What is the best route?

Amanda - With six weeks on the ground you definitely have enough time to visit the locations on your itinerary! How long you will stay at each site depends on you - what do you want/like to do... Amsterdam's main sites (for example) can be seen in an intense 3 days. I, however, have spent about 10 weeks based inand around Amsterdam in the last five years and I still don't think I've seen all I want to see! Will you go to Museums? Will you take side trips? Do you "live to shop"? Are hou a hiker or backpacker? All these go into determining how many days you will allot to any location. The bottom line is that you really can't go wrong with six weeks in Europe - enjoy!

If you do the math, you will probably find that a Eurail pass is not the most economical option, after all. Many times, point to point tickets, purchased in advance, are cheaper. Before you commit to travel dates, though, you might want to consider whether you are trying to fit too many places into too short a time frame to allow for travel between them. Any time you change locations, you lose a half to a whole day to travel time and related delays (packing/unpacking, waiting for trains, finding your new accomodation, etc.). If you have not traveled to Europe before, you might want to read Rick Steves' "Europe Through the Back Door". It will give you good information about all parts of the European travel experience. You can use www.viamichelin.com to look at the distances between the areas you want to visit, determine the best route, and get estimates of travel times between them. Best of luck in your planning!

How many days do you have on the ground? This information will help to formulate a constructive reply.

I am planning on being gone for 6 weeks total. Departure date from Seattle to London is May 7.

Since you are giving yourself plenty of time, there is no real "best" route to take. The order you listed the locations seems as good an order as any other. Consider what city you can economically fly home from and end your trip there. You can't fly home from the CT, but you can from Milan or Venice or others not too far away. Consider seeing a bit of Germany on your way to Switz. from Amsterdam, since it's on the way. Figuring out various countries' train systems can be tedious, but rewarding. There are many discounts available - some for buying ahead 60-90 days. The only possible way to actually save money with a rail pass is to use it for only the longest, most expensive routes. Even then, you won't save much. So I would suggest just buying tickets as you need them. You have the time to take things slowly. I would strongly suggest you take some of that time to see some of the smaller towns along the way between those you mentioned. It sounds like a great trip. Congratulations!

Are you traveling alone the whole six weeks? If you are you might want to fit in a couple of day tours in a few places. Just meeting some other tourists might be fun. Are you traveling only by train or is a car to visit the countryside in the mix?

For the least amount of backtracking, it might be good to start your time on the Continent in Amsterdam rather than Paris. You could fly on a budget airline from London to Amsterdam, take the Eurostar from London to Brussels and an IC train from there to Amsterdam, or take the Dutch Flyer train-ferry-train combo either all day or overnight from London to Amsterdam. Take the train from Amsterdam to Paris, Paris to Switzerland, Switzerland to Venice, Venice to Florence, and Florence to the Cinque Terre. Take the train from the CT to Milan and fly home from there. However, you could just as easily take the train from Switzerland to Florence, then go to the CT and Venice, and fly home from Venice. It's a fairly long train ride from the CT to Venice, but you might get a better fare home from there. If you book well in advance (up to 90 days) online on the appropriate sites, you can get discount fares for most of your routes which should cost less than a railpass plus seat reservation fees for any high-speed trains you take.

Great! Thanks for the help! I am traveling with my boyfriend for the entire time. We are just college students and trying to travel on a budget. We are planning on staying in hostels, etc. So I think that we will be traveling by train instead of car.

Hi Amanda, If you can commit 3 months in advance to train schedules, you can get very cheap tickets. The tickets usually go on sale either 3 months or 90 days in advance and a few cheap tickets are offered and can be purchased on-line. They are usually no-change, no-refund. Taking the train is usually better than flying. First, the train stations are in town centers, so no long (and expensive) trips to/from airports. Second, you dont have to arrive at the station 3 hours in advance.