$$ and sense

If you are interested in taking a Rick Steves Tour, you need to check-out the "tours" section of this website and then follow the directions there for talking to a rep or booking.

Did not find Ireland as expensive as your other choices. Not sure how much airfare will cost and not exactly sure what your question is. Please clarify. Also, when do you plan to go, for how long and also where do you want to stay, hostels, b&b's , what do you want to see etc and then maybe we can help more.

Hard to rain on your parade but you $2500 is just too small. A thousand to fifteen hundred would be eaten by airfare alone. Even with inexpensive hotels and meals, you can spend another $100/day and that doesn't include any travel within the countries. In place like England, travel is expensive. Your best bet is an apartment for a week somewhere so that you can prepare meals, use local transit, and see one area very well.

$2500 including air? Best case scenario that leaves you $1500 to spend. Depending on how frugal you are you could go to Italy on that budget. I suggest staying in hostels or budget B&Bs and buy Rick Steve's Italy book. He has a great list of budget friendly ideas and restaurants. My wife and I spent 2 weeks in Italy on a $3000 budget (not including airfare) so I think you can travel quite comfortably on $1500 spending money. Good luck.

barbara, It would be helpful if you could provide more specific information. Which if of those countries are you most interested in visiting? Are you interested in visiting just one of the countries, or would you prefer visiting two or more? How long are you planning to travel? As the others mentioned, it will be almost impossible to travel to Europe with only $2500. That's only about €1775 at current exchange rates. Based on what I paid for air fares this year, that will use most of your current travel budget. Good luck!

I think you could do it, but it would be a lot of work, and not so comfortable.- Find a website where you can pick up last minute airfares, Skip RS, get a Lonely Planet guide, plan on staying at hostels, or look into the websites where you can trade lodging -visitors say with you and you stay in their places on your travels. Plan to buy all your food in markets, take off peak trains or buses,things like that. A package tour might be worth looking into as well, cheaper by the dozen. Another idea might be 3rd world countries-India, once you get there is very cheap.

I say yes you can but it means you will have to plan more, accept you won't be doing fine dining and you might walk more than you ever have in your life. My last trip of 2 weeks I spent $1500 on ground costs. (Rome, Florence, Assisi Venice and Frankfurt). Total nice meals out = 0. We did have a few modest lunches out. Here is the important part... number of important sites not visited = 0. I stayed in places that were basic but safe and ate quite well by visiting small groceries etc. If you are willing to make the compromises, it is in reach but you will have to shop air carefully and all hotels. (Hostel stays here we come)

I think we're talking to the wind. It looks like Barbara was trying to contact RS Inc and got us bunch of idiots instead.