6-week Solo trip to Europe
 

Dear forumers,

I'm embarking a 6-week solo tour around Europe in May-June 2015 with 8 days in Turkey. Would appreciate it very much if you guys have any suggestions or advices on my itinerary since it's my first time stepping foot on this continent!

2-9/5 Turkey
Day 1: Arrival at Ataturk airport- flight to Kayseri
Day 2-3: Explore Cappadocia/Goreme (hot air balloon tour! Can't wait!)
Day 4-7: Explore Istanbul new and old town (any suggestion on off-the-beaten-path places in Istanbul?)

9-14/5 Greece
Day 1 Explore Athens (or maybe Sounion)
Day 2-3Taking a tour to Delphi and Meteora
Day 4 Continue to explore Athens
Day 5-6 Explore Santorini

14-22/5 Italy
Day 1-3 Explore Rome and Vatican
Day 4-5 Explore Florence
Day 6 Taking a day tour to Pisa and Cinque Terre
Day 7-8 Explore Venice

22-24/5 Switzerland
Day 1-3 Explore Lucerne and taking the Golden round trip tour

24-29/5 Austria
Day 1-2 Explore Salzburg
Day 3 Day trip to Hallstatt
Day 4-6 Explore Vienna

30/5-1/6 Hungary
Day 1-3 Explore Budapest

1-4/6 Czech Republic
Day 1-3 Explore Prague

4-9/6 UK
Day 1-5 London (+ Oxford)

9-15/6 France
Day 1-6 France (+ Versailles and Loire Valley)

Any comments are most welcomed and thank you all in advanced for reading this post! :)

I can't see any provision built in for the travelling time between locations. For instance, I don't think that you can fly Santorini to Rome direct, and you may have to go via Athens. That trip including getting to and from airports will probably take the best part of 10/12 hours.

You need to build in transfer times and see where you will lose time throughout the holiday. It may mean that you need to cut out one of the destinations to compensate.

It does look like you are underestimating the amount of time it takes to travel between places. Have you done the logistical planning part yet? Have you researched train/flight options and know not only how long the journeys are but the schedules? And figure on time to check out of hotels, get to the train station or airport, etc as well as the actual journey time. If you have done that part and you are lucky and everything works just right you could manage this trip in your time frame but it does looks pretty rushed, with only bare minimum amounts of time for each place and the ratio of travel time to time at destination is a lot more than most people want.

There are a lot of people who really love 'slow travel' but it is OK if you aren't one of them and would rather get a taste of a lot of places on this trip rather than explore any of them in any type of depth. But you do need to realize how long it takes to move from point A to point B. On this itinerary you will be spending a LOT of time on trains/planes/ and getting to/from compared to the amount of time you will spend sightseeing.

During the summer there are often flights from Greek islands to the mainland of Italy that don't require going through Athens. Check to see if any are available from Santorini to Italy that work for you even if it means starting your Italian Journey in a different city from Rome. For instance, you might be able to find a flight to Pisa or near it, or a flight to Verona (which is only 1 hour from Venice by train).

I'm guessing your last days are being spent in Paris, yes?

You have done some good planning, but — as others have mentioned — it may seem like you have more time in places than you actually do. Your itinerary as written counts the same day twice, without accounting for travel time, so it may seem as if you have time to explore when you may have very little time to do so on a travel day. Here's another way to view your itinerary:


May 2: Arrival at Ataturk airport- flight to Kayseri
May 3: Cappadocia/Goreme
May 4: Cappadocia/Goreme
May 5: Istanbul
May 6: Istanbul
May 7: Istanbul
May 8: Istanbul

May 9: Travel to Greece; Explore Athens (or maybe Sounion)
May 10: tour to Delphi and Meteora
May 11: tour to Delphi and Meteora
May 12: Travel to Santorini
May 13: Santorini

May 14: travel to Rome
May 15: Rome and Vatican
May 16: Rome and Vatican
May 17: travel to Florence
May 18: Florence
May 20: day tour to Pisa and Cinque Terre
May 21: travel to Venice

May 22: Travel to Lucerne
May 23: Lucerne and Golden round trip tour
May 24: travel to Salzburg
May 25: Salzburg
May 26: Day trip to Hallstatt

May 27: travel to Vienna
May 28: Vienna
May 29: Vienna
May 30: travel to Budapest
May 31: Budapest

June 1: travel to Prague
June 2: Prague
June 3: Prague

June 4: travel to London
June 5: London (+ Oxford)
June 6: London (+ Oxford)
June 7: London (+ Oxford)
June 8: London (+ Oxford)

June 9: travel to Paris
June 10: France (+ Versailles and Loire Valley)
June 11: France
June 12: France
June 13: France
June 14: France
June 15: France -- Travel home?

Agree that with the itinerary as listed you have very little time in most places since you have not allwed for transit times. Each time you change cities it will take you from 1/2 to a full day - depending on specifics - so many places where you have listed 2 days you actually have only 1.

Based on your list I would expect you to have to allow probably 13 days just for getting from one place to another.

You need to sit down with a detailed train schedule and figure out how long things will take. For Instance - from Budapest to Prague is either a train that takes about 8 hours (losing a full day of sightseeing) or a flight, which is not cheap.

Suggest you go to bahn.de which has train schedules for all of europe to get some info on this. (The times listed now may not be exactly those for next May but the elapsed time will be the same.)

>> . . . or a flight, which is not cheap.<< and also eats up most of a day when factoring in getting to/from the hotels/airports.

Just a LOT of travel to a LOT of places.

6 weeks seems like a long time - but is isn't when you are trying to squeeze in eight countries and multiple places in those countries.

Many issues -- but just one example: You have on May 21 travel to Venice and on May 22 travel to Lucerne . . . so you essentially will have a few hours in Venice.

That's the good and bad thing in Europe. There are so many places worth seeing that you don't really know where to start and where to stop.

Reconfigure so you can have at least one whole, uninterrupted day in Venice. Arriving one afternoon and departing the next day will not allow for a good experience in Venice.

You have a nice flow to your trip, but it will get tiresome part way through, so cutting at least one place will allow you to experience more in the others.

Also, most of your trip is cities. If you love cities and want the highlights of cities, that is fine. However, you will have more variety of cultural experiences if you include stays in some small towns or villages.

My rule of thumb is no stays of fewer then three nights, which is just two full days in a place. You have a number of places you aren't even staying for a day... that's a lot of travel time for no return. If a place isn't worth two full days, it's not worth including in your itinerary. That would clear out some time for places you are really interested in.

Are you taking trains most of the time as would seem - if so you are doing so much train travel that you are one of the few who no doubt will find a Global Eurailpass a no-brainer - being practically on the move everyday. Without making comments on that being too rushed as other have I will point you to some European rail site to get a fix on train travel - overnight trains can save time and money on a hotel -

anyway check out these IMO superb sites for European rail travel info: www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com.

and yes put a day for travel in between any cities more than a few hours away - relocating always takes a lot of time - packing up, unpacking, getting from hotel to train station and to new hotel, etc.

Hi to @Rubicund, @isabel, @sandralist, @ellenem, @nytraveler, @janisj, @richi04, @Sassafras's, @Kathie, @PalenQ !

Thank you all for your suggestions! I greatly appreciate them! And it really makes me sit down and think again about my travel plan.

I had re-modified my plan as below. Hopefully it sounds more feasible this time. Unfortunately I had to sacrificed Switzerland from my plan :(

Ps: (T) stands for transfer time between 2 destinations

(T) 2/5 KL-Istanbul-Kayseri
3-4/5 2D Cappdocia
(T) 5/5 Kayseri-Istanbul
5-7/5 2.5D Istanbul

(T) 8/5 Istanbul-Athens
9/5 1D Athens
10-11/5 2D Delphi Meteora
(T) 11/5 Athens-Santorini (night flight)
12/5 1D Santorini

(T) 13/5 Santorini-Rome
14-16/5 3D Rome n Vatican
17/5 1D Pompeii/Naples
18-19/5 2D Florence city
20/5 Tuscany
21/5 Pisa n Cinque Terre
22-23/6 2D Venice

(T) 24/5 Venice-Prague
25-27/5 3D Prague

(T) 28/5 Prague-Budapest
29-31/5 3D Budapest

(T) 1/6 Budapest-Vienna
2-3/6 2D Vienna
4/6 Hallstatt
5-6/6 2D Salzburg

(T) 7/6 Salzburg-London
8-11/6 4D London

(T) 12/6 London-Paris
12-16/6 5D Paris

17/6 Back to Malaysia

Thank you guys again for your kindness in replying me! :)

Doing better, but still some places where travel will require more time then is accounted for.

Have you checked on that night flight from Athens to Santorini? Is it actually available?

You have not allowed any travel time around Italy.

On the 17th, from Rome to Naples/Pompeii, where do you plan to spend the night? Naples? Back in Rome?

You have the 18th listed as Florence, but it will take ay least a half day of travel from Naples to get to Florence, checked in, etc. so you will have only 1 & 1/2 days in Florence.

On the 21st, are you staying in the Cinque Terre? You will have practically no time in the CT if you are also stopping in Pisa. Are you going for hiking? If so, you need more time. If you are not going for hiking, but only for coastal views, you will already be near the AC when you go to Pompeii. You could stay a couple of nights there and skip the CT. Remember, you will also already have some nice coastal views in Greece.

It is minimally 1/2 to 3/4 of a day from Cinque Terre to Venice, so if you are going on the 22nd, you would have only one evening and one day in Venice.

Half of one of your days in Paris will be used getting from London to Paris.

Now that you have cut things a bit, and I can see more clearly travel days between Venice, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, etc. Travel is eating up a lot of time. It becomes a convoluted trip, South to North East to South East to West, then North West and back South. Maybe someone else can offer a suggestion to make it workable.

Are there other areas or cities you had considered, but left off because of time? For example, perhaps you could substitute something logistically easier for Budapest.

Even if you must fly to Rome from Santorini, I suggest you go directly to Pompei by train once you land. Either stow your luggage at the entrance to Pompei and tour the sights the same day, and go to Rome to spend the night, or spend the night in Pompei and head to Rome when you are through seeing Pompei.

It might be better if you took a train from Rome right to Pisa or le Cinque Terre. If you take the train to Pisa, leave your luggage in Pisa and take a day trip to le Cinque Terre, and pick up your luggage back in Pisa on your way to Florence. Or you could spend the night in le Cinque Terre, and then, on your way to Florence. stop by Pisa (put your luggage in the train station while you go sightseeing).

Can you get a flight from Santorini to Naples? That would be easier than flying into Rome and save considerable time.

Pisa's centrl station luggage room should be open but don't count on it - not long ago I was there and it was 'momentarily closed' but no one showed up for te next half hour - taking a break perhaps but leave time to retrieve items as well with tran station personell who at times move like snails IME!