Madrid-Barcelona-Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam

To answer one of your questions that the other posters did not: you don't need to worry about customs until you come back to the US. In most of Europe you don't even stop for customs. what you will hit when you first arrive in Europe is Passport Control...sometimes the lines for that are quite long, and at other times you breeze through. Once you are inside the European Union, you won't go thru passport control again. However, for a flight to madrid from Amsterdam you will go through security as always...given how strict Easyjet is about being there early, I would suggest you hit the airport at Schipol 2 hours before flight to be sure. As I understand it, you plan to fly into Madrid, and then go on from there to Barcelona. What is your proposed schedule? I would think Madrid would need 4 days at least (counting your jet lagged first day), then perhaps three days including travel to Barcelona. That would leave 9 days, and of course one of those at the end will involve getting back to Madrid. How do you plan to get from Barcelona to Paris? If by day train, I can't imagine you will have enough time to go on from paris to Brussels & Amsterdam. You would need to break the trip in two or three places, perhaps Montpellier and Avignon. You'll need to easyjet from paris back to madrid. You can do a night train, the Elipsos hotel train directly from Barcelona to Paris, ...but it will be expensive, you'll need to get tickets as soon as the sale date opens (I think 90 days in advance, but I'm not sure), and you may not be able to sleep on night trains. I can't, lots of people can't. For rail guidance, look at the website The Man in seat 61 (google it).

Regarding your flights...unless your plans are etched in stone, consider flying in to Madrid and out of Amsterdam. Depends on your airline and kind of ticket, but it's usually better to avoid a long back-track just to get back to your departure (arrival) city. Cost-wise, it may not save you any money (I'm assuming you can get a crazy cheap EasyJet flight), but you'll definitely save some time (half a day? a whole day?), which is more important, and you avoid the potential problems of depending on your low-cost flight to get you to your expensive flight home: since the tickets are not related, if anything happens to your EasyJet flight (the flight is delayed or canceled), you may miss your homeward return flight and be stuck - it's your responsibility, not your airline's. If you do decide to go that way (fly EasyJet to get back to Madrid), leave yourself PLENTY of buffer time (consider doing that flight a day or two ahead of your departure). A larger issue (which I'm sure others will chime in on) is....how much time do you have for this trip? You're talking about covering a lot of ground here, and people often try to do too much on their first trip. Remember, you pretty much lose a whole day anytime you move from one place to another, and each of these cities you list warrants more than just a day or two (with the possible exception of Brussels) - and you're going to zip right past other things worth seeing (I'd take Bruges over Brussels, for example, and if you're in Madrid, there's so much nearby to see). I would want a minimum of 3 weeks just for these cities - and I travel like a madman, most people would suggest going slower. You might want to consider concentrating on a smaller area.

Hi Steven. I agree with David about cutting back the number of cities, since your current itinerary only allows you to have 2 days in each city. I would either stay in Spain for the whole trip or stay in northern Europe for the whole trip. And Brussels as a city isn't very exciting; unless there are specific things there that you want to see, like museums, I would recommend spending that time in another city (either Paris, Amsterdam, or perhaps a couple of daytrips from either of these).

Thanks so much for the reply. And, I completely agree with you, in theory. However, the trip started as JUST Barcelona and Amsterdam. Madrid is added because that was the cheapest flight and we might as well be there for a day or two. Paris and Brussels were added because the train is gonna go through there and we thought we should stop off and do a thing or two...specifically the Lourve and Musée d'Orsay. So that was the thinking on this...but your comment does give me pause. Yes, we had intended to leave from Amsterdam, however, the best flight brought us to Madrid and hooked up with the exact non-stop round-trip we eventually got. BUT, it is $200 more. So we bought just the Madrid flight and will take an easyJet the day before and spend the night in Madrid. So we had thought about these very things. Thanks!

I suggest that, to save time, you skip Brussels. If you take an AVE train from Madrid to Barcelona, be sure to book well in advance on the RENFE site. The standard fare is €115, but the best Web fare is €46. I think those offers are available about 60 days out. If you take the Elipsos Trenhotel from Barcelona to Paris, again be sure to book well in advance on the RENFE site. The best Web fare is €74. Or fly easyJet. Take a Thalys train from Paris to Amsterdam. If you book well in advance (up to 90 days allowed) at www.thalys.com, you can get a Smoove fare as low as €35.