European Travel.

"Where do we start?" Well, you've come to the right place! Click around this website and you'll find many resources to get you started. You could start by clicking the Travel Tips and Rick Steves' Guidebooks links.

Nickolas, As Kent mentioned, this website and some of Rick's Guidebooks would be good place to start. If you haven't travelled in Europe before, reading Europe Through The Back Door will provide some good information, including Itinerary planning. With the cities you want to visit, using open-jaw flights would be a good idea. You could (for example) start in London and return home from Sweden. If you could provide more specific information on what you're hoping to see in Europe, the time frame, etc. it would help the group to offer more specific advice. Good luck!

I always suggest you start with your local library check out travel/guide books, DVDs, and what the travel shows on the PBS channels. You need a background for what you might be interested in seeing doing. Also, look at a map so you recognize distances and time. This site is good for specific question Should I see A or B? Not so good at, Where should I go? Or, tell the must see sites in Europe.

Research is the key. Rick's site here is great, and there's lot of other info on the web. I think books o sites with lots of photos are great, especially for first-time visitors. Someone can be rhapsodic about a place, but if you don't like the looks of it, you'll be disappointed. Once you decide on dates and an itinerary, don't wait to make your train, hotel and air reservations.

You really should read a little history first, as a starting point. Then geography, then historical geography, then literature. After that, take a peek at a guidebook so you can figure out how go see the stuff you learned about. You'll probably realize that half of the stuff in the quidebook doesn't interest you now that you know about it. If you start with quidebooks, you're letting someone else make up your mind for you. Save hotels for last, they don't matter much. Think about places to eat after you get there.

Doing a single gigantic trip may may not be the best choice for you. You mention London, Paris and Rome but do you want to see some of the rest of Europe? You could easily do 2 or 3 weeks in each country. If you are city focused you could do 3 days to a week in each one. For the Slovak Republic, you probably want to fly into the closest airport and, hopefully, have a relative pick you up. If they are not close to the airport you either need to rent a car or get ready for whatever the "bus gods" throw your way. In Sweden you will have the same drill but it will cost more.

Go to www.tripadvisor.com. In the search box type in London forum, then Paris forum, and then Rome forum. Lurk on these 3 forums and see what questions arise and what experienced and not so experienced travelers have to share. We always fly into London, do our thing, then take the Eurostar train to Paris. From Paris you can take a train or fly to Rome then on to the Slovak Republic and Sweden. Short hops flights or trains will get you around nicely. Go to www.seat61.com for all you'll need to know about train travel, reservations, tickets, and how to do it mostly all from your home computer. We prefer to use trains for all of our travels. You'll do just fine.