Need help planning one month in Europe

Must sees are a matter of personal preferences. Without knowing yours, the 1st place to start is the local library or bookstore. Look through some guidebooks for the countries that interest you, check out some travel DVDs on those countries. Take a look at some of the tour itineraries offered by Rick Steves & other companies and you can try to plot out a similar itinerary for yourself once you decide if you want to rent a car or only use trains or buses to get around (both of which can limit some of what you plan to see if you are getting outside of big cities). Consider doing it on
your own for most part and supplement with guided day trips as needed.

Once you determine where to go, you can get more detailed responses here. When you come up with a rough draft of an itinerary, be sure to build in all the time it will take you to travel from place to place, as well as some down time to take care of mundane things like laundry, banking, grocery shopping. If you can't spend more than 2 nights per destination, the constant moving can start to wear you out on an extended trip.

You should provide more information so folks on this web site could give you more specific assistance. Have either of you been to Europe before? Is your budget: cheap or middling or high priced? Have you gotten Rick Steves guide books such as "Best of Europe", "Europe thru the Back Door", and "Europe 101 - History and Art" ? If not, get them. They can be ordered elsewhere on this web site. What do you most want to see: art, churches, museums, historical remains, etc? If you have never been to Europe before, you might consider taking one of Rick Steves
"Best of Europe" tours that can last for 14 or 21 days and then be on your own for the rest of the month. On my first trip to Europe, I took RS 21 day Best of tour and after 10 years and 8 more RS tours, is still one of my favorite. Good luck and happy travels.

My suggestions after an 8 weeks 8 countries planned and researched by myself. The trip went very well without any flaws.

1. Keep map of Europe handy.

2. Decide which countries you want to visit and each city within the countries.

3. Set up Folders under Vacation 2011 and create a folder for each country under the main folder.

4. Do your research, copy and paste information, such as sites, hotels, hostels, B & B, etc., and file them under the country....city.

5. Prepare an Excel spreadsheet for your Itinerary.

6. Plan the logistics of your itinerary in order not to back track.

7. Then research each travel day, cost of Point-To-Point tickets. After you have determined the cost of each travel day and noted that. Then research the different Rail Passes available.

From there you can determine IF you need a Rail Pass and if so which one...how many days, etc.

1. After your have a firm Itinerary, prepare a small flexible report binder and put your travel information in it. Such as Hotel address, telephone #, which rail stop is the closest, etc. Perhaps even the rail timetable for your travel days.

Then prepare in order, tabs for each Travel Day.

That is a start.

Good luck and have fun preparing for your trip

I also traveled with my daughter and she was amazed how well I had planned our trip.

BTW, we stayed the majority of the nights in hostels and saved lots of money. We were very pleased.

Purchase or rent from your library a "best of Europe" book, Frommers and Rick Steves I know make these. Hopefully from that you can narrow down which countries you are interested it. The rule of thumb I do is about a week per country and try to pick bordering countries.

We spent a month and did Netherlands, Germany, and Italy and had a great time.

If money is an issue traveling alone, at least for us, is always cheaper than a tour. Rick Steves 21 day Best of Europe tour is $5000 a person plus airfare. We spent under $5000 per person for a month in Europe, including airfare, without budgeting too much.

Hi Jan,

We just completed the process of planning our own month-long trip. We haven't taken the trip yet (Sept) and so we're not pros, as of yet. At first, planning seemed a bit overwhelming since there are endless mixes of places to see and ways to get there.

Very early on you need to decide on major stops and means of transportation since travel connections determine how long it takes you to get from point A to point B. Budget airlines can get you between major cities and then use trains or rental car from there. Or you could rent a car from a budget rental company but then you're stuck driving everywhere but it certainly does allow almost unlimited freedom (or a curse in big cities, I hear). We chose to buy train passes, which is a little more expensive than cheap car rental (including fuel, tolls, and parking fees) but we get to relax on trains (in most cases) between destinations. For 29 days/30 nights, we went with 21-day Global Saver Passes at about $713 per person (5 nights in arrival city then 3 nights in departure city leaves 21 travel days in between). Flexi-Saver passes might have been a good choice, also. An added benefit of trains is that you can take night trains on some routes to free up more daytime for the important stuff. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not train passes really save you money over point-to-point tickets but on a 30 day trip through 5 countries, they do. On top of the train pass cost, there will be some amount in reservation costs (total $250 each for us due to private 2-person sleeper berths on 3 nights, plus other compulsory seat reservations).

I'm not recommending our itinerary but here's an early version only as an example (with forum critiques).

http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/51845/30days-europe-itinerary.html

People on this forum, this website in general, and Rick's books are a great resource for the fine details, especially.

Have fun and good luck!

JB,

You're my hero.

Jan,

I think you can do this on your own. As far as an online travel site, to what are you referring?

I think you can easily do research for this trip. First, head to your library and grab that old dusty atlas off the shelf and open it up to Europe.

What countries are must sees for you? What kind of person are you? Do you enjoy hiking or scenic walks? Castles or museums (or both!)? Do you have any limitations (asthma, high blood pressure, bad knees, etc) that might limit the places you can go?

Then grab those travel guides (free with a library card - all the "cool" kids have one) and start reading.

I think a "must see" is different for everyone. Some people enjoy big cities and the tourist stuff, others, the countryside and hikes.

I would start to get an idea of an itinerary asap so you can book early and get the best rates on hostels/hotels/B&Bs.

Why not grab a book about Germany to start with and go from there? ;)

this is meant to be extremely practical, but it is going to sound philosophical at first--when planning your trip, be sure to look within yourself and figure out who you are, because you'll be that person--but magnified--when you travel. i'm telling you this because i thought i had 'must see' destinations, and i planned a trip (that i'm currently near the end of) for a month's worth of cities. i hate cities. they make me crazy...so guess how this trip has made me feel? make sure you pick places that you will enjoy seeing AND will make you comfortable. if you're like me, head to somewhere with mountains and cow bells (i so should have done that!) if you need the pulse of city life and would be bored with cow bells, well, you've got lots of choices there, too. happy planning!

Thanks to everyone for your great advice! I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed. I should have given more info. My daughter is graduating from college in Dec. and will be 22 when we leave for our trip. I like the idea of doing a portion of the trip as a tour and the rest on our own. We were tentatively thinking about trying to do maybe four or five countries. (Possibly Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Czech Republic) If we fly into London, we would also spend a couple of days there. I think we will probably travel mostly by train. Driving is a little scary to me. I am taking all of your suggestions to heart. Thanks again!

Jan,, look at flying open jaw. YOu fly into London , but out of another country so you don't have back track. I think you and dd should do it on your own,, it wouldn't be easy to find a tour that you would both like ,, many bus tours are filled with extremes,, very young folks drinking away ( I am thinking Contiki) to many older folks,, not very lively at all. An exception to me would be a Rick Steves tour, they attract a wide crowd of ages, and are not as tightly regimented as some tours( my MIL came home exhausted from a Globus tour,, she said it was up and at the bus often by 7 am!!)

For 4 weeks I would choose no more then 4 or 5 destinations. Alot of travel stress is because people rush about too much! MIssing one train sets their whole schedule off,, by building in a few spare down days it makes holiday more relaxing, and you can fix any schedule issues more easily if everything is not prescion timed.

Can you combine both you and your daughter's wishes by doing a 2 week tour as well as doing things on your own? Maybe start with a tour and then finish off on your own after you feel like you have your 'Europe shoes' on?

Oops, sorry Jan - just read that you'd already thought of this! Looks like great minds think alike!

Yes Kira, I think that would be a good option. Planning such a long and expensive trip all on my own is terrifying. LOL! A tour would ease some of my fears. We are considering Rick's Best of Europe tour.
I'm wondering what the best option is for sleeping. I noticed that a lot of the hostels are for those under 35. I'm thinking either hotels or apartments if they aren't too expensive. There are so many choices!

Personally I love apartments - even in 3 or 4 nights you feel like part of the neighborhood and a 'local'! It gives you a whole different appreciation of a place, although of course you need to make your own bed and clean up after yourself! Being able to relax on your sofa with a bottle of wine and a hunk of cheese (or whatever suits your fancy) is so nice at the end of a day or touring...

Depends on what you like, but now that I've done apartments I'll never go back to hotels if I can help it! Have fun, I'm sure you'll enjoy whatever you do!