Hi there! I am planning a trip to Europe this July to celebrate my boyfriend and I's 3 year anniversary. Some of the places we want to visit include London United Kingdom, Paris France, Switzerland, Santorini and Mykonos Greece, Rome and Venice Italy. The plan is to fly into London since I saw the airplane tickets were cheaper. (I am from the United States) We were thinking of staying 3 days in London, 4 days in France, 5 days in Switzerland, 6 days in Greece, and 5 days in Italy.

I am trying to get some estimate as to how much this trip would cost (assuming we stay in cheapest accomodation option) As of now I have $4,000 (USD) to spend for the trip and am curious if this is anywhere near enough money.

Since one of my main concerns is money I wanted to know if anyone had any tips on finding cheap accomodation in each country or any other tips on saving money. How far in advance should we book our rooms?

I was also debating if I should remove Switzerland from the list and go to Spain instead to save money. I am quite indecisive since this is my first time to go to Europe.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Thank you so much!

You are obviously excited about going to Europe and you should be. BUT I think you have way too many places listed for a first trip. Also is $4,000 just for you or is it for both of you? The air will be high in July and it will be crowded everywhere.

Do a lot of research on how you will get from place to place. The more days that you are traveling from place to place, the more days you lose on the ground exploring all Europe has to offer.

IMO, I’d do just the “biggies” for a 1st trip. Maybe London, Paris, and Rome.

Thank you for your response! haha yes very excited indeed. The $4,000 would be mostly for myself including the airplane ticket, accomodation, travel costs, some restaurants and activities we plan to do together. Yes I am aware that the airplane tickets will be expensive so I am planning to purchase tickets 6 months ahead.

Thank you for your suggestion, I may remove some of the countries on the list if necessary. I just know that it will be a long time until the both of us has a month off of work again and wanted to take advantage of this time.

Going by train I presume? Some good resource internet sites: www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com. If under 29 yrs old look into EurailYouthpasses,

cheapest accommodation - you mean hotels or youth hostels or youth hotels, etc.?

Let's Go Europe IMO would be a great resource in finding cheaper accommdations from low-cost hotels to hostels amazon.com.

Is that $4K for you or both?

Buying 6 months ahead is no magic pill. It won't save you money, or it might. Airfare will be expensive . . . Where are you flying from. Makes a big difference.

You are not accounting travel time - it basically uses up a day when you move from country to country. Also realize, extra land travel means extra cost.

It appears you have about 3.5 weeks. I'd stick to London Paris and Italy (maybe Venice and Rome) with a day trip or two in each place.

$4000 is a pretty tight budget for 3.5 weeks including airfare. Doable but tight.

Maybe consider for a first trip cut back to 2-ish weeks, do two cities w/ day trips, and have a generous budget.

Get several guidebooks and begin doing research into your interests and where they are to be found in Europe. I like the Michelin Green Guides: one for each country, and then others for regions within that country.

Some of the places we want to visit include London United Kingdom, Paris France, Switzerland, Santorini and Mykonos Greece, Rome and Venice Italy>

Come up with a firm itinerary some months before travels and book cheap train tickets from 90 days out ususally - serious discounts like on Eurostar train London-Paris (www.eurostar.com) maybe save $100 or more over full fare. But those tickets are sold in limited numbers and can sell out early and typically non-changeable non-refundable so be sure of dates and times and don't miss the train.

Can't see where a Eurailpass would help you as not enough trains taken. Paris to Switzerland www.voyages-sncf.com for serious discounts, etc. www.seat61.com is a veritable treasure-trove of info about discounted train tickets and booking your own online.

IMO it's too many destinations; a month seems like a lot of time in one's head and on paper, but it's not when you're trying to see several destinations in 5 countries. Moreover, your trip is going to be expensive with all that moving around, even if you learn to get train and other discounts.

I would start by eliminating Switzerland, which by my standards is frightfully expensive, and as I am not young and on a strict budget, I am not severely constrained by budget, though I do search for bargains always.

Buying plane tickets 6 months ahead of time, as janis noted, is no guarantee of cheaper fares. Learning about low-cost carriers is your best bet any time of year.

Switzerland yes can be very expensive but if you plan carefully it need not be if:

You go to Alpine areas like Interlaken and Grindelwald where they have youth hotels with private rooms like the legendary Balmer's Auberge (http://www.balmers.com/) or Grindelwald's all-ages Nature Friends House - again private rooms and communal kitchen - fix your own food from supermarkets can save a ton as restaurants are hideously expensive:

https://www.naturfreundehaeuser.ch/grindelwald/welcome/

When I stayed there several years ago there was an all-ages crowd of mainly hikers (summer) and mainly Swiss or German it seemed. Not your typical youth hostel.

Closed for renovations until sometime in 2018 however.

So I suggest you head for Interlaken/Grindelwald area and see one of the most awesome Alpine wonderlands in Europe - come from France and move onto Italy -other parts of Switzerland do not always have those lower-cost options. Interlaken is easy to reach by train from Germany, France or Italy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jung...w=1920&bih=949

As you plan, think in terms of nights, not days. As in, three nights in Venice, four nights in Paris, and so on.

In addition to reading or paging through lots of guidebooks (your local library is a cheap source for this), the internet (youtube) has many travel videos for each of your possible destinations.

I would also say that you have too many destinations that are spread out too far from each other. Consider one or two adjacent countries.

What do you and your boyfriend like to do? Big cities, small towns, hiking, canoeing, museums, local cuisine, art? Use your specific interests to help you narrow down where you want to go.

Your basic international airfare, from almost anywhere in the States during high season, will eat up 30% to 35% of your current 21-day budget. You might be able to get by on $100 USD/day or so for food and really cheap lodging if you where not staying in London, Paris or Rome. It will even be difficult in Mykonos to maintain a tight budget. And that doesn't even consider your transportation needs in Europe as you move from destination to destination. You need to cut back a bit on your days or come up with a more reasonable budget.

The more places you visit, the more time you spend traveling and the less time you spend seeing or doing things. The more places you visit, the more it costs.
Every move from country to country will eat up 1/2 day or more. Two nights gives 1 whole day, so for you to have 3 days in a place, you must have 4 nights there. Your current itinerary would require at last 29 nights or more if you will be in two places in Italy.

The desire to take advantage of so much time off is understandable, especially with the cost of airfare, and you are going at one of the more expensive times to travel. However Janisj's suggestion to cut the length of the trip a bit is good. It will force you to focus on what you most want to see and give you a little more leeway with the budget.

Rather than flitting from country to country, focus on two or three countries and see more within those. You may think you will be wasting time and be bored, but there is so much to see and so much variety within each European country, you will never run out of amazing places. At least focus on where in each country. Where in Italy or France? Try to take some day trips from the cities.

Do you really want to see London? I think it is a great city to see, but if it is not one of your big interests, do not fly there just because it is a little cheaper.
Suggestion: each of you pick the one city or area that is your dream of Europe. Decide what you want to see there and how much time you need to do it. You have two places to start. Add in until your time is done. Allow time for getting from place to place.

Make a day by day or night by night itinerary. Allow a bit more time in your first stop, to rest from jet lag. End in the city of departure. Do not backtrack. Buy multi-city or multi-destination tickets.

You are young and can move along at a fast pace, but on a longer trip, even young people need a day of down time. July in Italy, Greece and Spain will be extremely hot. Plan for that. Don't trade a place you really want for one you do not care about because it is cheaper. Better, IMHO, to cut the time a bit and see what you most want!

Sample, based on number of days you have listed for each each place.
Day 1, depart US
Day 2, arrive London
Days 3-5, London, 3 days, 4 nights
Day 6, travel to France by train. where? Paris?
Days 7-10, Paris, 4 days, 5 nights
Day 11, travel by train (or fly) to Switzerland, where?
Days 12-16, Switzerland, 5 days, 6 nights
Day 18, travel to ? By train , plane?
Etc. etc.

tight but possible

cut down on travel, hostel for sure, go vegetarian for the trip, no international (that means USA based) brands for drinks. Really, not drinking coke, but asking for tap water in restuarants or carry a re-used water bottle saves you loads.

save more as well.

I agree that concentrating on a couple of countries that are adjacent to each other (or nearly) is a good idea to save money and time. For example, you could start in London, then Eurostar to Paris, train to Brussels and/or Amsterdam. This is only an example and I know these places are not on your list but you can do this by train which will eat up less time than flying. If you include Greece you will either spend a lot of time on a ferry from Italy or a lot of time flying (get to airport, wait, flight, immigration, get to hotel). Trains in the main cities of Europe allow you to leave from the city centre and arrive in the city centre.

You mentioned Spain. Have a look at a map and you'll see you could go from London through France to Spain and fly out of Spain. Just an idea but it saves backtracking and extra flights within Europe.

Another thing to think about is weather. If you go somewhere coldish and somewhere hot - London could be cool in July, Greece will be hot - that means two sets of clothes and shoes. Better to stick to a small amount of luggage and one set of clothes for one climate.

Kay

There's no way to know exactly when airfare will be the cheapest, because the fares start out high and they reduce them if they don't sell enough seats. Then, really close to the date, the fares go up again, to take advantage of business travel, which tends to be planned at the last minute. However, a study I read said the lowest prices for intercontinental flights were about three months in advance.

Train tickets, on the other hand, tend to start low and go up. You can usually buy tickets around two months in advance.

If you fly into London and end up in Italy, look for a "multi-city" air fare, which would let you fly home from Italy. It would save you the time and money getting back to London.

You can take the Eurostar train from London to Paris. These fares are expensive unless you buy well in advance. You might find a cheap flight that costs less, but getting to and from the airports eats up time and money.

Transportation tends to be a big part of travel expense if you move around a lot. Your trip to Greece would almost certainly be by air, unless you want to spend a lot of time getting there and back. You can search for cheap flights on www.skyscanner.net .

A lot of the destinations you mention are expensive. London is not a cheap city, even though a lot of museums are free; and Switzerland is quite expensive. Paris, Venice, and Rome, while not exorbitantly expensive, are more so than smaller cities. If you're trying to do this trip on a budget, I'd cut the number of days in Switzerland.

Three days is very little for London, especially if you include the arrival day, which will be only half a day, and you may be very tired from the trip.

I see you have a total of 23 days in your various locations. This means that if you'll be away from home for 3 1/2 weeks, you're not taking into account your travel days, which mostly will be spent on a plane or train.

In general, make sure not to double count your days. I find it easier to count nights in each place, rather than days, and to subtract 1 from the number of nights to get the number of days. The one you subtract will be your travel day, which wouldn't be more than a few hours in either place. Better just not to count it.

Here's a possible itinerary:

London: 4 nights, 3 full days.
Paris: 4 nights, 3 full days
Switzerland: 3 nights, 2 full days

Greece: 6 nights, 5 full days, one of which will also be spent on travel. Also, you may have to sacrifice a night or two, if the only reasonable flights are in and out of Athens. I would either drop Greece altogether or cut back to one destination in Greece.

Venice: 3 nights
Rome: 4 nights

That's 24 nights, and you'd have to spend one night on the plane, so you'd be away from home for 25 nights, and part of another day or two. If you drop Greece, you could add nights to London, Paris, and Rome, which are big cities and need extra time to explore. I don't know what you want to do in Switzerland, but if it involves remote mountain villages, you need more time there, too.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the places you mention will be very crowded in July. Italy and Greece would most likely also be pretty hot.

24 nights $4,000 - $1,000 air =$3,000 or about $120/day - if staying in hostels and getting cheap train or bus tickets should be enough those can't spurge much on restaurants, night life, etc. Fix your own foods in hostels and picnic outside in nice weather. Or reduce your transportation costs by having a more tight itinerary.

Lots of good tips above that we have used:

Fly into one country/city and out of another
Ask for tap water (free)
Don’t drink Coke or similar. Most times my husbands Coke was more expensive
than my wine. House wine is usually cheap.
Picnic often
To get around cities buy a Metro/Tube/etc. pass.
Carry on luggage only. We do 2+ weeks in Europe with just a carry on. Learned this the hard way when our check thru was lost until we got home.

This is a fun thread reminding me of all the ways we learned to save.

Everyone has given me really great advice! I really do appreciate it as I am not as much of an experienced traveler, but am slowly learning more. I am thinking of cutting back on the amount of countries as most of you suggested as well as going for a less amount of time, maybe 2 weeks...no more than 3. After taking everything mentioned into account it definitely seems like a more realistic way to go. I will probably drop Switzerland this time, but definitely would like to visit sometime in the future if given the opportunity. I'm also thinking about either sticking to one place in Greece or dropping that as well, but it is so hard since I have always been mesmorized by pictures and always wanted to go. I will give everything more thought and think of exactly what we want to do in each country and make a more specific schedule for each day/night and think more about transportation from place to place. We are still in the beginning stages of planning our trip, but still need to do a lot of research!

Thanks again everyone for your time and help. It is so useful and will help me further plan my trip.

-Rachel

I will update again once we do figure out a more specific schedule and whatnot. Thanks again everyone, I sincerely appreciate all the help!!!

With two weeks, you might be able to visit one location in Greece, and two cities in Italy. I wouldn't try for more than that, given the internal travel time needed. Or you could visit London, Paris and one location in Switzerland.

Given how crowded some of these places are in July, I'd like to propose adding in some smaller places that aren't on the mass tourism radar.

In England, you could add in a city like Durham or a small place like Wells.

In France, you could spend a few days in Nîmes or Bayeux.

In Italy, you could spend a few days in Ferrara or Bracciano.

I'm not pushing these specific places, just giving an idea of the kind of place I've enjoyed. You may have entirely different tastes from me.

These places weren't overrun with tourists, although there is enough to see and do to occupy a few days. You may have entirely different tastes from me. I also wouldn't suggest visiting all these places or you wouldn't have time to see the main cities you want to see. I would just choose one or two off-the-beaten-path places for the whole trip. Note that "small" doesn't mean "off the beaten path". There are lots of small towns that are likely to have more tourists than inhabitants on any given summer day.