Europe and UK first trip
 

My grown daughter and I are planning a month long trip to UK and Europe next year. I've never been outside of USA except a trip to Canada. So I'm totally ignorant about traveling abroad. I'm not rich so I need to manage expenses. I wanted to see London, Scotland, France, Italy and Spain. Is this possible in a month? Should I trim down expectations? How do you begin planning? Should I go to a travel agent or can I do it myself? Thanks in advance, we are very excited and also a little apprehensive.

1) do it yourself
2) tell us how much money you want to spend, as "not wealthy" for example could mean anything
3) stuff varies in price by country so the cheapest/nice London accommodation solution is either premierinn.com or a double at yha.org.uk other countries it will be other things
4) whatever you will have to cut stuff, so get a good rough guide to Europe and start deselecting things. You have four countries and Europe's largest city selected for only one month. I might cull at least two to start with
5) open-jaw flights are the way to solve the Atlantic crossing and save on back tracking, so into London and out of say Rome.

Just to give you an idea of bare minimum times in places
London needs 4 nights
Paris 3 nights
Rome 3 nights
Florence 3 nights

6) use rome2rio.com to get an idea of how to get about but click through to ensure the data is clean. Trains use bahn.de for the timetables at a detail level and seat61.com to understand how to use them well

Now go get a book. Welcome to Fodors.

OK -- what is possible / practical depends on what you mean by >>see London, Scotland, France, Italy and Spain<<

If yu mean something ike London, Edinburgh, Paris, Rome or Venice, and Barcelona or Madrid . . . Sure you could do that in a month. Five destinations would be a bit rushed but totally doable.

BUT -- if you mean Edinburgh and Stirling and the Highlands Skye and London -- that is a month right there. Or London and Rome and Florence and Venice and the Italian Lakes -- that would be a month easy. Or London and Paris and Normandy and the Loire or some other part of France -- a month.

So throwing out whole countries and asking -- way WAY too broad.

Easy to plan on your own and a TA really isn't all that useful. But very first thing --- you need to narrow down to what you want to see and do in those vearious countries. Any ONE of them could fill a month if you want to see several regions.

Guide books are your friend.

didn't see bilboburgler's post -- same gist . . .

1mo is 1 week each in the UK (assuming Scotland is part of the UK next year), Italy, France, and Spain. Subtract a day for travel between each country and you're down to 6 days, max. Even less when you add intra-country travel. That does not sound to me like a good 1st trip to Europe.

So my answer is same gist as bb and janis -

1. Cut out at least one of those before you do any more planning, then go from there.
2. Decide what are your most important things to do - whatever it is - museums, churches, castles, nature, beach, countryside, food, rest, etc.
3. Decide what are the most important places for you to visit.
4 with the paramaters 2 & 3, lay out what you think is a day to day plan, including travel, lodging location (town, not actual hotel), and main sightseeing.
5. Come back to here and post your proposed rough 1mo itinerary and we can better help you out.

I would also add that if possible try to book your flights into one place and out another. You don't say what airport you will be departing from in the US but from many cities it is pretty easy to arrive in London for instance and depart from Barcelona or Rome for instance. And these days as opposed to traveling in Europe 20 years ago, there are many low cost airlines that can make the travel between cities faster-although you still have to count significant time for transport to airports, etc.

A couple of tips to help with the apprehension of planning on your own:

We find it easier to set up our trip planning by counting where we will spend the night versus counting the days. We set up a table on something like excel and enter our dates and then put where we will be spending the night. So for instance if you are taking a red eye from NYC you would just enter flying for that night, etc. By counting nights it will also help you when you realize for instance that you may be arriving somewhere at 7PM and that that day is kind of a "lost day" in terms of visiting sights.

Think about how you want to travel between cities and countries-train, rent a car, fly? Even though I doubt you are thinking of renting a car, be aware if you do that there can be significant costs for picking up a car in one country and dropping it in another.

You don't say what time of year you will be traveling, but if it is the summer I would strongly recommend that you choose someplace to stay that has A/C, as much for the noise in the cities as for the cool. Europe can be really hot and humid in the summer and the heat can really be miserable in some places with no A/C. And there are plenty of budget friendly hotels that have A/C. The UK in general might be the only place where you might not need it but even that isn't guaranteed in a summer like the one they are having this year for instance.

As you start to think about some of the "must visit" places within countries and put together a plan,as others have mentioned, post it here for feedback-there are lots of folks who are really seasoned travelers in all the countries you want to visit and they can help you a lot both on the big picture of how many nights to stay where but also as get into the more granular planning such as what neighborhoods to stay in etc.

Great ideas
 

I wanted to see London, Scotland, France, Italy and Spain. Is this possible in a month? Should I trim down expectations? How do you begin planning? Should I go to a travel agent or can I do it myself?

You need to narrow things down more specifically. You mention entire countries, and I would try to narrow it down to the specific cities that interest you. And since you've never done this before I think it would be a lot easier if you eliminated at least a couple of those countries, for ease of planning and a better paced trip.

For example a fun and easy itinerary to plan imo would be:

Fly into London and spend 1 week (with one day trip outside the city)
Take the train to Paris and spend 1 week (with one day trip outside the city)
Fly or take the train to Venice 3 days
Train to Milan - 3 days
Train to Florence - 3 days
Train to Rome for 1 week (with one day trip outside the city)
Fly home from Rome
... that's a 30 day itinerary :-) you can do it yourself. You need a plane ticket in to London and out of Rome. And book a centrally located hotel in each of 6 cities. Make sure your passport is current.

That budget is $333usd per day for two people if you stay away one month. That is not extravagant but I believe doable. If you want to stay a few more weeks, I think you would need to adjust that figure accordingly.

Do not buy a one-month "rail pass" until you know where you are going, how long you are staying, how many legs you will need on a train and in which country. They are not always the best value what you might pick at a first glance. Sometimes simple point-to-point 2nd class tickets bought at the train station work just as well.

Why not go to the library and check out a few guidebooks that are overview for Europe or for the particular countries you've listed. I think a trip comes out better if you figure out why you are going where you are going, what it is you want to do in each place. I love looking at photos as well. Some places will just "speak to you" more than others.

>> I had thought maybe rail passes for the month.<<

A rail passes are almost definitely an unnecessary expense. Pleas avoid the Rail Europe / EuRail pass/website. Once you have worked out a semi framework of an itinerary we can help you decide if any passes make sense (probably not but there are exceptions)

We have to save up $ to take a big trip so we look wherever we can to find savings.

• For us staying in an apartment with a kitchen (AirBnB, HomeAway, VRBO) is cheaper and more convenient than staying in a hotel. We don't need room service, maid service, concierge, buffet or ala carte breakfast, and we like having snacks at the ready whenever we want. We look for an apartment that has a washing machine to cut down on the clothes we need to carry. Since most places we've rented don't have a dryer we're fine with using a drying line or rack.
• With an apartment we eat in a lot. All breakfasts (perhaps run out to the bakery for a fresh bread or pastry) to-go. Lunch fixings to carry a picnic lunch/snacks with us (never a sit-down/restaurant lunch), and some dinners. Picking up fresh foods to prepare for dinner brings us pleasure. Saving $ on meals lets enjoy the occasional dinner out at a nicer restaurant without guilt.
• Travel. If we do rent a car, we shop around for the best deals. Consistently that's via Autoeurope.com.
• Tours. We will pay for a tour somewhere where it's really helpful, but generally we self-tour and let our senses be our guide.
• Entry fees. We've already met our lifetime quota of art museum so those are easy to avoid.
• Entertainment. We're not big show or theater goers - so easy to avoid that cost. We'd rather go for an evening stroll, or sit along a wall or bench in a public square with a bottle of wine and 2 plastic cups and people watch (or sunset watch, or nature watch...). Most places we've traveled have a different street vibe in the evening, especially after the hordes of day tourists are back on their cruise ship or bus or whatever.
• Transportation. We love to walk. 10,000 steps a day is a good starter, 20,000 means we had a lot of fun. 30,000 and perhaps we pushed it a bit and should have taken that taxi home (been there,...). So for us, walking, for example from one end of Rome (Vatican) to the other (Colosseum) and back is enjoyable. While not big $ for any single trip, taking taxis frequently can add up. Figuring out local public transportation and getting a 1 day or multi day pass can also be a good idea both to save $ and to get around with ease.

The budget you propose is absolutely reasonable if you don't splurge on anything (and it might be hard to resist splurging a few times on a first-time trip).

You need to do some serious homework on how to take trains around Europe, but it will pay off. It's almost certain that a rail pass will not be worth it, but your homework will make that clear. Check out the costs of every single ride you'll take. Yes, it takes time, but it saves loads of money.

You seem to be thinking in terms of an enormous continental trip. Do some more reading and reflecting and realize that one doesn't attack Europe from a continental perspective (that would be impossible), but from a country perspective. Pick out a handful that appeal to you, figure out how to travel among them, then narrow it down to specific places within those countries. Thinking about this trip as "going to Europe" will only confuse and hamper you. I'd start by knocking off one or two countries on your list.

London, Scotland, France, Italy and Spain wouldn't be "do-able" (whatever that means) in my lifetime, never mind in 30 days. I'm still working on "doing" France after 45+ years. You really need to keep reading and absorbing information and figuring out what is possible within certain timeframes.

suze has given you a good sample of what can be done. There are dozens and dozens of variations on such a plan.

Sure mine was only an example & off the top of my head at that - there are endless variations for itineraries that would fit seeing London and parts of up to 4 more countries in 4-6 weeks.

I was attempting to answer the question: How do you begin planning? by giving that example.

Whatever the final destinations you end up choosing, at the beginning you start by figuring out where you want to go and how long you want to stay there.

Once that's nailed down (or at least vaguely outlined) then you can move on to plane, hotel, train, etc.

Personally I don't plan day-to-day in advance. For that I wait until I'm there and see what I feel like doing. Other people prefer to have things more pinned down for each day's schedule.

If you haven't already been to Rick Steve's website, I'd go to the "Explore Europe" and "Listen" tabs. It's tailored to first-time Americans.

Also, I recommend the Audio Europe Travel Ap for downloadable walking tours with PDF maps. I used the Lisbon one and it was excellent.

If you come to Fodor's forums you'll get the usual "you can't do that" reply to general inquiries.

I would search for some trip reports instead for the cities that interest you.

Sometimes the Fodor's Guides are good for recommendations on lodgings, but I tend to use Google Maps and Tripadvisor/booking.com just like I do in the rest of the world.

>>If you come to Fodor's forums you'll get the usual "you can't do that" reply to general inquiries.<<

You must be reading a different thread. I don't see anyone who posted anything like that . . .

but mlgb is always the negative voice...if there isn't a negative tone to a thread, she'll manufacture one.

The OP needs to tackle what seems to be a huge obstacle by cutting it down into bite-sized pieces. One day, one train ride, one hotel, one city at a time.

I think you are getting lots of good advice so far. bilbo's first advice is exactly right when he said "use rome2rio.com to get an idea of how to get about but click through to ensure the data is clean. Trains use bahn.de for the timetables at a detail level and seat61.com to understand how to use them well" For sure use seat61.com to do your research before you decide whether a 1 month eurail pass is the best option for you.

Like some others have mentioned, we also like to stay in apartments-usually booked through booking.com with an ability to have free cancellation. In general, although we may not eat in as much as others, it is so much nicer to have a least a couch to sit on with 2 people-so much nicer than a plain hotel room with just a bed and desk. And we do prefer to make coffee ourselves and enjoy breakfast in the room-not having to get dressed too early to go scrounging for food. But honestly, only you know what you and your daughter would prefer.

I do think the budget is do-able although a lot of the budget can be eaten up by museums and tours. Luckily those costs are easy to figure out. In general, I would say to think of your trip planning as kind of a big funnel-first narrow down the countries/cities or regions that you feel are a must for you, then go look at flights to see if you can find a great open jaw city combination that will work for you and is budget and time friendly. Generally for flights coming and going to the US, your best bets are going to of course be the larger city or capitals like Paris London Rome Barcelona etc. Once you feel like you know where you want to go in and out of for your transatlantic flights, then you can start to look at the transports between those 2 places and decide how many nights you want to spend in each place, and then finally you can start to put "dollar cost" to those places for transportation, lodging, food and entertainment. Like suze, I don't necessarily plan out all my activities for each day, but as a first time visitor I do think you will find it helpful to at least have a wish list of the things that for you feel important to see.

For the planning though-I think it is key to make it fun for you and your daughter and just break it down step by step and read and ask more questions as you do your research. Even though I have traveled a lot to Europe and even lived in Europe many years I always have new questions that come up when I am planning my trips!