Aloha,

I am traveling to Europe from Hawaii in one month. It's my first time in Europe and I am flying into Amsterdam and will have two weeks to explore. From the 28th-3rd I will be in Amsterdam as it currently looks. I planned on perhaps leaving immediately to take a couple days in London or Paris.I also thought about leaving on the 1st from Amsterdam if I thought 4 days was enough. So far I was planning on hitting up Amsterdam, Paris, London and Dublin. Was planning on just doing a day or two in Dublin since its so close to London. A big part of me wants to just head down to Prague and Budapest or even Germany and Poland. I really cannot decide what to do. I wish I had more time. I fancy myself a bit of a foodie and do enjoy music and lively pubs. I also am into history and cathedrals, castles etc.

Thanks for the help

Travailing among these locations can be very time consuming and expensive, particularly if you have not arranged for transportation well in advance.

You do not have near sufficient time to visit all of the places you mention. It will be cold and available daylight at this time of year will be restricted. In another month, as we approach the shortest day of the year, it will be dark at 5pm (really short days is what happens at northern latitudes in winter). Time given to tourism will be limited if you want to be able to see your outdoor surroundings.

I would select maybe no more than 3 cities and explore from there; maybe Amsterdam, London, and Paris. I would arrange for transportation immediately, either by train or by air. Reserve you hotels now rather than wasting valuable vacation time looking for a place to stay.

You have a late start in making this work for you. Consider where it is you really want to go and reserve accordingly; the sooner the better.

I agree that the best for you is 3 cities, probably Amsterdam, London, and Paris since these three are very well-connected. 4 days is enough to have a flavor of Amsterdam, you may leave on the 1st from Amsterdam, but of course if you stay more the city still has enough to offer. It's a vibrant city, with gorgeous museums and beautiful nearby towns, and especially if you said you enjoyed music and lively pubs.


Or you can do Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest. It's great too, but I prefer the first itinerary (Amsterdam, London, and Paris ) is better and give you more of Europe diversity. Up to you.

In any case, you should buy transport tickets betweens those cities as soon as possible, because the price at that Xmas + NYE time will be very high.

Dublin is very unlike London, London is the biggest city in Europe by a long way, while Dublin is medium sized city, though the quality of the welcome you can receive makes up for a lot. So not really interchangeable

I'd pick three, fly into one and out of the last

>>> Was planning on just doing a day or two in Dublin since its so close to London

I think the first order is to get the sense of travel time rather than using distance as a poor proxy for travel times. For air, any booking site would give you the flight time. You need to add ground overhead to them using www.bahn.com if train, www.viamichelin.com if by car. google map also gives you super unrealistically optimistic travel time where your actual time is much longer. While London-Dublin is shorter distance than Lihue-Hilo, the former is far more time consuming that the inter island trips you might be familiar with. London is a ginormous airport. Time consuming to get to and from the city, time consuming to board and deplane.

Once you see the actual travel time plus ground transportation overhead, all the options confusing you in your mind would disappear due to lack of time.

Dublin will get you an Ireland stamp in your passport but won't let you see/experience Ireland with only 2 days max. Same goes for any other major city in any country.

Hence if its about getting stamps in your passport (unfortunately some people do travel on that premise)then fine. If you want to see and even slightly, feel a country then spending 20% of your time in/around the airport might not be the best way?

Decide what you want to experience, where you want to explore that experience and narrow down your location list.

Northern Europe can be grim in winter- not real cold but often gray and dark and days are so short.

But Amsterdam, Paris and London are weather-proof really as there are so many indoor sites to see and it often is not that cold and the sun may come out too!

but the farther east you go the colder it gets I believe.

Yes start perhaps with those three great cities - spend several days in each and do day trips out of them - like to castles or lovely countryside (though in winter...).

Personally if you've never been to Europe I'd head south from say Amsterdam and Paris to like Italy (overnight train Paris to Venice perhaps) and do say Venice - Florence and Rome by train

then fly to London maybe to end you trip (or fly to Dublin after London).

Weather in Italy is much nice than in northern Europe - especially the farther south you go.

Anyway trains are great for manageable distances - some great resources - www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com (check out their online European Planning & Rail Guide for lots of rail itineraries; www.seat61.com.

And if taking enough trains check into various rail passes.

I also recommend London, Paris & Amsterdam...good cities for a first-timer and with fast & easy intercity transport.

If possible fly into Amsterdam, take the train to Paris and then to London, and then fly out of London.

Get your Thalys (Amsterdam-Paris) and Eurostar (Paris-London) tickets as soon as you can, since prices go up the closer you are to travel day.

Allow a half-day for each of those travel days.

I suggest:

Amsterdam 3.5 days (+ 0.5 days getting from airport to hotel)
Paris 4.5 days (+ 0.5 days on early train from Amsterdam)
London 4.5 days (+ 0.5 days on early train from Paris)

This adds up to 14 days. (I assume you have two weeks on the ground, not including flights.)

After you've done your research, you could move a day from Amsterdam to London or Paris if you feel 2.5 days is enough time in Amsterdam...though the first day in Amsterdam is a major jet-lagged day. (11 hour difference from Hawaii!)

ssander

Great advice from ssander!

Get your Thalys (Amsterdam-Paris) and Eurostar (Paris-London) tickets as soon as you can, since prices go up the closer you are to travel day.>

Again www.thalys.com and www.eurostar.com (Paris-London) are easy to use to book your own tickets-check first class too as sometimes they may be very little more than 2nd class though not usually

Id spend at least two full days or preferably three in Amsterdam-a city with many neat sights besides its awesomely gorgeous self.

You fly into Amsterdam. From what city do you fly home?

You fly into Amsterdam. From what city do you fly home?

hopefully they will fly home from their last stop - to avoid expensive, time-consuming backtracking -so-called Open Jaw Ticket.

PalenQ, I would hope so also. But the wording of the original post made it sound like the ticket might already be purchased.

I agree with Amsterdam/Paris and London. If you cannot open jaw I would head for Paris upon arrival AMS, than London via Eurostar than train back to Amsterdam for your last 3 nights. the number of nights in each city would depend upon your interests and number of nights available. Generally London>Paris>>Amsterdam for necessary time. Weather and daylight will be a bit of a shock to what you are used to.

PalenQ, I would hope so also. But the wording of the original post made it sound like the ticket might already be purchased.>

sometimes they could be changed if the same airline for a not too high fee perhaps- anyway returning to arrival city takes a day of vacation time.