK - London, Oxford and Gloucester, Croatia - Dubrovnik, Turkey - Istanbul, and approximately 5 days each.

does that sound more reasonable? once again i'm very appreciative regarding all your help.

Perhaps consider 7 days island hopping Croatia's Dalmatian Coast ...

Fly in to Istanbul - 4 nts
Fly Istanbul to Dubrovnik
7 night Croatia Cruise from Dubrovnik to Split
http://www.sail-croatia.com/croatia-cruises/explorer-cruises#one-way-north
Fly Split to London - 5 nts

As per the previous post Sail Croatia is fantastic and you won't feel alone- if you are worried about that. It would also be a great break after busy Istanbul. One suggestion: since you love HP go to Harry Potter Studios just outside London. It's $$$ but totally worth it for any fan of the films and books. Just google it an all the pertinent info is there.