My boyfriend and I are planning to go on a 3-4 month trip through Europe beginning in March 2016. The idea so far is to start off in London (flying in from either Detroit or Chicago) then off to Paris. We've been looking into doing this portion of the trip through Contiki (or another tour agency or even on our own.) From Paris down to Italy than up to Germany and the Netherlands. Our one definite is going up to Sweden to see a friend we will be staying about 2-weeks with. We than want to go back to England or may go straight to Scotland and staying about a month in Ireland.
In the end just making our way back around. We have no problem staying in hostels/cheaper hotels. The reasoning for staying a month in Ireland is because it is literally the one place I have always wanted to go the plan is to rent an apt. or house sit for that month and then take day(s) trips around the country. We will have around $32,000 saved for this whole trip and have $700 in flight miles. Does anyone have any suggestions about places to stay, money saving tricks, plausibility etc? I have looked into prices and hostels etc. but am slightly overwhelmed...

Break it down - - using 4 months -- $32,000 plus '$700 in flight miles" (whatever that means) is not a huge amount of money.

I breaks down to about $130 per day per person to cover <i>everything</i> . . . Flights, intra-Europe transportation, local transport, food, drinks, accommodations, any sightseeing, etc. Your flights alone will probably be in the $2800-$3000 range.

So re-figuring w/o the flights you are down to approx. $120 pp per day.

Now the home stay in Sweden helps a lot because that is a very expensive country.

But you won't have any safety net to cover for missed flights or trains or problems that might arise.

I'd seriously consider doing 3 months to stretch your $$$ farther. That would give you about $160 per day pp.

>>the plan is to rent an apt. or house sit for that month and then take day(s) trips around the country. <<

Unfortunately there is no one base you can stay in Ireland that lets you explore a lot of the country. Few of the best/scenic bits are w/i day trip distance of a single central point. So you'd either need to rent maybe 3 or 4 different places for a week each or cut back on the parts of Ireland you want to visit.

Get a copy of the Let's Go Europe which will have a ton of overall good ideas on traveling on a budget as well as info on places and activities recommended by young people.

Suggest you do a lot of reading in guide books and tour books (but for photos and sights - NOT timing) and each make a list of your must see places (either cities or sights) and then try to string them together.

You may want to look at a train pass depending on how much moving from place to place you want to do.

Also consider the comparative costs of different countries: Sweden and UK are usually more expensive while Germany (especially smaller towns) is often less expensive.

You might want to break that down into sections. I will happily help with the month in Ireland but would need to know some idea of likes. dislikes and more importantly location if you are having a full month in one location which is guaranteed not to be central for more than a couple of places on your must see list.

Look into cheap flights between Stockholm and wherever.

March to June is great for better prices overall.

Hostels can be fun sometimes and cheap hotels are fine, but I would look into renting an apartment not just in Ireland but in some of these other countries instead. You'll have more privacy, more room and your own cooking facilities to help lower costs, and you won't have to put up with the inevitable hostel hassles you'll find at some hostels. Vacation apartments can often be booked for a week or just a few days in many places.

Let's say you're visiting the Rhine Valley - castles, river cruises, old-world towns, etc. This little studio (which I've rented previously) in the village of St. Goar (home of Rheinfels Castle) goes for €30/night for two:

http://www.st-goar.de/586-1-fewos.ht...id=586&clang=1

If you have a spat, this one downstream in Boppard has 2 bedrooms and goes for €43:
http://www.fewo-falk-goar-hartenfels...GH_wohnung.htm

Now there's not enough in St. Goar to entertain you for 5-7 days, but you can use it as a travel base - it's easy to day trip by train (w/ railpass or day pass) to nearby destinations (Mainz, Cologne, Trier, for example, and other small villages like Bacharach, Rüdesheim, and Boppard.)

Check with the TI office websites in the places you plan to visit. That's where you'll find the greatest selection of apartments. You may not find an apartment right where you want it in megacities (where hostels might work better.) But it's often easy to find apartments in places Europeans like to vacation - the Black Forest, Lake Constance, etc. - because apartments are what many vacationing Europeans prefer.

What if you find Ireland is not what you dreamed and you have allotted 25% of your total trip time there. Some people do love it, some not so much. Also, as others are indicating, places to see are spread out in Ireland, hard to see much from any single base. It is good to put it late in the trip so weather is better there. It can be very dreary in some places in March, and even April.

With a month in Ireland (if you stick with that) and two weeks in Sweden, plus a couple of travel days, you have used up nearly 40% of your your trip time.

Where do you plan to go in the other countries and what do you hope see? Try to calculate how much time you will need. Don't short change places like Rome that have enough riches to take a life time seeing.

Look at smaller towns and cities of importance in each country, and perhaps some unique country and coastal areas.

Rather than doing a big loop, or backtracking and going to London twice, look at "multi-city" tickets (not two one way or round trip) when you are booking, going into one city and out of another. Over all, it saves time and money because you won't be spending money to return to your original city.

Possibly landing in Paris, fly to Rome, touring Italy, then Germany, the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Ireland and home from Ireland, or England, Ireland and home from Sweden.

Other itineraries that might work.
Land in Rome, tour Italy, then Germany, the Netherlands. Then depending on flights to Sweden, Sweden, Ireland, England, Paris, or Paris, England, Ireland, Sweden.

If you can make a plan that lets you take the train between England and Paris and not have big costs for flights to Sweden, that would be good.

It doesn't make sense to go to England twice and it also wastes time backtracking. Fly into one of your furthest destinations and home from where you want to end your trip. Perhaps fly to Rome first since the weather will be warmer. Use the multi-city function on the airline websites, not the one way.

Look at budget airlines such as Easy Jet, but pay attention to which airports they use.

www.whichbudget.com
www.skyscanner.com

You didn't state your age so I don't know if a rental car for Ireland is an option.

Also remember that the more moving around you do, the more you will spend on transport and the less time you will have to do/see/experience what you came for. You lose from half a day to most of a day each time you change locations (figure from the time you check out of one place until you get settled in the next). Having three to four months may seem like an endless amount of time, but once you get there, the time will feel shorter. You have listed 7 countries, which you will not be able to cover in the time you have, especially since a month will be in Ireland.

Thanks so much for the feedback thus far. Just to address a couple of things: the $700 is the amount translated from frequent flyer miles/points I have on my credit card. I'm 23 and boyfriend 25 so we could rent a car in Ireland. We can definitely cut down on our countries the ones we want to see for sure are Ireland, Italy, England, and Sweden. I would love to see the Netherlands, Germany and to see the Anne Frank house. We're really in planning stages currently and looking for all suggestions. Also thoughts on Workaway.info and doing a couple of the stays with familys making at least accomidation costs cheaper.

Are you Americans? If so 'Workaway' type programs really aren't an option - at least not legally. You can't work (or even volunteer) in most of Schengen/the UK.

Legally speaking you can't even volunteer at like hostels for accommodation or something like that?

People staying at hostels can/do chip in w/ the cooking etc . . . but not to pay for their accommodations. That is one way the hostel keeps its rates down -- by having their visitors chip in.

They won't pay you to cook/clean (either in money or free rooms)

Just wondering the legality of it. On workaway.info hostels/hosts etc post when they need help/chipping in around the property for accomidation and food or either. Its not something I look further into if it is illegal to do this without a visa. I have read up on parts of the Schengen area rules and will not be staying past the 90 days, just got the idea for workaway.info from a couple of blogs.

If the immigration officers (in either Schengen or the UK) suspect you are planning on working, they could deny you entry and send you back on the next flight . . .

Ok thats perfectly fine, just something I was looking at. Won't look more into it. Still looking for any other suggestions.

The couple of stays with families - do you have some family in Europe that you could stay with? Where are they located?

Strongly suggest you limit the trip to three months for a first trip. Your budget will be less strained.

April, May June would be the best weather.

Also, very strongly suggest you spend only two weeks in Ireland. That will be quite enough time to see and experience a lot. If you truly love it, it can be the focus of another trip.

Have you spent two weeks with a friend before? How large is their place? No matter how much you like each other, that much time in close quarters can be trying. You might want to take two or three days in the middle of the visit to go off by yourselves.

Italy seems important to you, so give it two weeks. Some of your time will be used up in travel and it is a country large in riches of art, architecture, food and natural beauty, great for eating, sightseeing, hiking, etc. try to visit major cities, some small towns and villages and at least one beautiful lake or coast. Trains in Italy are cheap, efficient, the best for most travel.

By cutting time in Ireland, you can see more of the other places. A week in Germany would be great. Four days in Amsterdam with a couple of day trips and stops in Ghent and Bruges would be nice, so a week there.

Four days in Paris and three someplace else in France, a couple of weeks in London and Scotland, two weeks in Sweden.

That is 11 weeks. The other days will be used up getting from one country to another, finishing up 12 weeks or three months.

Thanks so much Sassafrass and everyone else this has all been really eye opening and helpful in planning. I really think everyone is right about the month long period in Ireland and limiting it to two weeks and allocating time else where like Italy and the UK is more beneficial because we can always come back at another time. The one thing we have definitely decided on is limiting it to 3 months.

I think the route we are really looking at now is Other itineraries that might work.
Land in Rome, tour Italy, then Germany, the Netherlands. Then depending on flights to Sweden, Sweden, Ireland, England, Paris, or Paris, England, Ireland, Sweden.(by Sassafrass)

The friend in sweden we have never stayed with her but she has stayed with us here in the US. We will stay with her brother and sister in Stockholm for a couple of days and then off to her actual home town.

Tony2phones I would love any help or suggestions for the Ireland portion of the trip. As far as likes and dislikes we are really open to everything we like exploring and outdoors along with a good pub. Also open to city and country.

We are going to run to the bookstore and grab/look in to a couple of guide book tomorrow.

Start with the legal stuff folk are harping about http://www.anyworkanywhere.com/visas_ie.html consider also http://www.wwoof.ie/ or https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/...nts/l/Ireland/ and similar also check out http://www.boards.ie/ for non travel specific subjects.

Guide books, try your local library, age is unimportant as you are not concerned with hotel and restaurant reviews. use guides that inform you about places in general not just the likes and dislikes of the author (a la St Rick of Steves)check the web for blogs and trip reports the Dummies guides are a fair option.

Ask the Month in Ireland as a separate and new question. I generally ignore questions that group multi countries and some places get less than favourable contribution on many multi country questions.

Its your Trip, listen to advice, take note of comment but at the end of the day make your own decisions.

For me, the one thing that I can save the most on is food. However I also dont want to miss out on the local foods since it is a rare opportunity to visit a place. Therefore, I always check online before I travel on where to eat authentic local foods that are not in fancy restaurants. You can check out my blog for some tips:
https://www.bonappetour.com/blog/tip...dget-in-europe

Also, best way is to stay in an AirBnB with a kitchen where you can buy your own groceries and prepare you meal for the day as it really saves a lot and it also makes sure you can get sufficient fruits and vegetables when you are preparing your own meal.

Money savings tips - well if taking more than a handful of long train rides look into a Eurailpass or railpass of some kind - if under 26 then you can get the bargain Eurail Youthpass - valid on trains in every country but the U.K. which has their own pass. For lots of great info on European trains and passes, etc check out www.budgeteuropetravel.com - download their free and excellent online European Planning & Rail Guide for lots of suggested rail itineraries; www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com.