Help: Car or train to tour multiple countries? Organized tour or DIY
 

Fellow travelers,

My husband and I decided when we got married that we would go to Europe for our 10th wedding anniversary. Instead we are going for our 9th anniversary this July (just works better for us). We need your HELP. First we may opt to do a tour with a company (I know cheesy but to see as much as we want it may be nicer to have all our hotels and transportation planned out for us) or we may get a rail pass and just go for it. We have 16 days including flight time- so 14 travel days. The tour company itinerary: London (2 nights), Amsterdam (3 nights), Paris (2 nights), Lucerne Switzerland (2 nights), French Rivera (2 nights), Barcelona (2 nights) Depart from Barcelona. I know the general creed is: stay longer in each city. But it's our first trip to Europe (who knows if there'll be another one?) so I would really like to see all the places I dreamed about in one shot. Putting all our eggs in one trip basket. If we do our own it will be London (3 nights), Belgium ( 1 night) , Amsterdam (2 nights), German Rhine River Valley ( 1 night) , Austria ( 1 night), Venice (1 night), Switzerland ( 2 night) to Paris ( 3 nights). If we go for it on our own we are debating the rail pass...its about $625 per person for 15 days and from what I researched a car rental including gas might be a bit cheaper but I'm not a huge road trip person. I like the idea that my hubby won't have to stress about driving in unfamiliar areas if we travel by rail and we can sleep/nap if we want. The one draw back is that we are limited in that we will have to stay in city centers, lug our luggage and won't be able to get to outlying sights and drive a short distance where hotels are cheaper. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

<i>German Rhine River Valley ( 1 night) , Austria ( 1 night), Venice (1 night),</i>

You must be joking. What do you expect to see between your travel times? Have you looked at the distance between the Rhine valley and Austria (wherever this might be in that country)?

There's a reason why most people, as they gain travel experience, go to fewer places and stay longer in each. It's because it's nicer in so many ways. You've come here for advice, I hope, so if you take in just 1 concept try to absorb this one.

It's a huge temptation to want it all right now although I confess I've never had the urge, have always enjoyed the hanging out part the most. But many seem to learn as they go that the memorable experiences are the small ones, usually the people, and one must stop to have them. The monuments are not the thing, it's the life of a place you'll remember but you won't have the opportunity at the pace you're planning.

We are only in the planning stage... I know that there is quite a large distance between Rhine River Valley and Salzburg Austria but maybe we can catch a sleeper train. Do you have a better itinerary that would allow us to see our must haves ( London, Amsterdam, Paris, Switzerland and Venice would be nice) the reason I planed out a loop tour was so that we would end up in paris and be able to book a cheaper flight than if we ended in say venice. Thanks !

Well said MmePerdu. That is very true.

Just a note regarding your loop. If it enhances your trip, fine. But it may be time and cost effective to fly in to 1 city and home from another. Convenience is another factor. For instance, flights into Venice are often at more convenient times than flights out. So reversing an itinerary can make for a more relaxed arrival or departure.

How many days do you actually have on the ground, excluding arrival and departure days? Rail passes are rarely a good deal. Consider a combination of low cost airlines and point to point rail tickets. Check seat61.com for everything you need to know about the trains. Whichbudget.com for airlines.

If those are your must haves then London -Paris -Amsterdam -Switzerland -Venice -home from Italy would be the logical order, or vice versa of course.
Where are you flying from? If the west coast of the US you do know you arrive a day after you take off? You are allowing for jet lag? Travel time will take at least a half day, and from Amsterdam to Switzerland a whole night if you take the Citynightline train (for which your rail passed won't be valid I believe).

I hope you will rethink your plans and maybe just do London, Paris and Amsterdam, with maybe Brugge or Brussel for a day.

I have been thinking about your post and I think we are just going to have to cut some areas out. Its just so hard ! We have 16 days- 2 lost to travel so 14 real travel days. London is on our list because my friend just moved there and is expecting her first child in June (a month before we go) so we would love to go and see her, the new baby, and of course the sights of London. Paris is a must have. Holland is a must because my husband is 100 % dutch. I can't imagine going and not seeing the Netherlands. Another spot that I cut out of our original tour was to the bordeaux region of France where Chateau Olivier is located. See our last name is Olivier and I've always thought it would be romantic to see it in person considering we love wine but since it is so far from all other major cities I'm not sure how we can fit it in. Lastly I would also love to see the swiss alps. Maybe our tour should be: London (3 nights), Amsterdam (3 nights), Belgium (1 night), Switzerland ( 2 night) to Paris and french countryside ( 5 nights). Maybe we could catch a flight out near the bordeaux region of France ?? Thanks :)

Dear hetismij2,
Thanks for your imput. Yes we are coming from West coast USA.

I would sit down with a map and set out your itinerary and see what is most logical. Keep in mind that changing locations generally eats up at least 1/2 day with all the logistics.

Boreaux is not the most scenic part of France and defintely doesnt fit with the rest of your itinerary. If you are interseted in wineries I would highly recommend Burgundy or Alsace - google for images and you will see the lovely villages, and it would fit much better into your other interests.

So here is what you have so far:

Day 1 – Travel day
Day 2 – Arrive in London (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning landing)
Day 3 – London
Day 4 – London
Day 5 – travel to Amsterdam (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 6 – Amsterdam
Day 7 – Amsterdam
Day 8 – travel to Belgium – where? Bruges? (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 9 – travel to Switzerland – where? (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 10 – Switzerland
Day 11 – travel to France – where? (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 12 – France
Day 13 – France
Day 14 – France
Day 15 – France
Day 16 – fly home

I think you are really cutting many of these places short. It is tempting to try to ‘see as much as possible’ but what ends up happening is you spend tonnes of time and money running around and travelling rather than actually seeing the places you visit. There are so many things to see in these places I would recommend cutting locations a bit.

Here is what I would recommend:
Day 1 – Travel day
Day 2 – Arrive in London (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning landing)
Day 3 – London
Day 4 – London
Day 5 – London
Day 6 – London – Amsterdam (
Day 7 – Amsterdam
Day 8 – Amsterdam
Day 9 – Amsterdam to Switzerland – somewhere in the Berner Oberland, maybe Lauterbrunnen for its easy train access and access to day trips (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 10 – Switzerland
Day 11 – Switzerland
Day 12 – Switzerland to Paris (half day by the time you get to your hotel assuming early morning travel)
Day 13 – Paris
Day 14 – Paris
Day 15 – Paris
Day 16 – fly home

I would cut Belgium because it just eats up too much time for 1 night which doesn’t even give you a full day there. And I would choose either the French countryside (Alsace or Burgundy) OR Switzerland.

You could swap the Paris/Switzerland bits as well and fly out of Paris or somewhere in Switzerland.

Also be sure you book your flights into London and out of Paris/Switzerland so you don’t waste a day backtracking.

I hope this helps!

Congratulations on your decision. Probably a lot of the advice you get on this forum will be dificult to accept at first, but many people on the forum have vast amounts of experience and, no matter how they may come across, I believe every single one wants you to have a great trip. My first advice is to really take their advice to heart. Second is to limit your trip to four places and avoid one night stays.

In general, trains are best for short distances, cheap flights for long ones. Trains are great because they take you right from city center to city center and in most cites, you don't want or need a car. You might want one for countryside exploration. After your itinerary is planned, book flights using multi-city search, fly into one and out of the other so there is no backtracking. It will save time and probably money in the end. Look at flight times too because Venice, for example, is easier to fly into than out of if you have to get a super early morning flight out. You might start in Venice and fly out of London or Paris.

You have 14 actual days in Europe. In your own plan or the tour, you have 7 days of sight seeing and seven days of travel from place to place. You will be spending half the cost of your trip and half the time on your trip seeing/experiencing nothing - not a very good return on your travel dollar. The hardest thing for new travelers to Europe to do is narrow down their trip and use the time/money to actually get the most out of the trip, rather than see the highways from a bus, or the inside of lots of train stations.

You need to start thinking in terms of one or two areas or countries, or specifics. For example: you say Belgium, Austria, Switzerland. Where or what do you want to see in those places? Each country could take several days or weeks. Is there one city or museum you hope to visit? Think about what you want to see in each place and how long that will take. Think about things you might like to see that are near the cities you want to see, example: Versailles just outside Paris, Bath - a day trip or overnight from London. You and your DH could start by each listing the two or three places (not whole countries) on your dream sheet. Join them and work from there.

When you make your plan, and I do recommend you go on your own so you see what you are most interested in rather than what some tour offers, put it into a form that shows your travel time, hotel to hotel or station to station, but keep in mind that changing hotels and checking into the next city takes time.

This is not a suggested plan, just one way to lay out trip - times are reasonable estimates.
Day 1 - Land in London, check into hotel,
hopefully by noon,
1/2 day to Explore, walk - get over jet lag
Day 2 & 3 - London - Sight see, take in a play and/or day
trip? (Stonehenge, Bath, Cotswolds, Oxford. etc.
Day 4 - Travel to Paris, check into hotel, etc., by noon.
1/2 day sight seeing.
Day 5 & 6 Paris sight seeing or Paris and day trip to
Versailles which takes the better part of a day.
Day 7 - travel to Bruges? (three hours?) 1/2 day for
sightseeing
Day 8 - Travel to Amsterdam (Two plus hours, plus getting to
and from hotels) 2/3 day sightseeing.
Day 9 - Amsterdam sightseeing
Day 10 - travel to ? How many hours?
Day 11 - travel to Venice - train, overnight?
Day - 12 arrive Venice early by train or flight
Day 13 - Venice
Day 14 - fly home

It looks like this - pretty rushed, IMHO.
3nts London
3nts Paris
1nt Bruges
2nts Amsterdam
2nts ?
3nts Venice

I doubt a rail pass is best for you, but when you have the plan nailed down you can do cost comparison. Hotels may/may not be more expensive in the city, but you don't want to waste a lot of time (and money) going back and forth from the outskirts of a city to get to the things you want to see just to save a few dollars on a hotel. For example, if you go to Venice, stay in Venice proper, not in Mestre.

Once you and DH decide on the three or four places you two most want to see, you can plan a reasonable route and get best advice on how to make it work. There are several experts on trains and others on hotels, etc.

Enjoy the planning.

I am a confirmed independent traveler - but if you are determined to cut a wide swathe across europe with a ton of 1 and 2 night stops I reall reco that you go with a tour. This would be extremely difficult to pull off yourself - since you would have tobe constantly re-orienting yourself to new places and ways of doing things.

With a tour this is all taken care of for you - so you have more time (but still VERY limited) in each place.

But you need to understand what a tour means (and I don;t mean cheesey).

I means early starts - often luggage outside door at 7 am and on the bus by 8 am

Long days sitting on the bus (You end up napping a lot)

Hotels often at the far end of town or out by the highway

Meals that are often americanized versions of local foods in homter dining rooms (imho often sub-par)

And you need to read the brochure very carefully to determine what you will actually see:

A view of something is seeing it out the bus window as yuo drive by

A stop means a 5 minute photo op out front

Only a "visit" mean you go inside

Also, the lower priced tours are especially subject to switching hotel locations and turning basics into extra tours

If it were me I would plan it myself but I would do no more than 4 hotels and actually get to see a couple of places (this is still not a slow-placed trip)

My view is similar to the above. I note that you are going in July (which is when lots of Europeans go on holiday (lucky you!) so the places you chose will be bustling. DH is 100% dutch so why does he want to go there again or is it that he is showing you around? If he is showing you around and you have a baby to see then London, Holland is fixed.

This leaves the rest. Switzerland is basically just a bunch of mountains. If it were me I'd avoid (but I know how much it costs which is a lot) what I might look at is..

After Amsterdam, drop in on Strasbourg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg (ancient city with large vinyards to the East), then either pop into Zurich (if Swiss is a must) or walk up on the Ballon d'alsace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Alsace and look at the mountains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc which you should be able to see in the distance before haring back to Paris

Often I find that coming to grips with an idea that's at odds with what you were considering first is simply having the change in your thoughts until the changes make sense. Not to wrestle with the change but just let it be there until the advantages become clear. With this in mind I'd encourage you to think about visiting 3 places only. For instance London 5 nights, Amsterdam 4 nights and Paris 5 nights. See what air fares to and home from these places will give you the best deal and fly into one and home from another. Between them the trains are easy so no effort or time wasted.

Don't dismiss the possibility, just fiddle with the details investing no solution with more value than another and I think the benefits of slowing down in the planning may translate into slowing down your travel which I guarantee will pay huge dividends in high quality experiences.

I too am a bit confused , if hubby is 100% isn't that just like going to visit his parents, so free accomadation etc..

When you plan a two night stay somewhere, you are only getting one FULL day and two half days there, its not really much all in to see any large city, ESPECIALLY if you are doing it yourself and you have to get yourself to trian station etc.. on a tour at least you just show up for breakie and board the bus..

When I first read the title of your post I though "of course DIY" but then when I read your proposed itineraries I thought " take the tour".
Its better now that you have cut out some places.

Secondly why do all you young folks say stuff like "who knows if we ever get back", that is pretty well up to you barring a major life setback.You do not have to be rich to visit Europe mulitple times over the years, you have to make it a priority so maybe not remodel the kitchen every 5 years and maybe drive an older car and skip the 5 dollar coffees etc.

Lastly I think one needs to be mindful of this, if you plan a very amibitous fast paced trip for your first visit overseas you may end up hating Europe, being tired and stressed all the time is rarely what i think of when I think of a holiday.

I would do London, Amsterdam, Paris and fly home. Its only two weeks.

I would forget Belgium for one night - not even close to worth getting there and getting settled. You'll end up having just a few hours for a whole country (waste of time and money).

Definitely scrap the idea of Bordeaux/Pessac. Too far, not a pretty area, and how would you even get to the Château Olivier without a car? There are probably another dozen Châteaux Olivier around France anyway (and that's an odd last name for a person who's 100% Dutch, isn't it?).

I'd do London, Amsterdam, and Paris, with open-jaw flights. You can do a daytrip or two from any or all of the cities. That will easily keep you busy for two weeks.

Everyone is inundating you w/ advice (which is almost all 100% correct BTW)

As you re-think things realize that you will not >><blue>have 16 days- 2 lost to travel so 14 real travel days.</blue><<. You also lose at least one day to jetlag. Not totally lost but you'll be moving very slow and possibly semi-disoriented. Then you lose another 1/2 a day (sometimes a whole day) when you move from city to city.

Sit down w/ your husband and decide which <u>three</u> places you really REALLY want to see. If they are London, Paris and a bit of the Netherlands - that could TOTALLY fill your approx 12 days free on the ground.

I think you're making a common mistake in that you want to see too much in too little time. My suggestion to you is that you assume you'll be back. Once you have experienced a really good trip, you'll soon be thinking about the next one.

Once you cut down your destinations, it will be much easier to plan the trip yourself, make your own reservations, and save some money in the bargain. An unexpected benefit for me has been that I enjoy the process of planning the trip.

I suggest that you buy or borrow (from the library) a guidebook or two covering the areas you'll want to visit. Guidebooks usually list transportation possibilities to and from various cities, so that you can get an idea of how you should travel.

Find possible hotels in your price range in the cities you want to visit. Check out Trip Advisor to see what other travelers have thought about your tentative choices.

Before the internet, taking a tour was probably a feasible way to travel, but now that it's so easy to make plane, train, and hotel reservations, I think doing it yourself is the way to go.

Thanks for all your wonderful replies, advice and wisdom. I am coming to the consensus that we absolutely need to pick a max of 4 cities. As to my husbands nationality I should have said his family both mothers and fathers side are from the netherlands but they live in the USA and neither of us have been. We do have some extended family we could possibly stay with but I believe they are not in Amsterdam, they live in outlying areas ( which would be nice too see if possible). From my understanding the surname is French because during the french persecution many Huguenots fled France to the Netherlands. So I suppose there is some french too. Thanks all !!

Consider taking a rail trip, my preferred mode of travel if I am going mainly to large cities like you indicate - or even places like the Rhine where trains run up and down both sides of the Rhine gorge (best part of Rhine, between Rudesheim/Bingen and Koblenz) - and to help plan such a trip I always spotlight these IMO fantastic sources - www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com. With a wide-ranging itinerary involving several countries consider some kind of Eurailpass - perhaps a 14-consecutive-day one if you move around as much as your OP indicates or even nearly as much - railpasses are also fully valid on the K-D boats on The Rhine that ply the river frequently (www.k-d.com).