Looking for travel help / itinerary advice - willing to pay

Hi John, I think that I can speak for most here, that we do not help out people out of any expectation of a reward, but rather because of our passion for travel and wanting to share that passion with others. I would hold on to that 100 bucks :)

The Rick Steves office does paid consultations.

Carlos, thank you for that! I do think that it would be asking a lot to ask the community here to look at our entire itinerary and check every route and every connection. To get from Varenna to Zermatt took me an hour looking at the different routes, and then similarly trying to get from Zermatt to Lyon.

I may check with the Rick Steve's Consultative services. I am trying to avoid travel agent type fees, but am willing to pay something.

Thx!

Carla, the Varenna I'm looking to move to is on Lake Como. Also, I've used the advice on Seat61 quite a bit to plan my preliminary itinerary. I did't put all the connections on here, but ideally, that's what I'd like someone to review.

Just kind of looking at your journey, you are spending an awful lot of time traveling and very little time enjoying. Generally, two nights in a locale gives you one day of sightseeing and looking around. For a 14 day period of time, most of us would spend 3 or 4 nights in each location. This gives you time to enjoy what the locations have to offer rather than racing from place to place. You are in 3 countries and are traveling to areas off the beaten path, requiring long train rides between overnight stops.

For example, on your Zermatt to Lyon leg, you will be spending a minimum of 6 hours enroute, after which you will need another 2 hours or so to get to Paris, not considering how much time you will have to see the womens' cup game. That's one really long day. Same for the CT to Varenna leg, which will have you traveling for over 5 hours. It's another 5 1/2 hours from Varenna to Zermatt--at a minimum.

Most of us who post here on the forums are travelers who have spent some time doing the European travel routine and can attest that any train ride over 5 hours is really grueling. Consider cutting out one or two destinations and spending more time in fewer locations. Every time you go into the Alps you have to come back down from the Alps, so consider whether that leg of the trip can be modified or omitted. Good luck.

Carla must be thinking of Vernazza. Varenna is indeed on Lake Como. We took the train between the two using the route via Genoa, with a single change at Milano Centrale. It is a long ride, over 6 hours.

Just a quick comment: You have too many stops. A series of two-night stands with some long travel days between is not a good plan. Since you will have a coastal experience at Sorrento, I suggest you omit Cinque Terre (it is not the peaceful idyllic place it used to be) and add one night each to Florence and Varenna.

Carla was thinking of Vernazza.....duh.....

WBfey, you may have a point and it's certainly worth looking at more closely.

I know a lot of the tour groups seem to spend just two nights at each location so I didn't think it was out of the norm, but now that you put it out there and I look at it again, it may be tough to really sit back and relax and enjoy it.

The trip to Switzerland was a late add. The wife thought since we were so close to Switzerland, was there any way to squeeze it in. We added a day to the front end, but it still seems like a lot of extra travel. Maybe we could accomplish the same thing by going through Geneva for a night, or pass on it altogether.

My preferred website for finding train routes all over Europe is the German train site, bahn.de. Here it is in English:

https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

Tour groups utilize more efficient transportation methods than you could on your own. For example, a bus picks you up at our near your hotel and drops you off at your next hotel. When you do it yourself, you lose up to a day just in the travel process. In addition, you have to get reoriented to your new surroundings - by the time you have done that, it is time to move to the next stop. In addition, changing countries means that you have to adjust to different languages, customs and sometimes currencies.

I completely agree with wbfey - this itinerary represents a lot of transit time. Bear in mind that every change of location is going to eat up anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4's of a day. Also, as this is your first time to Europe, bear in mind that getting from "point A' to "point B" will be a bit more challenging than doing so at home.

My suggestion (for what it's worth) is to really evaluate what your top priority is to see/do in Italy and then use that as a starting point. Since it seems Sorrento is the only thing you wish to see in the south, I would save that for another trip and focus more on Northern Italy. You could then spread out the 3 nights from Sorento to Florence and the Cinque Terre and/or Varenna.

You cannot use a tour group plan as your plan since a tour group is far more efficient with the small items that can suck up enormous amounts of time. For example - take a day of travel -- A tour group meets in front of the hotel at 8.15, throw luggage under the bus and they are on their way by 8.30. Your train leaves at 8.30 so you need to leave the hotel by 7.45 or earlier to get to the train station, find your train, board your train and on your way at 8.30. Both the bus the train arrives at your next stop at noon. The bus is near or at the hotel, you off load, grab your bags and go into the hotel by 12.10. Pre-registered, pick up your key, hit the room, fresh up a bit, lunch is serve at 1 pm and the same time your guide gives you an overview and lays out the rest of the day. You have a full afternoon of sightseeing. If you are on your own, you arrive at the train station at noon, walk off, make you way to the front of the station -- maybe you walk to your hotel if you know where it is or take a taxi. Either way you are probably at your hotel by 12,45, 1 pm. If your room is available you can check in or you have to wait until 3pm or so. So your storage your luggage with the hotel find someplace for lunch. Finally find lunch and as you sit there you begin to orient yourself to where you are, what to do, when to do it, etc. Finally you go back and check in, get to your room, fresh up a bit and decide to walk around. As you start walking and thinking about where to go you run into the Rick Steves' group returning from the afternoon of sightseeing with their guide. Their dinner was already lined up and the sightseeing plan for tomorrow was in place so they could enjoy a little extra wine with dinner that night.

You mention family? Is this children? How young? As others have mentioned you have way too many places for your length of time. Also do not under estimate jet lag. You may lose a day there. What do you want to see/do in Italy besides train stations? Seems the majority of your trip is going to be spent checking in and out of hotels and being on trains. Wondering why for a first trip you don’t have the biggies of Italy listed except Florence ? It is your trip but I wouldn’t want to travel that much unless I was on a quided your.

My reaction to your itinerary is that you have only two nights which equals one day in several places that require a lot of traveling to get to.

Ok, thanks everyone. Given this advice, I'm going to go back to the drawing board on the itinerary and try to put in a little more time to enjoy the experience.

May still like help once we've come up with a plan B.

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-help/plan-your-trip-with-our-expert-consultants

That will give you info on the RS trip consultants.

Others have already covered the issue of too many places in too short a time and how tours make a 2 night stay work where replicating that efficiency as DIY is very difficult to impossible.

Try this as you make the next plan-

1. Draw or use a calendar with your date ideas
2. Look at the bahn.de website to see possible train times and arrival times to a desired desitnation, say Florence. Note the arrival.
3. Now list every thing you wish to do in that city on your specified calendar dates you had planned. Find out the open and closing times. Place them on the calendar. Can you do 6 things in one day ? Maybe or maybe not. Spread it out to more days or cut your wish list. Do you need to make sure you add in a break - for lunch or people watching.
4. Look at bahn.de to check train times to your next destination. And your arrival time. Can you do anything on your wish list that afternoon or evening in the next town.
5. Follow this for each location.

This helps me realize if I truly have time to see everything or if my train connections are crazy.
You never know how long you will enjoy a location until you are there, but if you have specific sites/activities to see and do, it really helps to visualize it.

Our pattern is at least three nights in every location and many times four. The only one nights are when we are traveling through an area going somewhere else.

Hey John,

The itinerary is ok but it can be more efficient. First of , you have too many 2 night stays and constantly changing hotels. Secondly, in the summer around june, You will be at the height of the tourist season in cinque terre. It will be scorching hot there. You might want to skip cinque terre for another trip. And do you really have to visit Zermatt to see the Matterhorn?

Here is an itinerary that can work for you:

Sorrento 3 Days

June 26 - Land in Naples and transfer to Sorrento

June 27 - Sorrento

June 28 - Sorrento

Florence 3 Days

June 29 - Private transfer back to Naples, then train to Florence

June 30 - Florence (Tuscan villages day trip)

July 1 - Florence

Varenna 2 Days

July 2 - Train to Varenna

July 3 - Varenna

Lausanne 2 Days

July 4 - Train to Lausanne Switzerland

July 5 - Lausanne

Lyon 2 Days

July 6 - Train to Lyon

July 7 - Lyon (After attending Women's World Cup game train to Paris)

3 Days Paris

July 8 - Paris

July 9 - Paris

July 10 - Fly back home to USA

I'm not a fan of two-nighters, either, but what really popped out at me was Zermatt. It looks close to Varenna, but it isn't if you are trying to get there by train or bus (or even car). Including it as the only stop in Switzerland means a lot of travel time in and out in order to have basically just one day--a day that could be rainy or so foggy you can't enjoy the views. Switzerland is beautiful (though very costly), but it's really better to hold off on it until you can spend a bit more time there and be more certain (still no guarantees) of having some weather conducive to being outdoors.

Geneva is a pleasant place on a lake (no shortage of either in Switzerland), but it's certainly not one of the country's top destinations. I'd take a hard look at how much (if any) additional travel time there will be in order to make a stop there. There's also the not-so-small matter of the hotel cost. It's one thing to pay Swiss prices for hotels up in the Alps; for Geneva, I would be reluctant.

What time is the game in Lyon?

Credit is due for planning a trip in sort of a straight line.

Did you pick Florence because of specific pieces of art there or because it is a convenient place to turn left towards the Cinque Terre?

Are you basing your desire to visit the Cinque Terre because you want to walk the trails or because you saw the pictures in the video? Are you aware of the very heavy crowds there in July?

How old are the kiddoes?

We help because we enjoy it and like to share our expertise. Nobody offered to pay before - we wouldn't even consider it.

You cannot have too many questions here, and there are no dumb questions. Every question you ask is what a few dozen other folks have thought but not asked.

Speak for yourself, Nigel. Always open for few dollars either across the table or under.

Thanks again for all the advice.

Some more info: There will be four of us, my wife, myself, our 18 year old, and our 6 year old (yes, 6!) We are taking our first Europe trip to reward our oldest for doing well in high school, but realize that it won't be ideal for our youngest. (Our six year old will turn 7 in July).

I agree that we will take out at least one stop, perhaps two. It's hard to imagine Italy without the Amalfi Coast. Since we have a six year old, we thought Rome might be too much walking and history. We'll save Venice for another trip, perhaps just with the wife.

The game is at 5:00 local time in Lyon and unless the game goes to overtime, it should be done by 7:30. That should give us time to catch a train to Paris, even if it is late. At the moment, getting a hotel in Lyon is ridiculous as almost everything is booked. I do expect that to change as teams get eliminated and people cancel their rooms.

It's tough to pass on Cinque Terre given how Rick Steves raves about the place and figured the only way to enjoy it would be to stay there and enjoy it when the massive tourist day rush comes to an end. If we don't stay there, is it worth it to take a day trip from Florence? Or, would that just add to the madness of it all? Or, if we do Cinque Terre, do we give it three nights?

I think the easy one to remove is Zermatt. It looks amazing and I've always been fond of the Matterhorn, but probably best to save this for another trip.

Thanks again to everyone; will post a revised itinerary after we rework the plan.

For the new research plan, let me introduce you to rome2rio website. It is for first layer logistical planning. You plot cities in a row and then it plots on a map and provides travel options. It isn't exact on costs or schedules, but you can see backtracking, time length of travel and ballpark costs.
Also, I think RS has further details of how to ride trains, and YOUTUBE will have videos of how to use Italy train stations you will travel through. Afrer a couple, it will be old hat.
Research can be exhausting, but with a little help from your online forum friends, you will jsve so ething more personal than a travel agent can build.

If you are going to Sorrento I would skip the Cinque Terre. Take the two nights you gave to the Cinque Terre and add one to Sorrento and one to Florence. 3 nights is only 2.5 days. 4 nights 3.5 days. There is a lot you can do from Sorrento. Half day trip via the local train to Pompeii. Ferry to Capri, day trip to Positano and Amalfi. Then travel from Naples to Florence will take at least a half day. If you add one more night you now have 2.5 days. You could spend a half day to go to pisa or visit Lucca or Siena.