lumberman45

Hello all,

First of all thank you all who answered my questions about Colorado. I will be going back. OK..Now my new topic.

Next year I am planning on going to Europe I will be there between 1 to 3 weeks. When would be a good time to start planning? Should I think about a tour group? Or Just find a few friends here or somewhere to go with? I would love to make friends and get a bunch of us going over.. Anyway..any help would be appreciated..

Thank you,
John F

rhkkmk

start yesterday....its never too early....

i hate tours...most end up just being drive by experiences with lots of low quality shopping stops...


do it yourselves....its not that hard and fodorites love to help

get yourself a general europe guide: fodors or frommers....narrow down what you want to do....

get your friends excited about it....remember most will say they will go, but in the end several will have dropped out...

sheri_lp

I'm with rhkkkmk - It's good to start as soon as you know for sure you're going.

It always sounds like a good idea to go with a bunch of people but then you become The Organizer and that's not for everyone.

I've planned and taken a couple of solo trips to Europe and met some great friends along the way. So now it's on you - where do YOU want to go?

PalenQ

marking for later comment

november_moon

We took our first trip to Europe in 2006 - Germany in fact. We considered a tour, but decided against it for the reasons mentioned - drive-by sites, low quality shopping, plus having to be on someone else's schedule. We planned our trip ourselves and had a fabulous time. We will be returning to Germany next year

We like to do half-day or day tours while we are someplace - usually bike or walking tours, sometimes a small van tour. That helps to find people to socialize with. My husband and I usually travel together, but it is nice to talk to other people sometimes too. We also find people in beer gardens, pubs, hotel breakfasts, etc. to chat with.

It sounds like you are thinking of travelling solo or with some friends. I'd pick the friends carefully if you choose to go with others - make sure your travel styles are compatable. Otherwise you'll have a better trip on your own.

And the comment about becoming The Organizer is spot on. I am The Organizer for a trip to DC and the Virginia coast next month - I don't mind, so no biggie, but this isn't even a trip that I initiated. My husband and I were invited to go on a "bunch of us are getting together to go" trip and then everyone else lagged on the planning.

CJT0427

November_Moon's comment about choosing your travel companions carefully is right on! IMO you invest a lot into travel, both financially & emotionally, and to travel with someone who doesn't share your travel style or enjoy the same things you do will spoil the trip for both of you. I'm saying this from experience -- several years ago I went on a week-long trip to London with someone I hadn't traveled with previously. I was the "organizer" and she contributed very little to the experience --- didn't want to walk, didn't understand the money, never knew where she was, answered "I don't care" when asked what she'd like to do, and mostly wanted to shop. I felt responsible for her "good time," but was having a lousy time myself. After that experience, I vowed to not travel with anyone without first doing a "shake-down" weekend trip with the person.

Also, plan the trip yourself -- it's really easy with the internet and all the available resources, and it's half the fun of the trip!

Good luck!

Peter_S_Aus

Travelling Companions. Think hard about how manypeople you want to travel with – having a “gang” of friends can be OK, but if you wind up being the organiser, then you will have hassles. There have been a few posts on here along the lines of “we were planning for a group of five, but one has had to pull out. What’s a fair way to deal with cancellation, refunds etc.” The posts from others are very accurate. A group of say five can’t fit in a rental car, for instance, and needs two hotel rooms. And there is always the slow person who keeps everyone waiting! I’m married so my choice of companion is obvious.

If you do choose to travel with a friend, try and pick someone who has been to Europe before. You can have a good time travelling solo, and i think that a solo traveller finds it easier to meet people. Two people travelling together are rather a closed circle.

I don’t think that you need a tour group, unless you really want the tour group experience. It is not hard to plan it yourself, and any questions on this forum, like “is so-and-so a good area to stay in Rome a good choice”, will receive a host of answers, many of them conflicting. (Any reply from Franco or Zeppole is worth taking note of, as they are locals. I’m a shameless advocate of Venice. ) People do like to share their knowledge and experience.

When to start planning. We’ve been to Italy twice, the first time for three weeks, the second for a couple of months. The three week trip was barely planned at all – when we left, we had accommodation booked in Venice and Verona, and after that we just made it up as we went along. We decided to take the trip about two months before we left, and were not very well informed. The trip was in winter, so getting rooms was not an issue. It was fun, but I do think we would have had a better time if we had been a bit better informed. For instance, we went to Como, which is popular in summer, but very quiet, dead almost, in winter.

Before the second trip, I did a heap of reading, and we had that trip planned about 18 months before we went. So I had three trips that time, once in anticipation, once while taking it, and once in retrospect. Once you start reading, you embark on this dance through the landscape, one book leads to another. Jan Morris wrote a fine book about Venice, and I liked her style. That lead to me to reading just about everything Morris has written, including an article about Chicago!

Start planning and reading now. Think about strategies / blackmail to use on your employer so that you can get three weeks away. That extra week makes all the difference. Think about what interests you – art, architecture, mountain climbing, running with the bulls in Pamplona, whatever. Then you can start to plan a trip around your interests. Remember that there are no real “must visits” in Europe, - if someone visited the USA, nobody would say, you have to see Times Square, or Mount Rushmore or the Grand Canyon or Fargo.

I wrote a bit of a trip report about Italy – it’s here on Fodors:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...st-verbose.cfm

Jump

I'd definitely agree with the others to avoid the tour groups and start planning now. I started planning my September trip to Germany well over a year ago. I bought 4 or 5 travel books and just started reading, learning the different regions and getting an idea of what I'd like to do/experience. I then chose a potential itinerary to narrow my focus down and started digging deeper. This caused me to realize that my initial itinerary was way too aggressive so I narrowed it down even more. I've ended up with something that is still fairly aggressive but very doable as a single male traveling alone. Currently all hotels, rental cars and flights are booked and I'm to the position of identifying specific sites I want to visit in the list of communities I've chosen to stay in.

For me, the planning and learning is always half the fun of a trip. I could NEVER let a tour group dictate my experience.

Michel_Paris

My last trip to London I booked a flight /hotel package on a Sunday to leave the next Thursday, and bought some guidebooks at the stop over airport...but I had been before, luckily

My first trip was a 21-day tour of europe, and sine then it has been solo mostly, with a couple of trips being friends or family.

Lesson learned: people often are different when they travel. PLeasant and easy going at home, dependant when in foreign countries.

You've seen the pluses and minuses of organized tours, so decide if this is in/out. Or a combination...do a tour, then a week on your own, for example.


OK, you've decided to not do the tour. Just write down on a piece of paper your 'dream' list. Where you've always wanted to go in Europe. Then add in any events you would like to see (gee, always wanted to see Tour De France in Paris). Lastly, perhaps add-in the list of stuff you like to do: museums, hiking, good food, city, country,castles,etc..

You now have the 'kitchen-sink' first trip list. So you start asking questiong and reading guidebooks. Love to see Tour de France, but there is this festival in Amsterdam in the fall that sounds even better. Rent a car? Hotel or appartment?
And you iterate.

This works fine for a solo trip. Somewher along the way you will need to decide...do I want to do this alone or not. As soon as you invite one/more other people, that above list becomes at risk. If you hate shopping and the invitee(s) do, how will you handle it? They hate London, but it is your dream.

What I would not want from a travel companion is a statement like "I'll just do what you do". Nope. None of us are exactly the same, so odds are at soem point this person is going to get irritated when you keep going to Irish pubs at night to hear trad music, when they hate fiddles and Guinness

Once again, a combo could work here. You go for a week and see what you want, go somewhere else for couple of days, and then they show up.

Other, much beter threads than mine, have addressed travel in groups. How do you pick where to eat? How do you split the cheque? Who books and puts down-payment on hotels? How do you gently tell someone...after breakfast, I'm going to XXX...I'll meet you back at the hotel before dinner...and the look you get because they did not bother to learn the public transit system or what to do...since you are the guide!!!???

Don't want to sound too negative...but reality is that when a group starts to form, your vision of the holiday is bound to change. But, you may have friend(s) who are just like you, and all of the above does not apply.

Another lesson learned..."be" in places a bit more than "see" places. So instead of saying I'm in England, may never be back, so I'm going to see every place I've always wanted to....and you are stressed going from town to town, hotel to hotel and slowly there builds this feeling that..gee, I'm not so excited about having to check out tomorrow and head off to YYY, I like it here. But the plan is set. The blur effect.

Let us know, people here can help with the location "stuff" as well as the solo/group dynamics.

kfusto

I often plan trips for both clients as well as groups of friends we enjoy traveling with. It is true that you need to choose your traveling companions carefully but it will help to have ground rules established to avoid what are the most common sources of problems.

IMO, those include being on time for any shared activities, establishing a budget everyone is happy with and allowing everyone a good bit of time each day to be on their own. There are some days when we are only together for breakfast or perhaps dinner and that gives everyone a break.

I would not choose to join a tour group personally as I don't like anyone else making choices for me.

We are headed to Germany and Austria this fall and I began planning that trip last December. I am now in the initial stages of planning a trip for October of 2011 that we plan to take with two other couples who are good friends and with whom we have successfully traveled to Europe with in the recent past.

I research the areas I am interested in, read online guide books, trip reports, scour the message boards. Then I will come here for fine tuning if it is an area I am not familiar with.

I book my hotels as soon as I have my air confirmed which is well in advance of my trip.

We generally go for 10-14 nights as that is what our life allows. Europe is our preferred destination for our vacations and budget as much time and money as we can for these trips and try to go once a year.

sheri_lp

Hmmm I really like Peter_S' suggestion to blackmail your boss for extra time off! haha

DaveMM

John,

I can’t speak to the traveling companions issue…I have traveled with my favorite companion for 30 years. We are going to France next year to celebrate our anniversary. I know there have been some great threads and trip reports from people who have gone to France solo.

But planning…I think it depends on you. DW doesn’t like planning too far in advance and I love to research, plan and learn as much as I can. Our trip next year is in late April and I started reading about France late last year. At first it was a little overwhelming. Heck I didn’t even know the basic geography of the country. I have dedicated myself to reading and learning because I truly enjoy knowing about a location before I go. But that is me.

If you are like my DW then you need only to be concerned about certain long lead planning items like airfare, passports and maybe lodging depending on the time of year you travel. But then again lodging requires you to plan a basic itinerary. So….yeah…start planning now. ;-)

Peter_S is right about planning your trip around your interests. You will get lots of advice and opinions...you just need to line them up with what you like.

Three weeks on vacation…I can only wish and dream.

Enjoy the process. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

DaveMM

PalenQ

I would strongly consider taking the train if as most novice tourists do and you go mainly to large cities, where cars are a liability in many ways and public transports are so so great. Many city centers are off-limits to private vehicles and parking can cost a ton - even many city centre hotels may not offer parking and if they do they charge a lot for it in many cases.

And trains are so so super - with at least hourly departures between most key cities. And for some great help planning a novice rail trip i always spotlight these info-laden sites - www.ricksteves.com; www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com - download the latter's European Planning & Rail Guide that has a chapter on each country's rail system with suggested itineraries, etc. And if traveling enough then consider one of the plethora of railpasses - i've traveled with railpasses for decades now and can say that for first-time European tourists the trains and fantastic and the best way IMO for a novice to go between the likes of Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, etc.

charnees

I haven't read all the posts above, so forgive me if this is repeating.

If you are a senior, you can try Elderhostel tours, which are very popular and are not such a rushed affair. Also, there is something called Untours, which friends used. They set you up for a week or two in an apartment, greet you when you arrive along with the others, have an orientation and dinner together, and then you are on your own, or you can get together with others who are also on the Untours list.

ira

Hi Lum,

>When would be a good time to start planning? Should I think about a tour group? <

Yesterday.

Maybe.

However, I have found that with a little study and some planning you can have a much better trip at lower cost if you DIY.

LSky

I start as soon as I think it may be a good idea. If by planning you mean reading up on a destination. The sooner the better.

lukehead

I prefer independent travel - like to set my own schedule which will allow more time if I wish or to move on if I'm just not that into something. We have used Untours and been very pleased. They provide you with an apartment (for 1,2 or 3 weeks), some form of local transportation, a local contact person should you need assistance, a starter stash of basic groceries and will arrange your air if you wish. The programs are geared to a Wednesday arrival/departure. They will meet you at your arrival terminal and get you to the apartment. They plan one group activity in addition to an orientation. They can accommodate varying numbers, depending the apartment size - you pick the apartment - from 1-8 or if you wish separate spaces, you can choose individual apartments. If you are more people in one apartment, the cost per person is lower. They provide very good advance information re the local area. The apartments are in neighborhoods but convenient to local transportation and grocers/bakery/etc. The apartments are fully furnished with complete kitchen should you wish to do some of your own cooking. The groceries they provide are starters so you don't have to worry about the first lunch or breakfast.

website shows all apartments (with comments from users and many photos), availability, cost and maps. We've been more than satisfied.

http:\\www.untours.com

I don't think their 2011 pricing will be posted until October but you see what it is for 2010 to get an idea. Give them a look.