Hi guys, i'm looking to do a Europe trip over a 4 week span between August 18 - Sept 14. This is the first time so i'm looking to do the major places (England,France,Spain,Italy) Then possibly add on Greece/Germany etc.
Does anyone know what the best value way of planning this is? Should I fly in and out of the same city or fly into one place and out of the other, is there an efficient route to go around to my destinations and should I catch a train or fly etc.
Thanks
I've started researching and getting major analysis paralysis with people saying to fly, some saying to just catch a train everywhere. Ontop of some people saying to avoid places like London/Paris like the plague etc. Getting lots of varied opinions which makes it hard.
So you are looking at 6 plus countries to do over 4 weeks?????
Thats less than 4 days in each country plus travel time.
I think your expectations are rather ambitious.
Allow at least a week in each country if you want time to see anything other than watching the countryside zoom past.
But realistically going by train does let you stop in lots of places and see the countryside as well as you make your way to your next destination.
And yes, London is a bit out of the way unless you fly there first and start your tour there as airfares are cheaper to London.
Multi city flight is the way to go,
Avoid departing UK for Australia as the departure tax in economy is £94
Europe is a big place, you might be better just doing 2 or 3 countries in 4 weeks, I’d avoid trying to do a list of famous sites, just to tick a box and say you’ve seen it, at that time of year there is millions of tourists doing exactly that.
Flights wise just look at Skyscanner or make your local Flight Centre work for you. 10 years ago ours had access to Malaysia Airlines Flights that weren't on websites which were something like $1000 return to Paris (post MH370) 1 month out. Next cheapest was Singapore Airliners at $1900 return.
Also depends how old you are.
If you're 18-30 i'd do a Topdeck/Contiki, no better or efficient way to cross off all the bucket list items over the course of 3-4 weeks. Just be wary you'll need a breather after it, but it's doable when you're young. I think we did ~12 countries in 24 days.
If you're 30+ then i'd look at an Intrepid/G Adventures tour. More relaxed itinerary but still don't have to worry about organising accommodation etc. Plus, if you're going with a partner, a group changes it up socialising wise, so you're not stuck having the same conversation over and over. Also you'll actually get 8+ hours sleep which is a rarity on Contiki/Topdeck.
Does anyone know what the best value way of planning
Check flights between each city from Aus and then flights between cities and work it out which option is cheaper and convenent?
Don’t do what I did when trying to get to Berlin - I ended up in Bratislava because of a communication error with a truck driver
Scotty doesn't know.
Mi scusi?
Greece is not currently connected to the rest of Europe by rail.
You can use an Eurail pass for trains in UK and Germany, this allows unlimited rail travel on almost any train to anywhere in those countries, and is completely flexible even after you have boarded a train.
The global pass is also valid in France, Spain and Italy, but fast trains in those countries require additional payments and advance reservations, so it may be better to just buy normal tickets.
The UK has high taxes and fees on departing by air but not on arriving. So all other things being equal, it would be cheaper to fly into the UK and fly out from mainland Europe, than the opposite.
August in the Mediterranean is not great, extremely hot and lots of kids on holiday, no point going to Europe for beaches when we have so many in Aus.
One idea might be to fly into Scotland and then take trains southwards through England, France and end up either in Spain/Portugal, or Germany/Switzerland/Italy. However it may be better to do 2-3 countries more thoroughly instead of rushing through 5-6 countries, unless you have specific travel goals you want to achieve.
Have you booked anything at all yet? If not the best value way is to find another destination. It's 3 months out from Europe peak travel season.
Nope, couldn't due to work commitments. I understand i'll be paying overs at this stage but just looking to optimise it in the best way I can for the moment.
Are planning just to do the capitals in each country or are there additional places of interest?
Then possibly add on Germany
Deutschland is not an add on country. It is the major and locomotive of those 4 suckers and it also paid off lazy bagger bankrupted Greece's debts recently. You may consider Turkey through Eurorail global pass instead of Greece.
Try and cut down the number of destinations. Packing up and travelling non stop can get quite tiring and time consuming. You can buy open jaw tickets from quite a lot of Europe for a similar price as a return, eg. Sydney -> London, Paris -> Sydney, (must be booked on same ticket though rather than booking 2 1 way tickets) to further reduce traveling, since they're in the same travel zone.
Create a list of your must see destinations. Plot them out on a map. Work out how you will get from one place to another. For example Venice-Florence-Rome is better done by train. Athens however will need to be by plane. From Australia, flying into and out of the same city is fine. Flying out of another city is better eg. in to London and out of Athens, but no need to overcomplicate it. Every city in Europe is connected by low cost airline.
There is Great Britain and the rest they call the Continent. 2 Worlds, endless cultures. All have Maccas and trying for world record breaking prices.
Best done in 2 go's.
From Lisboa to Helsinki there are sleeper busses that are less boring than trains. See a Bull Fight in Madrid, Stop in at the Holy See to congratulate the new Pope. On To Kopper in Slowenia for a Hardly Normal shopping episode. On to Serbia to find cranky tennis players.
Eat some Eisbein with a Bavarian. To avoid the traps, France has some marvels: Citee of Condom and Hamlet of ( what sounds like a young cat) (profanity). See how nice the city of Nice really is.
How about some Polish Kranski?
Polish kiełbasa.
Book the to and from Australia flights as MultiCity flight directly with an airline.
That allows you to fly into one city and out of another but still get return pricing. Note that you should avoid flying back to Australia out of the UK as there is a departure tax added to the ticket price. Unless you find a good special you will notice these are more expensive.
Book the "internal" flights with EasyJet, Ryan Air, Wizz etc. Skyscanner is often best for this. Also note they are strict on baggage weights.
For trains look at The Man in Seat 61 - https://www.seat61.com/. Slightly clunky website but it has everything you need on trains.
Some trains have dynamic pricing like airlines, others are fixed price - knowing which you need to book ahead can save you hundreds.
Perhaps start by checking which European cities are served by the major airlines that fly out of Australia, then select a carrier that serves two cities that interest you for your outbound and return flights. Then plan the itinerary between them via rail.
Don't try to cram too many cities in, you would want at least 3 or 4 nights in each place
European trains are fantastic and so much better than flying. Even the long trips are pleasant and I like just looking out the window at the scenery. The pricing is complicated and can be expensive if you don't prebook in advance, so make sure you study it and work out whether a Eurail pass will be better
I wouldn’t do more than 3 countries and easiest if you pick ones that are near each other eg England-> France -> Spain and you can go by train (or bus). However you can fly if you want to (for example) go to England, Italy and Greece (albeit 4 weeks is barely enough for one of them let alone all 3).
Anyway, pick where you want to go and then figure out how to get there. Sometimes you will discover is a big hassle and drop a location but most of the time it will be easy.
The UK is the only place where trains are not the best - they are ok but limited and a car is a lot easier. they drive on the left like us so it’s not an issue.
Like some commenters here said, it depends on your age and likings. To some people one month in Italy itself is insufficient.
1. That said, draw up a list of "must-see" for ticking boxes of sightseeing locations that you wish to be in a photograph with (like Stonehenge, or Eiffel Tower or Bilbao Museum).
2. Next draw up a list of summer festivals that might be interested in, and these may have specific periods in summer, like Notting Hill Festival in 2025 is on 23 August, which means your England leg of the trip may be the early part of your trip.
3. Once the above two are shortlisted and organised to visit chronologically, then start organising your accommodations. They run out pretty early and you are pretty late organising them for the coming summer.
4. Lastly organise your transport between places where you have accommodations, could be trains, planes and buses in between. Trains are probably overhyped in terms of punctuality, and be prepared for late trains.
Use a combination of online travel guides like this one : https://wikitravel.org/en/Europe
and ChatGPT/ AI tools to help you organise your travel itinerary. Give plenty of time for travel days.
Good places to be hubs for travel by plan is London (4 airports)/ Paris (2 major airports).
We did a similar trip last year. For only a month you really need to focus primarily on a single country. We focused on Italy as our primary country.
Here's where we went:
Like people above said, 3-4 days in each place minimum but keep in mind you'll be wasting at least half a day if not more trying to move between places so the more you spend in one place the more you'll get out of your holiday.
I always recommend visiting the touristy places (Rome, Paris etc) in off season as in summer you'll spend more time in queues and crowds than it's worth.
As mentioned above, try plotting the sights you want to see on a Google map and you may see a subset of them that are relatively close or in a sensible line so you aren't spending every second day at an airport.
Do you plan to hire a car for part of it? While most cities have unique sights, generally a city is a city, and a lot of the sights are out in the country and smaller towns. That's also a benefit of an organised tour.
Hey, this sounds awesome. You'll have a great time.
As someone that's done a lot of European trips in various ways, there is a lot of good advice here already. A couple of toughts for my 2c:
Are you travelling alone or with other/s?
What is it that you want from the experience? (A taste of everything, or you want to see/experience specific things?) For example, some people want to tick things off their bucket list, some just want to be able to say "I've been there", etc. Depending on this, your choices will be very different.
My opinion (others will differ) is that you definitely don't need 3-4 days in every city. There are certain cities that you will want to spend more time in and others that you won't and if you want to just have a taste of it (or want to tick off the "I've been there") then sometimes 1-2 days is more than enough. I definitely agree that you must keep in mind that travel takes a long time and that will reduce the available time in each place. Sometimes the travel itself is enjoyable too (especially car or train) and you have to add on the time it takes to get to your choice of travel. For example, airports are often not in the city centre and you have to be there early, so a 1hr flight might still require 4-6 hours of your time. Trains usually take you right to the city centre, so can be a good option (but can be really expensive.) If driving (on the other side of the road, or in general) doesn't bother you then it can be a really good option too as you get to go exactly where you want to (but be mindful that parking can be a pain.)
Everyone has different taste and preferences. Do you want to see as much as possible or really take things in and absorb the culture/experience? Even in this thread (and in your research as you said) there is so many different opinions. My best advice is to speak to friends/family/colleagues that have been to those places. Ask them what they liked/disliked and why, then you can decide if that aligns with your preferences. (It's most important to ask "why" someone liked or didn't like a place e.g. avoid Paris like the plague - because their opinion and preference is very personal and yours may be completely different.)
You will have to compromise on some things, so as others have said, make a list of all the things you want to do/see and then work out the best way to get to as many as you can. Discard the rest. There is no easy way to plan efficiently without planning your schedule and this will take time and effort.
Once of my favourite trips was a big driving trip in Europe covering 9 countries and a tonne of cities/places. In 4 weeks we covered 9000kms on a flexible schedule (if we liked a place we stayed longer, sometimes we moved on quickly.) The only place we spent more than 2 days was in Rome (there is so much to see.)
I once did Paris in 1 day (granted, I had been there before, but I was with others who hadn't) and we just used the hop on/hop off bus. We didn't have time to go into the Louvre for example (we just walked around it from the outside) but we got a really good overview of the city and it was perfectly fine. Some people would be horrified, but my point is that it really depends on what you want to get out of the trip.
Lastly, but not least(ly) travelling to Europe is expensive, so most likely whatever you do will be most affected by your budget. Keep in mind that other than travelling, there is the cost of admission to activities/places, food and drinks, local travel, accommodation, etc. The cost of moving from city to city is just one factor. (Someone mentioned paid tours and that can be a really good way to see lots of things with little stress…)
Mostly, don't stress too much. Either way it is very likely that you'll have the best time. Forget FOMO - you can't see and do everything, so just work out what sounds like an awesome time and do that and don't worry about everything else.
There is no need to spend 3-4 days in each city of you don't want to. Visit as many places as you can and see as many sights as you want to see in the time that you have. You never know if you'll have a chance to go back and see what you have missed.
Other than short one week business trips, we did two long family trips in Europe. Both times we flew in/out from different cities and rented a car to travel between those.
The first time (2015) it was fly in to Paris, rent a car, travel by car in Netherlands/Belgium. Then Paris on foot (after dropping the car off, parking in Paris is nuts), then train to London and fly out from London. Flew Korean Air which provides accommodation and meals if the layover in Seoul is over (I think) 12hrs. You could easily visit Seoul city during that time if you wish.
The next one (last October) was fly into Frankfurt, rent a car, travel between Germany, Poland, Czech, Switzerland and Italy, fly out from Rome. We flew China Eastern with a long (10hrs) layover in Shanghai, so managed to catch a train to city and walk around, eat, do some shopping.
During our last trip we very quickly found out that it's really easy to get a last minute accommodation with sites like booking.com or trip.com. So we created a rough list of cities we would want to visit, booked the accommodation for the next city the day before and if we liked the place and wanted to stay longer we either negotiated directly with the owner for an extra day or two or would just book another accommodation on booking/trip. And if you have a car, you are not limited to city only, so even more options. But driving long distances is tiring, so not for everybody. If traveling light - trains and flights might be better.
China Eastern has 1050~ return to Milan or 1150~ Copenhagen/Sweden to enter the EUR.
Would love to have you problem right now 😩
Some tips:
Flights to Greece (Mykonos/santorini) are so cheap from the majors like London and Paris. You can even catch the ferry between these islands (takes an hour or so, can’t remember) and see both easily
These very touristic but so what? They are beautiful !
A eurail pass gives you some flexibility to jump on and off trains and make up the journey as you go.
But if you have time and want to lock all destinations and dates in place, booking separate tickets EARLY is probably cheaper
The train is definitely much more convenient and comfortable than budget flights
Find a train map of all of Europe. The best one for me is the eurail pass map which tells you what train runs between each destination, schedule and how long it takes. This will give you a clear idea of whether it’s worth it to go between certain destinations given your limited available time.
Flights from Australia to certain cities like Barcelona, Rome and Frankfurt are cheaper than to London and Paris
Just got back from Europe after spending 6 weeks.
Route was Netherlands, Germany, Czech, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland then Fly back Netherlands to return home.
Travelled through Eurail. Caught early morning trains, drop luggage at hotel new city & so dont miss out on travel day.
Most cities I have spent 3 to 5 days.
Lot of the touristy places requires advanced booking. see if your wish list requires advance booking or not. ie. parliament house in budapest got booked 3-4 weeks in advanced, musical shows/opera/ play gets booked in few in advanced etc.
My 2c - depending on arrival/departure port - try to visit countries next to each other to avoid long train journeys, I would say give at least 5-6 days in each country, split in to different cities if you want.
Hope this helps.
Hey thanks for this, I booked my flights. Arriving in London and departing from Rome with 30 days. Just wondering if you enjoyed Germany/Switzerland and what you did there? I'll be doing the western flank of Europe and potentially Greece was figuring if either Germany or Switzerland were worth adding on.
Thanks
depends on how many days you got spare.
I was in Berlin for 4 days. All those historical museums etc. One time do able if history is your thing. I heard good things about Munich but I did not go.
Spent 10 days in Switzerland wish I had 5-6 days more. Zurich & Geneva - just ok spent just half a day each. Rest I was in Lausanne, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Zermatt - very good. was little crowded at times but scenery makes up for it.
If you are getting Eurail pass then - Bernina Express runs from Switzerland to Italy - could be worth it.
ps. Switzerland is very expensive so keep some extra $$ on side for it.
Hey I'm doing Interlaken for 4 days do you have any recommendations of what to do/eat there? Going to Grindelwald and was going to book a Jungfraujoch ticket from klook. Also doing Munich and Salzburg which are close by.
To do - Lauterbrunnen, staubbachfall, Harder Kulm (opens till 9 pm - good place to see sunset close to main station), Jungraujoch, Grindelwald, Murren, Schilthorn, did some small walking trips to nearby villages. almost all of the gondola finishes between 4 and 5.
I could not do Oeschinen Lake, Grinderlwald first
I dont have much food recommendation, i did try cheese fondue in a decent restaurant.
Consider Hallstat for a day trip from salzburg.
Thanks for the recommendations. Jungraujoch did you do a whole guided tour or just buy your own ticket to go up there?
went own my own. try to go up as soon as gondola starts, it does get busy by late morning/lunch time.
To the folks who have been, any advice on getting cheaper accommodation?
Is there a EuropeBargain ?
What have you found so far from your own research?