Super tentative itinerary for Amsterdam/Benelux/Germany

Your 12 days is actually only 10 in Europe. Is this your first trip to Europe? I suggest you read Europe Through The Back Door (available on this website) and some guidebooks. Have your friends do the same. Then sit down with them and figure out what you want to do. Moving so much in the time you have allowed is exhausting. You might want to add more time or scale back on the number of places you go. How did you come up with your proposed locations?

This can be done, sort of, but you're spending far too much time in transit. Although except for day 7, the transit times aren't particularly long, you also have to factor in more than just the quoted travel time from Point A to Point B. IE, checking out of one hotel, getting from your hotel to the train station, waiting for the train, orienting yourself in the next city, finding your hotel, checking in, etc. Even for a relatively short leg, leaving Amsterdam and settling in Brugge will take the better part of half a day. "Train to Bruges (or are we more Antwerp people?)" Not knowing you, I couldn't say. But let me take a guess. You are under the age of 30? If so, then Ghent might be a better choice.

Nice destinations overall but yeah, a bit too much travel time is involved here and not enough time in some spots. This part is troubled: "Day 5 - Train to Brussles? See city center. Train to Cologne? Tour cathedral...pick up a car? Stay in Cologne? Get to St. Goar?" Just use the train. No car is needed for what you have planned. You'll arrive late in St. Goar, no time to see anything that day. "Day 6 - some sort of Rhine tour. To Bacharach? Round trip? Get a car? Mosey along the Mosel to Luxembourg City? (BFF really wants to go to Luxembourg) Day 7 - Luxembourg and train or drive to Fussen? Reserve late tour tickets to castles?" Skip Füssen - only late 19th-century palaces there, no castles. that gives you a day (Day 7) for Luxembourg. Spend most of Day 6 on the Rhine and tour a real castle, like Marksburg in Braubach: www.marksburg.de To see the best section of the Rhine and the castle, go south beyond Bacharach to Bingen; take the train from St. Goar to Bingen (22 min., the boat takes about 3 hours!) Cross river by ferry to Rüdesheim, take train north to Braubach (45 min.) The trains hug the river the whole way so you'll see it all from both sides. Once in Braubach, drop bags at the TI office (no lockers) and take tour. Then catch a train to Koblenz (12 min.) and another train to Lux (direct, 2 hours; 19:23 train gets into Lux. at 21:35.) Then spend Day and night 7 there. On Day 8, head for Munich (2 hours closer by train than Füssen.) "Day 8 - Zugspitze" Maybe you can do that as an outing from Munich? You already have a ton on your plate though.

Andrea - no, not first time to Europe. We've been reading guidebooks, but two of the group would prefer to just be told when to show up and how to get there. I'm the planner, and another friend is also reading guidebooks and this itinerary came from our conversations. (Though like I said...it's SUPER tentative because we know we have to work a bunch of stuff out.) She wants to see Luxembourg and the Rhine, I want to Cologne. So I was seeing if it could all fit. Tom (and Russ) - yup, I realized there were travel hiccups. That's why I'm looking for insight, getting recommendations on transportation and timing. Also, Tom, we're exactly 30! Or rather, when we go, three of us will be 31 and the other 34. Maybe Ghent was what I was thinking instead of Antwerp. Just not sure, I'll have to do more reading. I also thought about doing Zugspitze from Munich, but because it's sort of between Fussen and Munich, I figured why backtrack? Then again, if we spend a few more nights in Munich, we could look into getting an apartment which could be cheaper. I still want to see the palaces in Fussen despite the fact that they are 19th century noncastles. I've done a lot of reading about King Ludwig, I'm more interested in their place in his history, than just cool noncastles.

This is how I do my planning - First, I think of it by how many nights I have. Two nights in a location is equal to one full day., etc. Get a blank calendar. Get some post-it tabs and write on each one a place you want to go. If you have multiple nights in a location, do a tab for each night you want to be there. Example: Amsterdam for 3 nights, do 3 tabs. Take your calendar and start playing around with it. You may have to eliminate things to make it work. Be honest with yourself about how much time it will take to get from place to place. Be prepared for the unexpected. You will save time if you drive, and it becomes more cost effective if you are splitting the cost four ways. The biggest issue with that is you will pay a hefty surcharge for dropping the car in a country different than the one you rent it in. You could consider using the train between Amsterdam and Belgium, and Belgium to Germany. Pick up the car in Germany and return it when you get to Munich. You don't need a car in Munich and it will be more of a headache. You can do both Dachau and Salzburg by train from Munich. Planning is part of the fun of a trip for me. You are lucky that two of your friends don't care to be involved in the planning. That makes it easier! Be sure they will be fine with your plans in that case, and don't start complaining during the trip that they don't want to do this or they want to do that. Trust me...it happens.

"I also thought about doing Zugspitze from Munich, but because it's sort of between Fussen and Munich, I figured why backtrack?" Sort of, by car, but not by train. They sit near the end of different spur lines. " I still want to see the palaces in Fussen despite the fact that they are 19th century noncastles. I've done a lot of reading about King Ludwig, I'm more interested in their place in his history, than just cool noncastles." Good for, that's the key to really getting the most out of your visit.

True Tom, by car, they would be back tracking, by train, it would make sense to make it a day trip. Andrea - I do some similar planning with spreadsheets. Luckily I've traveled abroad with two of the three friends before, one is the other one reading guidebooks and talking with me about itineraries. The other one is the one who will just show up at the airport and go along with the plan. :) I could NEVER be that way! The fourth is the wildcard, but in college, he and I took off on a random road trip to New Orleans with only about a day's notice, and we did great on that trip. While the four of us are spread across Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois, I think we're going to meet up in Iowa at Christmas time for a big-picture planning day, then the details will naturally be picked up by me and the other planner in the group. And yes, I was thinking if we picked up a car, we would use the train first in the Netherlands and Belgium. If we got a car, we'd pick it up somewhere inside Germany then drive it to Luxembourg, or take a train to Luxembourg and again, pick up a car once we hit Germany. Definitely we will get rid of it before Munich.

This is not a good itinerary, sorry. Having just returned from the Rhine/Mosel and knowing how long it takes to get to Fuessen from that area...you're going to have to add more days or cut locations. You've got a lot of one night stays. I'm not universally against them but you're going to spend a lot of time in transit and less time actually seeing stuff. Don't forget the effect of jet lag. You functionally have 1 full day plus a few afternoon/evening hours in Amsterdam. I'm your age. I'd consider adding a day there and I haven't even been. I would forget Luxembourg. I know it's tempting, it's cright across the border, but focus on the Rhine and skip the Mosel/Luxembourg for this trip. on your Day 5 (really Day 4), if you must see Brussels and Cologne on the same day, at least overnight in Cologne, don't try to hit a 3rd destination. On your day 6, do the Rhine. Figure out where you want to pick the boat up at, train there from Cologne. Because you're traveling against the current going in that direction, the boat times are long. You can get on at Koblenz, get off at St. Goar to do Rheinfels, hop on the boat for a hour to Bacharch, which seemed to me a way more interesting town that super touristy St. Goar (both are touristy, but there's more history and interest in Bacharach) stay overnight there maybe on to Fuessen. If you're interested in Ludwig there's no reason to skip his castles, but do some extra research to make sure Neuschwanstein is the one you really want to see. A lot of people like his other castles more. If you really want to do Luxembourg and Mosel, maybe you could if you skipped Brussels and Cologne...

I suggest: amsterdam amsetrdam ghent ghent brussels munich salzburg salzburg munich
munich