Hi,

Sorry for the vague topic, but I'm not sure how to even begin to plan for a European vacation for the family. Here's what I do know:
1. Who - My wife and I and our 4 kids (age 8 - 15)
2. When - Summer 2010
3. Where - We haven't really decided yet, but our top contenders are some combination of the following:
* UK and Ireland
* France
*Austria & Southern Germany
*Switzerland
4. What - approximately a two week family vacation. We'd like to see a lot, but not so much that we'd have to maintain a breakneck pace
5. Why - Our kids are very interested in other cultures, etc... and we'd love to have the chance to explore Europe with them.

At this point, I'm trying to find out where to start. Should we work with a travel agent or on our own? What are some good resources for a complete beginner such as myself? Any good books or web resources for me to get a foundation of knowledge?

I'm one of those people for whom the planning is 1/2 the fun of a vacation, so I certainly don't mind diving into this, but since this will be our 1st trip outside North America, I realize we have a LOT to learn. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

Go to a bookstore or library and start reading. All kinds of wonderful guidebooks are out there. There's no need for a travel agent. Europe isn't difficult.

Congratulations! This is called the Grand Tour, isn't it?

If you have two week, I would strongly recommend to restrict your trip to two, maximum three countries. Please do not maximize the number of destinations - this would make a superficial trip.

Maybe one destination in Northern/Middle Europe and another destination in southern Europe would give you an impression of geographical diversity.

E.g., what you can do is:

5 days in England, 3 days in Paris and 5 days in Southern France.

Or:

5 days in Germany, 3 days in Austria OR Switzerland and 5 days in Italy.

You get the idea?

StCirq made a good suggestion - start reading. Check guidebooks out from the library and bring them home for the kids to look at. Maybe get each one to pick some preferred destinations.

I also agree there is no need for a travel agent. The Internet has made it so easy to do all your own research and booking.

I think finding a strategy and structure based on your first ideas/circumstances is the best way to go.

I'd choose from either UK and Ireland/France or Austria & Southern Germany/Switzerland if you are only staying two weeks, and from there I would choose a mode of transportation. Between the UK & Ireland/France, you can use the Chunnel at some point, and between southern German/Switzerland probably Eurorail or renting a car. It would not be difficult to drive in France, Germany, or Switzerland, but in the UK and Ireland, I'm sure you know, is on the left side of the road, thus you may want to stick to rail and bus there.

From there, I'd examine the budget minus travel and consider where exactly you want to stay. That may require learning about which sites you really want to see first if you don't already have an exact idea (but it's always good to look in-depth; the typical sightseeing places aren't all they're cracked up to be). That way you can construct your schedule around what you want to see and determine the time table. Based off of what you want to do, you can come back to this forum and give us more specific questions about currency, customs, etc., and perhaps the forum could then be more useful.

Good luck!

We're always a bit overambitious in our planning, so my suggestion is NOT to be. We travel to Europe every year with our 2 girls (now ages 6 and 11) and, despite lots of experience as travelers, always find we tried to somehow squeeze in something a little too much. So hard as it is, really limit the amount of travel time and get to know and enjoy the places where you land. We usually do 2-week trips and spend a week in each "base" place, with occasional side excursions. In that it's your first trip (at least with the kids), you could definitely do a week in a major European city such as Paris or London or Rome or Florence -- lots of opportunities for a day trip outside those cities -- and then a week somewhere more laid back, like a small village in the south of France or the British Cotswolds or a beach town in Normandy or the Italian coast. So much fun!! Have a great time! And definitely get the kids to consider where they might want to go. Silly as it sounds, I've been to some of my favorite places just because I once saw a picture of the place and said, "I've got to go there someday!" (Like the Cinque Terre!)

First - pick a country or - yes, one country or possibly 2 countries very close such as Germany/Austria.

We've made family travel decisions based on:

Weather - picked Norway/Denmark because we wanted somewhere that would be cooler in August

Sorry - not sure what happened - Continuing

1. Pick your country - also have made decisions based on where our main airline (Delta) was flying - i.e. sometimes they would bring on new destinations with sale fares, some airports/cities are easier to fly to from Atlanta than others, etc. And of course we, like BarbaraH, have also made decisions on seeing a picture of somewhere great, a report that one child did on a country, where friends were going at the same time so we could meet up, and the ever popular Family Meeting with the topic being: Where should we go this year?

2. For first time travelers, I recommend the Rick Steves guidbooks mainly because he lays out a "don't reinvent the wheel" kind of trip for each country. For example - if you have 1 week in France you should do X, if you have 2 weeks do X + Y. REgardless of whether you like his travel and/or political ideology, the books give you a great base to start planning your trip.

3. Get a rough idea of your itinerary and then start hitting the boards - the travel boards. You can get LOTS of great information on this site but you need to have a general idea of what your family is looking to do in order to get the best information from fellow posters. And again, I'll put in a plug for the Rick Steves board too. Be sure you take advantage of itinerary boosts such as flying into one city and out of another so that you don't have to do only a circular route.

4. For a family of 6 I highly recommend that you book your accommodations ahead of time - you will find it difficult to be "free & easy" with your crowd in the summer. Consider at least one week long stay in a self-catering, apartment, etc. These travel boards along with tripadvisor and any guidebooks, magazines, etc. that you have started to accumulate are good sources for recommendations.

5. If you do really like to plan, you can tinker, re-work, fine tune your plan to your heart's content. I usually book flights in January and some of my hotels in Feb-March. Then I leave it all for a month or two and revisit again in April/May to see if it still feels right.

Hope this helps to get you started!

Hi Griz-fan,

Wonderful! What a treat for all. I ventured to Europe the first time in June of 2007 with my husband and two daughters, then 10 and almost 13. I highly highly highly echo that you do not try to do too much.

We went to Paris, Montruex, Florence, Rome. We had a little over 2 weeks when you counted travel time. We were VERY VERY tired at the end of our trip. I think that impacted how much I enjoyed Rome (or not).

Put in some down days. We did not have many of those (maybe an afternoon here or there) and could have used more. One nice day in Rome we rented bikes and rode in the park and took a carriage ride. (my husband still refers to the carriage ride as it was very costly but our 10 year old loved it!)

We took the trains and that was some of the best times. Relaxing was done there and lots of card games.

You do not need nor do I recommend a travel agent.

Rent Rick Steves DVD for the areas you are thinking about going to and watch them as a family. Great way to get a basis for the countries.

We returned to Europe in December of 08 - adding in two more (18 year olds) and stayed in Paris in an apartment for 10 nights. I loved the slower travel and everyone had a GREAT time.

Trust me, I know how tempting it is to GET it ALL in but slowing down will make it more enjoyable for everyone.

We have four children and have traveled often with them all - (here in the US and Mexico) and it presents it's own challenges trying to make everyone happy. You have an 8 year old as well as a 15 year old - different ideas of "fun" of course.

Adding more thoughts - one idea is to rent an apartment in two areas - and do day trips from those apartments along the way. Less moving, packing and unpacking really helps. I think people in general under estimate the wear and tear that moving about creates.

Maybe Paris for a week and Germany/Austria for a week?

Where are you traveling from?

You could stay in London for a week and do day trips - and then go to Paris - doing the same thing. With the size of your family; unless you have a VERY unlimited budget I HIGHLY recommend apartments.

If considering taking the train or doing a railpass then here are some great sites with tons of info and will be of use to folks even not going by train:
www.seat61.com
www.ricksteves.com
www.budgeteuropetravel.com - this site has on it their free European Planning & Rail Guide with itinerary planners for each country and rail-related info for each.
www.swisstravelsystem.com links to lots of Swiss transports - lake boats, scenic train rides, etc.

I happen to think Paris is one of the greatest places in the world! I would (and did) start here for my first trip to Europe.

4-5 days in Paris, then a TGV to Cote d'Azur (Nice) for a couple of days. Great trip!!

Otherwise, Paris and Bernese Oberland!! If the family loves hiking in a non-stop postcard, fondue, raclette, cows with bells, wonderful people that speak English, homes with flower boxes, church bells ringing throughout the mountains!! (Now I remember why I am going back there..it's heaven on earth)

Good luck with your choice!

Wow... Fantastic responses, I'll have to spend some time digesting all this great information, thanks! I agree that we'll probably want to keep things fairly focused, so one option would be UK and Ireland, option 2 UK and France, or option 3 Austria/Switzerland/Southern Germany. At this point, as much as I'd like to see it all, I think we'll need to narrow our focus quite a bit (and I have a hard time imagining this trip without visiting Paris).

I think a trip to the bookstore is in order. I see a couple of recommendations for rick Steves, I'm a big fan of his TV show (I've recorded dozens of his show and Rudy Maxa's show on my DVR).

A couple of follow-up questions to help focus my efforts. First, How far in advance should I start planning? I'm thinking June, 2010 for the trip. How far in advance should I book flights, hotels, ground, etc...?
Finally, any thoughts on what kind of budget range should I be considering? For example, excluding airfare, is there some sort of ballpark estimate for cost per day per person that I can use as a starting point?

thanks again!

griz - it really depends on so many factors (the booking times) Are you talking about the start or end of June?

Are you planning on getting an apartment? If so how many bedrooms will you want? What kind of bedding situation?

I booked my apartment for Paris in Feb of 2008 for December of 2008 because I needed 3 REAL bedrooms and two bathrooms and was traveling over the Christmas and NYE holiday.

griz-fan - you have an exciting time ahead of you. In the summer of 2006 we were sort of in the same boat - although we were planning our first European family trip just for my husband, myself, and our two teenagers. You have a bigger and younger crew.

If you really have two full weeks - maybe even with a day or two extra, I don't think it is bad to have 3 destinations in mind. I have found that 4 or 5 days in one place can be a quite good overview and even give you some down-time too. We wanted to experience some of the diversity of Europe and so tried to choose places in different regions. We ended up doing a pretty predictable London, Paris, Rome, Venice (we had a little under 3 weeks for the trip, so chose 4 destinations). We went with hotels in London and Paris and apartments in Venice and Rome. I wrote a trip report explaining our whole planning process - it was a VERY last-minute trip - so you can click on my name to find the report, if you're interested. It was a wonderful experience.

And after that first trip doing a lot of rookie stumbling around two years ago, we've made a lot of progress in our European expertise - DH and I are living in Amsterdam this year - so far we've been here 9 months- and DD is currently doing a university junior-year-abroad in Paris. So you never know what that first family trip to Europe might lead to!

griz...I planned this September's trip too early and wound up changing my mind and losing some money on flights?!

Planning can start now. Just don't plunk down any "non-refundable" money just yet (like yours truly )

I forgot...Lots of videos on youtube. Just enter Ireland travel, or Paris travel, etc.

Youtube helped me make a decision regarding my trip (actually a change in decision)

Griz_fan,

Paris is so centrally located that it can easily be integrated into every trip to Europe. It is absolutely no problem to take an intra-European flight from one place to the next.

Regarding planning: From a European point of view, it is always a good idea to book flights 330 days in advance, since the airfares go up, but rarely go down. For hotel bookings, six months in advance will be sufficient.

Regarding your budget:
It depends on your style of travel - the class of hotels and whether you intend to eat in restaurants or do some picnicking instead. And there are more and less expensive places.

As a general rule, UK would be most expensive, especially London. It is hard to find a decent hotel for less than 100 GBP and (decent) food is also very expensive. Paris is also expensive, but certainly less than any place in England.

Germany, Austria and Spain are on the cheap side. Italy is expensive, Switzerland is medium-priced.

(This has to do with macroeconomic developments in these countries, particularly with inflation rates. The drop of the British Pound has eased things a bit, but Italy is still very expensive, since it cannot compensate inflation with currency adjustments.)

For, say, Germany, a rule of thumb would be:

80-100 € per night for a double room (3 stars) and 20€ per day per person for transportation, entrance fees, food and drink (if you avoid restaurants). If you eat once a day in a medium-priced restaurant, add 30€. (Everywhere in Europe, you can get good and inexpensive food when you avoid restaurants.)

hi griz-fan

here's my ideas based on 21 + years of travelling with my now quite large kids:

stay put - we always had more fun when we stayed longer in one place. they liked going to the same bar to get breakfast, the same little shop that sold those yummy gelati, the same deli where the owner let them practice their italian...

aim for some variety - Venice, followed by florence then Rome will fry your brains. kids need exercise too..they don't want to be cooped up in acar or train all day.

have a plan - or preferably two plans, A & B, and then be prepared to abandon them if something better comes up - kids love spontenaety.

ask the kids - if it's their trip, [or they think it is] they'll enjoy it all the more, and so will you.

have a great time,

rgards, ann

Hello griz, my thought was to suggest you look into apartment rentals also. European room are typically not as large as we have in the US so you would need at least two hotel rooms and possibly three rooms.

Another advantage of being in apartment is that you can have breakfast in the apartment which not only saves money it cuts down on everyone have to "get ready" to go out for breakfast. And kids usually like having snacks, cold drinks etc., available which you can sure have on hand with an apartment. To cut down on packing if you get an apartment with a washing machine (dryers not always available and seem to take forever) and that has somewhere to hang up the washed clothes such as a balcony or patio for example that would come in handy.

If you find two locations that your family is interested in and that have good day trips near by you will sure cut down on packing, unpacking, using energy hauling luggage from one place to another plus you would have more time to enjoy Europe as one loses a lot of time moving from place to place.

You love to plan trips and no travel agent will know what will work for you two and your children like you and your wife does so I too vote against your using a travel agent.

You have a year so planning this trip could be a real fun activity for all of you! I imagine even your now eight year old would have fun finding great websites to share with all of you.

Regarding a budget, as you sort of figure out what lodgings you are interested in, look up restaurant websites, admittance fees to sites you think you would like to visit, train ticket costs if you use them for at least day trips you should start to get a good feel for the cost I would think. Best wishes and enjoy your trip planning!