First time traveler

Hi Liz,

Welcome to the forum! If you are planning to visit Europe one time, this tour provides a very nice itinerary! The guides are excellent, and they really maximize your experiences - much more than if you did the same itinerary yourself. Plus the people on the RS tours tend to be friendly to both individuals & couples and curious to learn about the places they’re touring.

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/europe-14-days

Thank you so much for the advice. I will for sure check in to it. I still have a while before I'll actually be going, and I want to make sure it's the best, so thank you for my first idea!

One time trip? London, Paris, Rome. The 1000 year old classic tour.

When you consider where to go, you should think of several things:

1) Are you interested in the history of a particular area?
2) Do you have a family background from Europe?
3) What do you like to do? Art, wine, food, whiskey, walking tours?

In other words, you need to ask YOURSELF what you want to do. Pretty much ANY sort of experience is available in Europe. You need to think what a good tour/trip is for your interests.

I've been fortunate to travel around Europe a lot, and I simply cannot answer that sort of question. I would suggest that a first-time visitor think about what sort of traveler she is; one's experiences on domestic vacations can provide a clue. Do you want to:

• See iconic sights, the more the better
• Have in-depth experiences at museums and historic sights aligned with your interests
• Absorb the local atmosphere, wandering through picturesque neighborhoods
• Glory in fabulous scenery (what kind--mountains, lakes, coastlines)

Thinking about that sort of high-level question can help you determine how fast you might want to move from stop to stop and how to split time between famous cities, smaller towns and rural areas--which affects whether a rental car would be at all helpful to you.

Your high-level preferences will have a financial impact. A trip hopping quickly from capital to capital will cost more per day in terms of transportation expenses and hotels. But plenty of people just have to see Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, etc. Think about what sort of traveler you are.

The time of year you plan to take the trip and the number of nights you can spend in Europe are also important factors. On a first trip, all of Europe will be new. There is no reason (except perhaps something like family genealogy) that would make me suggest a summer trip to southern Spain or southern Italy. And there are a few places (such as the Greek islands) where the transportation overhead can create a lot of non-sightseeing time, thus making a short trip rather costly in terms of dollars per hour of sightseeing.

This is awesome. I really appreciate all the feedback I have received and so quickly! This is very exciting and I feel enormously more equiped to begin planning my trip. I am so glad that I found this site because I was very overwhelmed with it all, so thanks to all of you who have responed and given me some ideas on where to start. I can't wait to post about my plans and my trip. Yeah!

lizlambright77, you posted this in the "Hungary" forum. Is that what you intended? I am inferring you didn't mean to limit your trip to Hungary. I agree it will be immensely helpful to you to read some guidebooks and help narrow down what exactly your interests are. If you try to do every place on one trip, you'll likely not enjoy a whirlwind tour where each city looks like the last.

But I'll also suggest that if you want to maximize the things you see and do, without having to research the heck out of things and make those tough decisions, consider a tour. An RS tour (look at the Best of Europe tour) is a great way to see a lot without having to become an expert planner and logistician.

Future posts will be spotted by more readers if you place them in the General Europe Forum (unless you decide on a trip to a single country, that is).

Believe me, even people who have traveled for decades are befuddled by all the possibilities. The worthwhile possibilities are endless.

Rick's book Europe Through the Back Door is a good general introduction to European travel.

And when you feel you need to understand more about trains, go here: https://www.seat61.com/ and read the section on a country you think you will include in your itinerary.

they do have a point why dont you repost in General Europe. But include when and for how long, and anything else about what interests you and what you expect to get out of it.

Or, leave it here in the Hungary forum, because you cant beat Hungary. So I have been told.

Hello from Wisconsin,
Unless you have pancreatic cancer, once to Europe is not how we live. You break the ice with the first trip. My 74 year old mother did her first trip in 1989. She went back six or seven more times. And trust me, she didn't have a lot of money. So I am betting you will return. Especially if you create memories of places.

Second: the fewer places you go to, the more time you will have to soak up the experience. Yes, London, Paris, Rome...if you want to be shoulder to shoulder fighting tourists to get into museums and pay high prices for accommodations. Try one country and several secondary cities, like France with OK Paris, but Paris is Paris, Chartres, and then Rouen, or Caen. Or Bordeaux...a long train ride, a fast train ride and a number one city. Have yo been on a high speed train. There is an experience.

I forgot, this is the Hungary site. Budapest, Eger, Szeged, or cross over to nearby Brataslava.

wayne iNWI

Naaaa. We don't know when he is going. Not so many tourists in Rome in February. Then you have to ask, why so so many people go? Probably a lot of reasons, among which is they are 3 of the greatest cities in the history of the Western world. But if your primary criteria is to avoid all the tourists, then I vote for Tirana, Skopje and Chișinău.

Back to London, Paris, Rome. That's 18 days minimum. Got another 6 days, add Athens. Still more time, add Jeruslem (easy to reach from Europe), more time? Then Istanbul and finally Cairo.

With 6 or more days each you can see the city and do an overnight outside the city to get a fuller perspective.