7 places for europe trip

Nobody can answer questions like this. You have to be little bit more specific. Italy? You can spend all your time in Italy and then some. Vienna - at least three days. Czech Republic - the same what I said about Italy - it's the whole country, Warsaw - 2 to 3 days. Bratislava 1 to 2 days, Budapest - at least 3 days. Bucuresti - not the best destination in Romania and quite far away from your other destinations. All places are good to visit. Three weeks is not enough. You can get almost anywhere in Europe by train. To estimate budget for transportation you would have to be more specific where you want to go in Italy, Czech Republic etc. You are planning to go by October 2018. But when exactly? Weather changes depending on the season and place.

Also, you are 5 people traveling. Cars may not accomodate 5 people with luggage

Assuming you are not doing something unusual like visiting family, you really should not go all the way to Poland and visit Warsaw. [Edit: I meant to say "visit just Warsaw."] It's definitely not worth traveling all the way to Romania to see only Bucharest; there are definitely more interesting cities in Romania, and it is a very interesting country.

I suggest picking two or three relatively nearby cities and then reading about the areas around them so you can build an itinerary that involves much, much less traveling around. As noted, three weeks would be great just for Italy, and you would still see only a small part of what that country has to offer.

Italy and the Czech Republic aren't "places" in the way you mean. The other things you list are cities, you can see the highlights of a city in several days (but can spend weeks and not see it all in many of them). Italy and Czech Republic are whole countries with a lot of "places" you may want to see. For Czech Rep - do you just want to see Prague, or other parts? Italy - Rome, Florence, Venice, Tuscan countryside, other small towns...?

As for driving - I don't know if you can bring a car rented in one of those places into all of them. Usually you can visit nearby countries in rental, but that varies. Also, you will face large fees to drop the car in a different country than you picked it up.

I think this is way too much for 3 weeks - go to google maps and put in the cities to see the distances. Many of these places are pretty spread out and my guess is you will spend too much time driving. Look at a map and see what connects well. Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava could be a logical loop. Adding Italy is going way out of the way.

I just got back from a trip on Sept. 26, that included some of your countries. We flew into Berlin(because of cheaper airfare), but only stayed 1 night as we had been there before. We took the train to Warsaw, and then on to Krakow. We flew to Bucharest. Most of the time in Romania was spent in Transylvania. We did not rent a car at all. Our trip was 2 weeks long. It would have been nice to have more time to explore other areas, but it didn't work out for us on this trip.

Hello,

Thank you so much for your replies :):):) will take your advises and suggestions and think of a better way.

Thanks
Jane

Most car rentals have a huge fee to drop off in a different country. If you can find a shorter section of the trip where a circular route makes sense, then you may avoid such a fee.

You must inform the rental company of all countries where you plan to drive. It may be that some agencies don't allow their car to cross into Romania, for instance, or one of the other borders. The big, multi-national companies may have representatives in each country, but they're independently operated and don't necessarily trust their neighbors or want to deal with getting their car back.

Train can be a faster and more relaxing way to connect most cities of any moderate size. For longer hops, budget airlines can often be both faster and cheaper. You'll find several useful articles at https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation. Rick’s Train Travel Time & cost Map gives you an overview of faster train travel times in hours, as well as regular (full-price) 2nd-class fares.

Don't miss the interesting smaller towns in between the capital cities, usually also served by train. You can get plenty of variety into the trip without covering so many kilometers. Based on your original plan, Rick's Eastern Europe guidebook sounds like the best fit for your planning.

Hi,

Good that you're including western Poland as trip goal. You can bet the infrastructure is way more advance than when I was there in Warsaw in 2001, very doable logistically. To Warsaw we took the train from Paris, stayed a night in Berlin across from the station then serving lines to Warsaw, Bahnhof Zoo, and resumed the trip to Warsaw which to almost 7 hours because of a delay on the tracks. Super interesting to see the landscape from the Oder River to the Warthe River (Poznan) then to the Vistula, ie Warsaw.