For all you veteran European travelers... I need some serious advice. Never been outside of North America, and have never been "backpacking" before. I want you're opinion on where I should go! We're travelling April-June (90 days ish)
I'm a female travelling with my friend. We are not interested in nightlife or festivals, like architecture, nature, food (haha), and culture in general. We want a good mix between city and "off the beaten trail", however it is important for tourist amenities to be available (hostel, food, etc). Our budget is maximum $100 per day, each. That includes food, shelter, and sightseeing. And obviously any travel costs outside of a train pass.
We are thinking about spending a month in France and 2 months in the rest of Western Europe (Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Netherlands & Belgium)

What are your favorite ***small towns and cities*** of Europe? (I already have a pretty good idea from other forums which major cities to go to)

Thank you!!!

Most of Fodor's trip reports and message board responses are not about backpacking, staying in hostels or traveling on a budget as low yours, and probably the majority of travelers rent a car when they go touring outside the major cities. Few people travel for as long as three month -- so brace yourself for lots of lectures about the Schengen rules.

Without revealing here which major cities you are visiting, it is really next to impossible to offer advice about where else you might reasonably go. It's possible that your post will mainly elicit a scolding about reading more guidebooks.

I think you need to track down where you can find hostels outside of the major cities. They are seldom in small towns off the beaten track, so availability of affordable accommodation plus being reachable by train may end up choosing your destinations for you. (Don't worry -- Europe is filled with wonderful, not-touristy places reachable by public transportation).

I'll also suggest that you think about starting in Italy in April and heading north. If visiting Austria and Switzerland is mainly about scenery, you might consider eliminating them, not because they aren't beautiful, but because it might be more thrilling to go to Spain in spring.

Have a great trip!

Have a look at the Hostels International site for places to stay. You may well be better off choosing a hostel a train ride away from the city you wish to visit rather than one in the city - and it pays to book them in advance too - the closer to you arriving the more expensive and the more chance they are full.

Consider renting a gite in France or an apartment if you are staying for a week or so in one area - it may well be cheaper.

Make sure you are under the 90 days in Schengen too - no 90ish days

Have fun - it sounds like a great trip.

Dear Karli,
As Zeppole predicted, guidebook recommendations will be coming your way, and I'm going to start!

Such a response does make sense, because while you may think you have the framework of sorts for your trip (timing and budget), there's almost no way for anyone to help you out without your finetuning your specifics first. Quite frankly, you could search "favorite small towns and cities" on this forum and Google and end up with enough material to keep you busy for a year, much of which would be useless.

So please do some more reading first, and I think you will end up with a treasure trove of really useful information.

Here are two websites and books that probably would be the most help for your type of budget travel:

Let's Go website and guidebooks
--http://www.letsgo.com/
--"Let's Go Europe 2011: The Student Travel Guide [Paperback]"
(and they have many more guides of this type)

Lonely Planet Website and Guidebooks
--http://www.lonelyplanet.com/us
--"Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring"
(and they have many more guides of this type)

Once you have made some of your still general but a tad more specific choices, then come back to this board and do separate postings, for example:

"We're going to spend 10 days in Switzerland. We will be coming from (city,country) by (train,airplane) and then we will head on to (city, country) at the end of that time period. Where would you suggest we spend our time?"

"We plan to be in Bern, Switzerland for just 24 hours. Could you name just five things or less that you feel we should NOT miss?"

"We plan to stay in Nice, France for three days. What two or three favorite cities do you recommend as daytrips from there?"

We certainly would be able to help you with those types of postings, and the information you'd get back would not be as much of a mishmash for your own use. Then you can keep adjusting your itinerary as you get more input.

I'm going to try to find two other websites, tools I have in mind, but these two website with their guidebooks will certainly start you off in the right direction.

I am excited for you for your trip!

Here's the planning tool website I was looking for--a poster named Jessiedeexx had used it to sketch out her itinerary to critique last April:

http://www.eurotrip.com/trip-planner
and since it takes a bit to load, you can see what it looks like on the home page of the website:
http://www.eurotrip.com/

There are other tools, but I thought this was rather nifty and was happy she shared it with us.

DH and I mostly traveled in Italy and loved visiting towns with universities. Venice, Pisa and Perugia come to mind as our favorites.

Looking for cities with hostels is good advice. With train travel so convenient, you can easily make one a base and do day trips.

Paris, Paris, Paris. Then take train to Montpellier (an excellent university city and super base) and then to Provence and then Nice. Train over to Italy. Work your way north to the lakes then into Switzerland? Rome, Rome, Rome.

Remember, you can fly into one country and out of another so you don't have to back-track. Other posters who say do some reading are correct.

Forgot to say London, London, London! Please promise to write a trip report.

karli - I backpacked around Europe solo for a few months back in 1994 and 1995 so I have some insight on what you are going through in terms of planning and preparation, and also how to enjoy yourself and get around once you are there. I just answered a question similar to yours on another forum posted by someone who wanted advice about backpacking around Europe for 3 months. Here's a link to that thread where you may find some helpful advice.

http://tinyurl.com/249voa3

In addition to hostels, look for convents. You don't have to be catholic, they are clean and simple and safe, as long as you are willing to meet their curfew -- usually midnight, I think. Do a search for rooms, convents, by city, or post a question here.

Which major cities have you already decided on?

I think it sounds like a great trip, and imo your budget is sufficient by backpacking/hostel standards, but your question is just so broad it's hard to answer helpfully.

Personally I loved Venice, enjoyed Paris, liked Amsterdam OK.

My favorite smaller towns are in Switzerland on Lac Leman outside Genev - Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux. I have a friend who lives there is why I happen to know them. But I'm sure there may be 1000's of other similarly great places.

Because of the time of year for the best weather you should start south and work your way north.

Hi K,

Also visit the Thorntree Forum at www.lonelyplanet.com

Thanks for all you're help guys! I know I seemed very vague about my question... sorry! What I was trying to get at was what are some of your favorite small towns of Europe? Since I am in the beginning stages of my plans, I am open to anything and everything.

-Spain, decided to skip, even though it would be really nice in the spring, Austria and Switzerland are higher on the "must see" list.
-Thanks for the guidebooks! I will probably have more specific questions once I kind of have an idea of what I need to know about specific places
-Using Eurotrip now! Here is a very over-loaded map of Europe with all the major cities, plus smaller towns I've found so far that I would like to visit. Please ignore the "how many days in each place).
http://www.eurotrip.com/trip/circle-western-europe
-Read that other thread, it answered some of my questions. Don't know how I missed it!

Great Karli! I'm out the door, but I'll take a look at your Eurotrip link tonight or tomorrow.

Now that I look into it, I might have to adjust some things. Apparently Switzerland is really foggy and yucky in April/early May with the Alps.

Karli, my daughter used www.hostelworld.com to find all her hostels and cheap hotels, she found it was very helpful as it gives reviews and also rates safety as one of their key points.

She backpacked around Europe for 6 months and is now working in Canada,
I miss her but she is having a wonderful time as I am sure you will. Best wishes with your planning.

Ok, Karlie--I'm going to start with what I see is a pretty good logical adjustment given your trip dates etc and see if you are interested.

You have the opportunity to see Amsterdam and Keukenhof Gardens in pretty darn good tulip season if you flew into Amsterdam first the first week of April.

Ironically, Amsterdam/tulips is more seasonal dependent than "weather dependent". And even in freezing cold, Amsterdam is a unique European city with easy access to fascinating outlying areas. In addition, many airlines and train systems use this city as a crossroads, so you should be able to come up with a good airfare into here and then either fly out of here (a true circle),use this as part of an open-jaw flight trip, and/or start a rail pass from here.

Info on tulips: http://www.keukenhof.nl/

So that's a starter. If you think that sounds good (I'm sure other origin suggestions will be forthcoming from other posters and I claim no "supremacy" as to the value of my opinions), I will be happy to list some options for building the next few steps of your itinerary from there.

Good advice above from what I've seen so far.

I can only offer where I'd go and for how long if I had never been to Europe before and had 12 weeks to spend. But what you choose will depend on your interests and may vary from mine. Cities I'm listing include side trips, and the order you visit these is another puzzle to figure out:

-London: 1 week
-Paris: 1 week
-Amsterdam: 1 week
-Berlin: 5 days
-Munich: 1 week
-Salzburg: 2 days
-Prague: 4 days
-Vienna: 1 week
-Venice: 3 days
-Florence: 1 week
-Rome: 1 week
-Nice and the French/Italian Riviera: 1 week
-Barcelona: 1 week
-Madrid: 1 week

Of these have not been to Berlin, Munich, Nice, or Barcelona. It would also be tough to leave out other possibilities, such as Athens, Naples/Pompeii/Amalfi Coast, Lisbon, Budapest, Krakow, Brussels, various places in Switzerland, Scandinavian cities (especially Copenhagen), Dublin, Edinburgh, and Seville/Granada/Cordoba. Of these, have only been to Dublin.

Definitely check into staying at hostels and doing couch surfing. Fodor's Forums are good, but such types of traveling is less of a specialty here.

Maudie: Yes, I have heard of that site. Looks like a good resource! Good to know more than one person has found it useful. Canada? That's where I am! Alberta specifically.
AlessandraZoe: Sweet! I wasn't sure when tulip season in the Netherlands was... but now I am definitely considering flying to Amsterdam. I actually have a friend who works at the Amsterdam airport... so maybe I could get a good deal? Must talk to him about that!
bachslunch: Most of your wishlist is like mine! I will need forever in Europe and Bill Gate's fortune to see it all though. Planning on making eastern Europe another trip, as well as the British Isles and Scandinavia. Hopefully multiple trips back to wester Europe as well! I am planning on staying at hostels, and have just been acquainted with this new couch surfing idea. I've heard a lot of good things about it, but am still wary....

Remember you can stay only stays 90 days and not three months if a couple of those months have 31 days. It can be very expensive if you overstay even one day.

I looked at your eurotrip map, and you may want to consider dropping a number of the destinations. "2 days" in a place actually means 1 full day, or a little more, due to travel time. Especially if you'll be taking trains or other public transportation, that's a lot of time not only actually travelling, but getting to and from your lodging the train or bus station.

You're right about the weather in the Alps.

Look into taking the cheap European airlines, such as Ryanair, to get between some of your destinations.

Some of my favorite smaller cities in Europe, which may add to your list, rather than detract:
- Bologna. Untouristy, great food and people-watching, and interesting art and churches.
- Arles. Great Roman ruins in the town and near it. I don't like Avignon as much.
- Amboise. Cute little town, several interesting sights in town (and look for the houses built into the volcanic rock cliffs), and many chateaux nearby. Tours is a bigger city, less interesting. Either way, if you're planning to use the city as a base for visiting chateaux without a car, you'll need to check carefully on how to get around. Group tours are probably too expensive for your budget; as we'll always rented a car, I don't know what public transport is like between the chateaux.
- San Gimignano and/or Siena, Italy.
- Salzburg, Austria. Really try to go to a music performance here
- Hallstat, Austria. Just the cutest place.

Toulouse I've never been to, but would probably drop it from the itinerary. Carcassonne I have been to. It's pretty, but quite touristy and out of the way of some of your other destinations. If you're interested in architecture or castles of the time period, there are more authentic structures and towns to visit.

We love art and history and museums, so most of our trips in the last 15 years have been heavy on that, and light on the mountain beauties of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. So my list of preferences is skewed toward places that have art and history (and good food).

Rick Steves recommends (or used to) that when taking a longer trip in Europe, to take "a vacation from your vacation," and schedule a longer period in the middle where you spending more time relaxing, rather than seeing the sights. Not a bad idea. I once, long ago, after finishing grad school, spent a month in Europe. It was wonderful, and I would have been happy to stay longer, but at the end of the time, I was ready to slow down and not eat in restaurants so much! Anyway, consider parking yourselves somewhere for a longer period of time. If you stay in a smaller city, it will be cheaper. Especially if you do that, you might want to look into renting an apartment. I never done that, but plenty of Fodorites have, and recommend it highly.

Generally speaking, due to spring weather, could you start in the south and work your way north, following the weather as it gets warmer?

Enjoy your planning; you'll have a wonderful trip wherever you go!

Also check out www.eurocheapo.com for budget hotel ideas