Europe June'15
 

I am planning to head over to UK/Europe (from Singapore) for the first time in June next year. Duration would be around 3 weeks.

Itinerary is as follows:
London - 4 days
Dubrovnik - 4 days
Amsterdam - 4 days
Paris - 4 days
London - 4 days

Spending more time in London (can be branched out to day trips) because I have friends over there. How do you guys think about the pace, whether I should make any changes to it? Going to these places solo, are there any things that I have to take note, especially when this is my first time and a female traveller?

I know that DBV is out of the way, but would like to head there for a visit.

Please feel free to add on if needed.

This is fine - if you actually have enough time to have 4 full days in each place - that means 5 nights in each place. Each time you change locations it takes up most/all of a day from checking out of one accommodation and into the next. If you don't have that much time, cut one destination in order to have time to enjoy a bit of the others.

Think in terms of nights, not just days and count travel days separately.

So 4 nights usually means only 3 full days IN a place and then a travel day to the next place. Even when the travel time is only a few hours, you generally use up most of a day by the time you check-out, get to the airport/train station, make the journey, get to your next hotel, check-in etc.

Your order of places doesn't make the best sense to me. If you have not already booked, I would try to go directly to Amsterdam or Paris from home, take a train from one to the other, then fly to Dubrovnik and then fly to London for 8 nights. Minimize your travel days and time.

It might also make sense to leave out Dubrovnik on this trip as it is an awkward fit and spend more time in Amsterdam and/or Paris. Most people would say that only 3 full days in Paris is not enough.

I would not split London into two different stays -- unless maybe you are going there on specific days your friends are free.

If you have already booked your flights in/out of London I'd fly directly on to your first destination (possibly Dubrovnik) a few hours after landing at LHR. Get the long haul out of the way at the beginning and then work your way back towards London.

If it were me deciding to drop a city, I'd keep Dubrovnik and drop Amsterdam. I agree that combining the days in London would be best if you can.

Itinerary is as follows:
London - 4 days
Dubrovnik - 4 days
Amsterdam - 4 days
Paris - 4 days
London - 4 days

My thoughts

Dubrovnik is a little place, yes you can tour around bits of the old Yugoslavia but then you really need to be spending more time there, with maybe some island hoping and use of high speed ferries (great way to see the place), but 4 days in Dubrovnik (with the @@@@@ cruise liners in the place) will slowly drive me mad.

I'd also not do London twice, just makes a mess of a trip.

Amsterdam (and its fantastic public transport system) makes a great visit, I would give this city some time and try to stay in an old style hotel or even a canal boat rather than Cr@@ International type.

I'm not sure I'd fly all the way to London and then turn around and fly BACK toward Dubrovnik but perhaps that is best for you, price and airline-wise. If not, you could use Lufthansa and fly through Frankfurt to DBV and then fly from DBV on a budget flight to London.

I have sort of revised the itinerary a little, do let me know if its a better choice.

SIN - DBV: 1 DAY
DBV: 5 DAYS
AMS: 4 DAYS
PAR: 5 DAYS
LON: 7 DAYS
LON - SIN: 1 DAY

Thanks.

As mentioned above what will you do in DBV for 5 days? Fish, swim, eat, ....?

Bilboburgler, I do not think that there will be too much of an issue trying to come up with activities to cover 5 days in DBV, if your point in the first comment is about 4 days being too long, I'm pretty sure that 3 days is too short.

I am a bit concerned that you are allowing the same amount of time for Dubrovnik as for Paris - but maybe you have a reason. IMO/IME there is much more to see/do in Paris.

Plus factoring in travel time it will really be more like 3 days in Amsterdam, 4.5 days in Paris and 6.5 days in London.

If it was me Id probably cut a day or 2 from Dubrovnik and add it to Paris

I also agree that it would make MUCH more sense to shift some time from Dubrovnik to Paris. I loved Dubrovnik, but really, it is tiny and there just isn't that much to do. I spent 2.5 days there, time that included a (full) day trip to Kotor, and during that time, I saw everything that was on my list for the area. As already mentioned, if you want to spend a lot of time swimming, you might want more time there. I wonder what your wish-list for Dubrovnik includes?

JXX welcome to Fodors