It has been too long since my last trip across the pond. I am attempting to plan my upcoming trip personally, but locating airlines and arrival and departure cities that match my plan is daunting.
Therefore, can I do this plan myself, or should I call my local travel agency? I am open to any recommendations. Thanks.
Of course you could develop this plan yourself. The real question here is not “can you” but do you “want to.” You would need to put some time into research and planning. Some people love the planning aspect of a trip. Others find it tedious and hate being bothered with the details.
You need to do a self-assessment and decide if you would find the planning enjoyable or not. There is no “wrong” answer here. Either planning it yourself or enlisting a travel agent will work. You simply need to choose the method that makes the most sense for you.
It’s very possible to book this itinerary yourself, just takes some research. I would look into booking with Icelandair if you’re thinking about a stopover in Reykjavik. Search for multi-city and look for a flight to Germany and returning from Bergen. Icelandair allows you to select up to a 3 day stopover on the same ticket. You can also look on Google flights and search multi-city from BOS to Germany; from Bergen to Reykjavik; and from Reykjavik to BOS. I would book the flights within Europe separate and look into train travel between some of the routes. With Google flights you can search up to 5 departures and destinations at once and it will aggregate the best price for you. So this can be helpful to see if there is another airport besides Boston is better to fly out of and which city in Germany is best to fly into. I’d be happy to help you out if you message me as I’m one of those people who do love planning. But with the resources available online these days, it’s much easier to tease out your own plan if you want to.
Totally possible to plan it yourself. I find the planning process most fulfilling. Now is the time to start. Get the big pieces like where you want to go and the amount time you have nailed down. Look into flights for open jaw. Open your mind to all airlines and to hidden fees. Sometimes, there is better flight timing into a place than out of it. How do you get from one place to another and how much time are you willing time are you willing to spend intransit? Once the bones are in place, I start filling in the blanks. I set a task for different weekends. One week might be thinking about accomodations in Oslo and another transportation between Oslo and Bergen. Then, I keep my eye out for travel sales.
Do you have miles to upgrade or want to just buy premium tickets? We're economy travelers but on our last trip, we paid for extra legroom on our transatlantic flights. It made a world of difference!
Hi,
How are you reaching Oslo from Hamburg? Flying? You do have another option should you not want to fly. Take the ferry from Kiel.
Take the regional train Hamburg Hbf to Kiel Hbf. The ferry terminal is about 30 mins walk or so from Kiel central station for the Kiel to Oslo ferry connection.
Hi Carol, Christina, CT, and Fred,
Thank you for your great feedback. All of your suggestions should be quite helpful.
ckilly
