chenujay

Tentative Itinerary: http://imgur.com/fbmSrmI

I'm 25, heading to graduate school in the fall so I'm taking a few weeks off to visit Europe. Goal on this trip is to see a lot of places, and I will explore the ones I like more on subsequent and shorter trips while I'm in school.

I have visited Britain before, hence the short time there. Ignore the train/flight stuff, as I am still researching. However, any tips as to the best ways to get from city to city is appreciated. I'm having a hard time understanding how to use bahn.com

Thanks!

PalenQ

However, any tips as to the best ways to get from city to city is appreciated>

Not sure what you meant ignore the train stuff and then this Q - well trains are the best way in Europe if going to the large tourist meccas most folks have been dreaming about going to their whole lives. And you say you want to cover a lot of ground.

Strongly investigate Eurail Youthpasses - for those under 26 only and you can in most countries still just hop on any train anytime - compare that to full fare tickets and you'll see what a bargain it can be. (For example a 3 hour train ride Frankfurt to Munich costs sbout $140 full fare!)

check these great sites for info on European trains and passes - www.budgeteuropetravel.com (click on their hompe page to www.bahn.de/en as they give several tips on using the sight as you say you find it hard to figure out); www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com.

YOu can take overnight trains to quickly relocate and save daytime travel time and also save on the cost of a hotel or hostel.

Let's Go Europe is to me and other the Bible for travelers your age - amazon.com - written for younger travelers by Harvard students - superb coverage of low-cost places to stay.

I'd suggest staying in youth hostels if a single traveler as you will meet folks your age from all over the world - on trains too!

In fall I'd start in northern Europe and work my way south to insure the best weather the whole time.

Fly open jaw - into say Amsterdam (young folks mecca) and flying back from sunny Greece. A railpass gives you free passage from several Italian ports to Greece.

ekc

It would be best if you could post your itinerary here.

Too much moving around for my taste. Remember, each time you change cities you lose ~1/2 day: pack, check out, get to train station, find train, train ride, get from train station to hotel, check in, drop bags and freshen up, now it's time for lunch. So the 2 days you have listed for Venice is really 1.5 days.

Sassafrass

France, Germany, Greece, Italy. Then in your itinerary, you have added England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. Wow! Realize you want only a taste of places, but you may not even get that in some places. Also, you have only major cities and that may not tell you much about the culture overall.

You have not accounted for travel time in between. At some points you will be spending as much time traveling as you will sight seeing. That is costly, plus you won't get enough time to even know if you would like to return or not.

chenujay

Thank you for the replies everyone.

Your advice on trains is appreciated, I will definitely do my research on trains and the passes. Flights have been consistently cheaper than trains on bahn.de, but I guess I'm not considering the pass and the travel time required.

What cities should I subtract from the posted itinerary? Maybe Brussels and Athens?

Thanks for the suggestion of guidebooks, I've been reading through Europe on a Shoestring and Rick Steve's Ultimate Europe but I will check your recommendation as well.

annhig

if you are travelling on a railpass, then so long as you end up where you are flying home from, it really doesn't matter where you decide to go in between.

That said, Athens and Spain are the outliers here [and I would drop Brussels anyway].

Flying into Amsterdam and out of ??? [Rome for example] will give you plenty of flexibility in between.

you don't have to stick to the well-known places - you are going to Berlin but ignoring eastern Europe, which will be very easy to get to from there. A large loop through Prague round to Venice and thence to Rome would give you a very varied experience with relatively short distances to travel, which will mean that you spend less time travelling than if you are dotting around all over Europe.

adrienne

<< Goal on this trip is to see a lot of places, and I will explore the ones I like more on subsequent and shorter trips while I'm in school. >>

You'll be in each location such a short time how are you going to know if you like it or not? You'll just be starting to figure things out and have to leave again for the next place.

I'm not trying to be mean to you but if you can't figure out the German train schedule then I have serious concerns about you traveling to unknown places. Here are the directions:

1. Choose your country (this gives you the language)
2. Where it says "from station" you put in your origin location (i.e. Rome)
3. Where it says "to station" you put in your destination
4. Click on the calendar to change the date
5. Click on the search box
6. The next screen gives you the train time options. You can click on "earlier" and "later" to view more of the schedule.
7. Click on the red box with the white greater than sign to view the map, intermediate stops, connections, and any other information about the trains.

You definitely must get some Let's Go guides and really read them, including the introductory information.

chenujay

Fair criticism all around, I purchased the Let's Go book and will read it this weekend.

Thanks everyone for the comments, I will probably end up dropping Athens and Brussels which will allow for more time in other cities throughout the trip. My difficulty is using Bahn is because I wanted to figure out the ticket price, but that information isn't available until 90 days prior.

I redid the itinerary, and would appreciate any advice: http://imgur.com/g7KDO2W

adrienne

It's a bit better. To help yourself you should add travel time in your itinerary. As an example, Thursday morning would be travel to Amsterdam rather than Amsterdam. That will show you that you have 2.5 days in Amsterdam, not 3 days.

For German train tickets, look at pricing 90 days from today to get an estimate of the price. Same with tickets in Italy, Spain, France.

thursdaysd

Forget Athens. You are missing the best parts of Greece, and it's not worth the travel cost and time.

For all you need to know about train travel in Europe, including buying cheap advance tickets, go here: seat61.com

chenujay

Thanks again for the comments. Itinerary for reference: http://imgur.com/g7KDO2W

I'm doing some flight comparison for the trip there and noticed that flights between some of these countries is quite cheap. So, what are everyone's thoughts on flying vs trains and the journeys I have to make? I realize that going to the airport, security, etc take time but I'm wondering how efficient these functions are in Europe?

Eurail looks like a good deal, but I noticed that it doesn't include many of the highspeed/overnight lines and may require an additional reservation fee in order to ride. Which hampers some of its use.

bvlenci

In most countries, there are excellent discounts for trains if you purchase the tickets well in advance. These tickets are not refundable, so would not be able to change your itinerary once you've bought the tickets. However, this is also true of flights. The discounted tickets may be the least expensive way to travel, even cheaper than the Youth Pass. Many long-distance trains require reservations, and the cost of the reservation is an added expense above the cost of the pass.

nytraveler

Discounted trains and flights both have to be bought far in advance and can;t be changed.

IMHO any train trip of less than 5 hours is going to be much more convenient and comfortable than flying - once you consider trekking to far distant airports, checking luggage, getting through security, waiting for delays, landing and then trekking from another far distant airport into town. (Yes a flight is probably better than an 8 or 9 hour train trip - but I would probably still do the latter just in terms of comfort unless the cost was MUCH higher.)

annhig

chenujay - when comparing the merits of train v flying, it's horses for courses really, as nyt says. if you are going on a relatively short journey, say Amsterdam to Paris, where there are few changes of train, then the train is the best way to travel. OTOH, if you are going from, say, Barcelona to Rome, then flying makes sense.

another advantage of train travel is that you get to see the countryside through which you are travelling, and sometimes to interact with your fellow travellers, in a way that IME is rare in air travel, where people seem to travel as if they were in a bubble.

annhig

just looked at your new itinerary - why Zurich?

IMO you are selling Prague in particular short - 1 1/2 days really isn't enough time there. i think I would drop Zurich and add the time to Prague and/or Barcelona, which are both places where you will find plenty to interest you, I think.

StCirq

Zürich - blech! Skip it.

chenujay

Thanks for the tips about Trains, I will do my research about trains vs flights and distance vs comfort. Will definitely check in with you fine folks before booking everything.

Attempt #3 with the itinerary: http://imgur.com/uQkMr6D

Lengthened the Prague stay, got rid of Zurich and added a short stop in Florence which is on the way. Thanks again!

chenujay

Thoughts on this most recent itinerary attempt: http://imgur.com/uQkMr6D

Happy Friday folks!

chenujay

http://imgur.com/nMd9vpI

Updated once more, and booked my ticket there and back. Got a pretty good deal I think.

annhig

great, chenujay, looks like a terrific trip.

just two points [which is in fact the same point about 2 places] - The Vatican city is right in the centre of Rome - you don't need to make a special trip, though it may be worthwhile booking your tickets in advance, especially if you want to tour the excavations under St. Peter's [the Scavi tour].

Ditto Versailles, though of course it is about 30 mins on the RER C out of Paris. for both of them, you can just decide to go rather than making plans to go on a particular day.