How to plan a big trip? Help!
 

My DH and I are thinking about taking our two teenage kids to England or Europe for a two or three week trip this summer. This will be OD graduation gift. Don't mind spending some money, but this is not going to be top of the line. Probably along the lines of Radisson, not the Plaza.

Problem is, how to plan this? I have, in the past, planned most of our trips. Road trips and HI trips. But this one stumps me. Not even sure how to do it. Where do we go? Paris, Italy? How long to stay? We don't want "if it's Tuesday it must be Belgium" tour. Or a tour with lots of older people.

Yes, I know this is the US board, but I am much more familiar here than European board. My main question is how to plan it? Do I call a travel agent? On the web? Call the airlines... How do I know it is good tour, good price? The hotels are OK, the location is where I want to be? See my delimma? How do you get started and who do I trust with this?

HELP me Foderites...If you can. Thanks in advance.

Heavens, I think you kinda/sorta have to figure our where you want to go. Throw together a strawman itinerary, get comments on the board concerning how long to stay in certain locations, then start working on hotels/rental cars/rail transportation.

You could spend all your time in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, etc. Do you just want highlights?

Grab a map of Europe and try to draw out some sort of itinerary. For example, 5 nights in Paris with 2 day trips. 4 nights in Brussels, with 2 day trips, 3 nights in Amsterdam with 1 day trip, etc. ((b))

Take this post to the Europe forum and you'll get more help than you know what to do with.

I agree with the other post-ers. It would be helpful to have some idea of what you're interested in doing. Touristy-sightseeing, off-the-beaten-track, nature?? Have you looked at any of the past travel logs written by others on the 'Europe' board? That may help give you an idea of where you'd like to spend your time.

I personally prefer to go to cities on my own versus on a tour. I've been on the Contiki Europe tour which is for people from 18-35 years but I would have much rather have explored the cities on my own and spend how much time I want at various places vs working on the tour operator's schedule.

I think this forum is a great place to start though.

gtrekker
P.S. My Europe favourites would have to be London, Paris, Switzerland. I'd love to see Spain but have never been there. :)

start with your airline tickets. Start signing up with 'Fare Alert' watchers. Often you can save hundreds of dollars by picking weird dates for your trip.

I think Heavens needs to figure out where to go before buying airline tickets? ((b))

An unusual approach might be to check out some of the major tour companies and see what their itineraries look like - as a starting point, not in preparation for taking one of their tours. (Globus, Trafalgar, etc.) They each have tours that are concentrated time in one or 2 countries, and more frenetic tours of 15 countries in 4 days. (well, maybe not that much, but you get the idea). These tour companies generally have a good idea of main cities, sights, etc.

Another first step is to talk to your kids - for some unknown reason, both of our kids have/had definite ideas about what countries, regions of the world they have a strong desire to visit. We ended up going on a trip to Egypt instead of London because of such an off-hand comment by one of our kids.

That will give you a starting point - then it is just like planning any other trip, depending on your style. I usually start with destinations, then air, then hotels in each major stop - filling in after that.

I'm not sure why you are resisting but the Europe branch of Fodors is absolutely filled with information answering most all of your questions. Plenty of newcomers and highly traveled folks both post there.

You could plan it yourself, book everything online, call a travel agent, pay for a tour, telephone an airlines, or a combination of the above.

I think a good place to start would be some general guidebooks from the library, watching the travel TV channel, and/or travel magazines. I also endorse the idea of looking at the itinerary for formal organized tours to get some sense of various popular itineraries.

I would also post this on the Europe Forum once you have some idea of where you would like to go. ((b))

Heavens, what a great idea. We did the same with our two sons when they were 16 & 17. Looking back now, 14 years later, it was the best thing we could have done. We were gone 5 weeks. We spent one week with relatives in Germany and drove to Amsterdam, Brugges, Paris, south to the French Riviera, Italian Riviera, Venice, Austria, Yugoslavia, Budapest, Prague and back through Germany via the Romantische Strasse. I had a suitcase filled with travel guides alone. We took 1200 photos and 13 hours of video, which will be a great memory when we are too old to travel.

Since you will have only two or three weeks, don't bite off more than you can reasonably do. Once you have narrowed it down to which countries and cities you can focus on which hotels in each city, which restaurants, which sights and so on.

I would buy a comprehensive map of Europe and have a family brainstorming session, getting everyone's input and expectations. If they are involved in the planning they will enjoy it more.

Maggi

me again... if you don't want to post on the European branch you could still go there and do some "search" -ing. Using key words like organized tours, traveling with teens, etc. you will find all kinds of questions, answers, first-person trip reports about families traveling together and the like.

Suggest that a tour is not really a good idea with teens. Typically tours are folks middle-aged and older - if not primarily seniors - and teens will likely be bored stiff. If you find the entire process too daunting you might consider a package - with air fare and hotels - but generally you can do better yourself than almost any package.

Your first mandatory step is to at least pick a couple of destinations to build the trip around. For two weeks suggest 3 destinations - for 3 weeks four (and that is cities or areas - not entire countries).

Perhaps the idea of looking at a bunch of tour catelogs is good - then you'll at least have some "I must see thats" to start with. Or alternatively look at either a couple of good general europe guidebooks or the desinations section of this site to help you narrow down your choices.

Also, agree you must do this on the europe board to get the most meaningful advice.

Thanks for all of your help. I KNEW you guys would come through. I posted a response earlier and I have no clue what happened to it. Very odd.

Chicgal, that sounds like a great plan and something H and I had discussed. He is a golfer. We have been to London and St. Andrews. Loved it. He does want to try and golf on this as well.

And taking in Paris would be a first time for me. And I used to be an international flight attendant! Saw a lot of the Pacific and other odd spots. Not too much of the "desirable" destinations. Yes, I was not sr enough.

How much is the chunnel per person? How do I book a Paris hotel? I know I am lame but I am seriously considering a TA to do all of this for me. Not lazy but just too busy.

Thanks so much for all of your help. This can all be so overwhelming.

Budman, sometimes the price of the airline tickets are what dictate my destination.

Well, that's one way to make a decision. ((a)) ((b))

At the risk of being far too general, I'm going to suggest an approach that is different from the above responses.

1) Determine your family's broad objectives: landscapes or urban scapes,
mountains or beaches, museums or outdoor activities, sports or not, fast-paced or leisurely, large cities or villages, see a little of lots of places or see a lot of only a few places, rent a car or use public transportation, hotel rooms or apartments, cooking for yourself or not, etc., or the combinations of those choices

2) Once you've determined your objectives, explain them to the Europe forum. Ask for suggestions about areas of Europe they might suggest that you visit.

3) Research those areas to get a feel for how long you might want to spend in each place you visit. Draft a tentative itinerary and run it by the Europe forum. It should be VERY general: two days in City A, three days in City B, etc.

4) With that feedback in hand, draft at least one revised itinerary and run it by the Europe forum again for suggestions.

5) Once you've got your itinerary reasonably (though still only tenatively) set, ask the Europe forum about suggestions about how to get from one place to the next: plane, train, bus or car? If you generally plan to use a car, are there any large cities in which you should plan on not using it?

6) Keep narrowing down the details, such as areas within a large city to stay, including which hotels and restaurants would be recommended. It will be helpful to provide an idea of your budget, if not in monetqry terms at least in terms of 3-star vs 5-star hotels.

Oh what fun!!!

Definitely get input from the teens and find out what they would like to do and how they'd like to spend their time. (Surprises may await you... our 18-year old son simply loved napping in Paris, taking photos and exploring on his own... We made plans to do certain things as a family and certain things separately.) You might do some searches on the Europe forum with teen in the search criteria. You'll find a lot of tips and learn a lot.

Get frequent traveler cards for whatever airline you purchase your tickets. If the airline you travel with is partnered with other airlines, you might ask to have miles put on a domestic partner airline. I have found more flexibility when cashing in airmiles when I use them for flights on the airline with the miles rather than one of their partner airlines. Miles to Europe really make a big dent in a free ticket someplace else.

You can easily book your hotel reservations and airline tickets on-line. For hotel reservations, sometimes I do this through e-mail. Kind of depends on the hotel. Actually now is a good time to hone down dates and places so you can start watching airfare sales. Do NOT go in August!!! (That's when many Europeans are on holiday.) Time of year and weather are important decision factors.

I'd skip the tour idea. I think Europe is very easy to do as independent travelers. (My experiences are traveling in the UK, France and Spain.)

Stay no less than three nights in any one place. Read the trip planning tips on Slow Traveler... http://slowtrav.com/europe/index.htm

You can read background information on the different countries and they will steer you clear of problematic neighborhoods:

US - http://www.travel.state.gov/

Canada - http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/menu-en.asp

UK - http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?...=1007029390554

Australia - http://www.dfat.gov.au/


Hotels: Find a location that is convenient to what you will be doing. Trip reports and reviews on Fodor's Europe forum as well as guidebooks will point you to nice places to stay. Renting an apartment for a week could be a great idea for your family.

Here's a recent thread that recommends several Paris hotels: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34540414

For Spain, Maribel's guides are essential: http://www.maribelsguides.com/. (These are downloadable pdf files.)

Everything you want to know about Italy: (many thanks to Ira who started this posting)
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34443340

Lurk around on the Europe forum and seek out what appeals to you and your family.

Have a great time planning!
-Sharon

Heavens, I hope you are not getting information overload. ((a))

You must have some idea what you want to do/see. Like others have said, put your thoughts down and go on the Europe forum and start asking questions. ((b))

Lots of good suggestions above.
It may be useful for your teenagers to obtain International Student ID Cards. Many sights & museums have students prices and they check student ID cards.
I think the website is www.isicus.com
also you can probably purchase them from your area colleges or universities.

Thanks all. You have been more help than you know. I will talk to the kids. I think that is my next step, especially daughter for who this trip is for (hubby is getting golf clubs ready as I type). And the little tips like passports and IDs I can work on now. As much as we would like this to be a surprise, to get her in the loop of planning could be more fun.

See, I knew you all would be immense help. Thanks, Fodor friends. I literally would not go ANYWHERE without checking things out with you all first. :)

I tried to post yesterday, but the Fodor's gremlins wouldn't let me.

Anyway, my husband and I are in the beginning stages of planning our first trip to Europe. My husband was in Europe when he was in the Army, so he has been several places, but he wasn't exactly sightseeing. I have never been there at all. We will have 2 weeks and have decided to spend our time in Italy. We could see more countries during that time, but we decided we would rather have a slower trip with more time in the places we go rather than see a tiny bit of a bunch of places. That is just more our style.

Our approach is going to be to research different areas of Italy and choose where to go, then buy plane tickets, get hotel reservations and then just go and see what we see. We are thinking of spending time in Rome, Venice, and someplace along the Tuscan coast - 3 to 4 days in each location, taking the train to get from place to place.

So that's our approach.

Heavens, I'm in your shoes! Trying to figure out the next trip. To Europe this time. I took a list of countries, gave copies to everybody who goes, or may be going (my family) and asked to put 1,2,3 of their countries choice. Then asked to rule out the countries they don't want to go for whatever reason.

After this didn't work I picked a country of my choice :) In January I'll know who exactly going, and if it will be summer or fall time, then I'll start to watch the plane fares. And make hotel reservations.

As for cities to visit - I came up with a brilliant idea :) Print out any tour company itinerary - and "follow" them, these people know the most interesting places.

I'll let you know if this my theory worked or not...

On our most recent trip, we found the best th

feghetaboutit, what is a th?

What tour companies inteneraries would be helpful do you think? Any ideas on that?

Heavens

First, go to the library and get a couple of general europe travel books. You need to do some initial research before anything else. Encourage your kids to review them too in order to get their ideas flowing. Libraries also have travel videos -- I love the Rick Steves stuff.

Teenage boys love the Cinque Terre region in Northwest Italy. Mountain towns are full of hostels and tons of young people back packing in summer. We couldn't get our group to Florence from there, just 2 years ago. They didn't want to leave the towns there. Great for a first time introduction to Europe.

If you are just doing cities, than use the trains/ planes. Don't rent a car. If you are don't a driving trip, you may want to rent a villa or place in France/ Italy for a week and roam from there. I've been to almost every country and right now Prague is the hot spot for the college age crowd. Remember that Scandinavia, British Isles , Venice, Switzerland can be very expensive. Spain, near Barcelona is very popular with younger set alost. I have never been.

Get your passports now.

That should be "doing" not don't a drive trip. And also instead of that typo.

I'm sorry that this forum has such bad posting problems that I am not proofreading correctly. I've posted twice on this and once on another and my posts have disappeared.

Try doing searches on the Europe thread for the areas your kids suggest.

I have been tryin to answer this thread. My post keeps disappearing (thank goodness I saved it). Will keep trying.

I am going to break my message into several parts, the shorter messages seem to be going through. Hopefully when they fix this website, all my numerous attempts to answer posts won't all show up!!

Section One

Heavens-How fun. I went to England and France this summer where my DD (17) meet my other DD (21) who had been traveling through Europe all summer. I actually found this forum while planning my trip to Paris and the knowledge on the Europe board is unbelievable. I used all their info for France (I had been to London) and we had a very successful trip.

A couple of things to think about.

1. Buy OPEN JAW tickets. There is not that much difference in price flying into one city and leaving from another and you certainly don't want to waste time backtracking to your original city to fly home.

2. Set some type of BUDGET. Although we loved London, I was almost happy to get out of there because everything was so expensive and the exchange rate is so bad against the pound. Even paying for an inexpensive lunch for 3-4 people can add up quickly. Of course the Euro exchange rate continues to rise so keep that in mind. I felt meal prices, etc in France were reasonable and my daughter did well with her budget in Italy.

3. As everyone mentioned, get input from your teens. There are numerous threads on this but some teens participate more than others. My DD (17) didn't give me much input but I think she was also overwhelmed by all the choices.

Hey it posted-Just didn't bring it to the top!!

Message continued Section Two

4. Based on your family's interests, make an itinerary that includes both cities and more rural areas. Most people can get an overload of churches and museums especially teens so plan other events. My older's daughter's favorite city was Rome followed by Venice because she was really interested in the Italian culture. However when she left Rome, she spent three days on the Amalfi coast just relaxing, hiking in the mountains and taking a day trip to Capri. Her favorite rural area was the Swiss Alps. She stayed in a hostel there and hiked the Alps for a few days. Check out their website, gimmelwald.com. In fact her picture is there under hostel people #39.

5. Don't spend less than 3-4 FULL days in each location, at least in the big like London, Paris or Rome. We only got to spend 2.5 days in Paris because we changed our plans to visit friends in Bordeaux. While 2.5 days was better than nothing, we just got a taste of Paris (I am ready to go back). Also spending more time in a city means you won't have to rush so much giving your teens some time to decompress.

This website is crazy today. It said the page couldn't be found and then my post was there!!!

message continued - last section

Even if you go for three weeks, I would recommend no more than three countries. Based on my daughter's experiences, France and Italy would be first choices. Besides Switzerland, she loved Ireland for its mix of country and city. While Prague is a hot spot for college/teens travel time is further as is going to Spain. Trains are great but if you decide to include places further away, there are the lowfare airlines such as Ryan Air and Easy Jet that can get you there quickly.

A couple of little tips I just thought of. Don't know when you are going but Italy can be very hot in July and August (my DD still enjoyed it). We went to Paris in August-actually a good time to go. August is a vacation month for Parisians so we got great rates on our hotel and nothing was really closed in Paris. We did however run into all lots of European tourists when we went to Bordeaux (in St. Emilion we were almost the only Americans).

Have fun planning-see you on the Europe board.

chicgal - You are right about checking the sales and sometimes it does pay off to not do an Open Jaw. When we went to London and Paris, we flew into London because it was cheapest and could have done a RT ticket for less. However, when you figure in the cost of either the Eurostar to Paris and back (or a flight) plus the time traveling, it really came out pretty close. Especially if Heavens decides to go to three countries, say England, France and Italy, in the long run a open jaw ticket might be more economical.

As for open jaws... time is also often money. $498 compared to $1000 is a lot of money!!!

The whole airline pricing racket is huge!

One thing I have learned is to check for a stop-over. For instance, many times you can do a flight with a several days stopover that does not affect the pricing. It just depends what the "fare rules" are.

Some ideas:

British Airways usually stops over in London. So you could do London and Rome... or any other city.

Air France usually stops over in Paris...

I find it helpful to download the flight schedule for an airlines (or go through a flight schedule booklet) to determine how the various airlines route their flights. This has given us options we wouldn't have thought about any other way.

You can also combine an open jaw with a stopover. For our South America trip next year, we have an open jaw ticket OKC to La Paz, Bolivia with a stopover in Miami (3 days) and then a return trip home Lima, Peru to OKC. This arrangement will work out very well for what we want to do on this trip.

- Sharon

You've gotten lots of great advice here! I'm not certain about your hesitation to post on the Europe section - everyone over there has always been very nice to me.

I'm in the midst of planning 3 weeks in Europe and was pulling my hair out within days of knowing I was going. It is just so daunting! I was actually on the verge of giving up entirely. Then my boyfriend sat me down and we had a chat. He was terrific and here was his advice:

Decide on whether you want to explore one country or whether you'd rather do the highlights of several cities. For our 3 week trip, our original thought was to limit our time to three destinations, with side trips. Then we talked about possible destinations we were both interested in to see what we had in common.

We eventually decided to explore one country (Spain) and spend the entire time there. Now we need to concentrate on a mix of city and rural to balance things out.

In short, break this into small parts that are easily manageable. Get everyone's input, but realize you won't be able to do Europe in 2 weeks. And not everyone will be able to do all they want to do. Once everyone has provided input, figure out a rough (very rough!) itinerary and throw it out for suggestions. From there, fine tune it and tweak it until you finally arrive at something everyone is happy with.

Also, begin looking into things you need to be concerned about now, such as passports. As far as tours? I would avoid them, but certain look over their itineraries to get an idea of what might be interesting. A travel agent is iffy. They can sometimes find you good fares, but my last experience with a travel agent left me cold to them. I think you can do most of this on your own, providing you are willing to give some time to it.

Enjoy the planning! For me, it's the next best thing to actually being there!

The best website for transatlantic flights is www.travelocity.com. They let you specify a time window during which you'd consider travelling and trawl through lots of airlines to find the best prices.

For travelling between European cities, check out www.whichbudget.com. It'll point you in the right direction for lowest priced flights. Generally speaking, if you book a few months in advance, you can get between most major cities for <$100 (and sometimes <$50). Usually, you'll find that flying is cheaper than the train these days. I recommend Amsterdam, Prague, Rome and Barcelona. These are all brilliant cities for siteseeing and a good time. I live in northern England and whenever I go for a weekend away, it's never London. Sure, there's a lot to see but the place is a huge sprawling mess. And it is very expensive. It is worth a visit but I wouldn't spend more than 3 days there.

As for the English countryside several people have mentioned, yeah, it is nice but you'd be better of spending your time seeing other countries. Looking at green fields full of cows and sheep will get boring very quickly for teenagers! If you would like some English culture then have a look at Stratford (Shakespeare's stomping ground - very nice - full of American tourists!).

If you can avoid it, don't travel in late July or August as everywhere will be stupid busy - we all go on our hols then.

One more thing, if you're in Europe the one thing you should definitely do without fail is take your kids to a soccer game. The atmosphere is something else.

Sharon - I agree airline pricing is a rip-off but what can we do.....? Doing a stop over is a good idea.
I did some a quick check on Expedia concerning Open Jaw vs RT based on a two week trip going to London and Paris.

Looking at LAX to London RT, the fare for June/July is $931. It was actually cheaper for the open jaw, LAX to London, Paris to LAX was $923. Plus you only have to pay one way from London to Paris either on the Eurostar or a low cost airlines.

Looking at a different itinerary, the price from LAX to Paris returning Rome to LAX had a price difference of only $30, $1044 vs $1075.

I realize that you may be able to get a great fare if say British Airways is offering a sale and in that case then grab the tickets

For some reason, long threads aren't being uploaded today. Lord, I wish Fodors/Random House/Bertelsmann would pop for ezboards...

Thus former long post is now two or more longish posts.
-----

I will throw in a couple of random thoughts although you've gotten plenty of sound advice so far.

First, money. The USD is at an all-time low v. the Euro, and is closing in on the £1 = $2 milestone rather quickly. Especially in the UK, travel on USD budgets is getting way pricey. It might change by next summer (better or worse - pick your "expert") but with four traveling, I'd look for opportunities to reduce costs without reducing the quality of your experience.

Part 2

So, how?

1. Lease a car and skip the trains and planes. Go to www.renaultusa.com or www.autoeurope.com and look for their "buyback" schemes. Note these typically pencil out for rentals of longer than 2 weeks, but very importantly they include all insurance and allow their cars into some countries (mainly E. Europe) that others will not permit, or will charge an extra fee. For four persons, rental car is the only way to go, given the price of train tickets, taxis to and from stations, etc.

2. Stay on the edge. Don't stay in central Paris or London or wherever. If you want to spend time in big cities, look for small towns or villages on the outskirts or in the countryside nearby, but with good commuter train connections to/from the center, then day trip in and out. The hotel/b&b costs will be much lower, you can park the car for nothing or cheap (as opposed to major scratch and suffering in the central locations) and when it's time to leave you don't have to fight the traffic. Plus you'll probably get a better picture of everyday life in these places than you would surrounded by other tourists in the center of things.

Part 3

3. Stay put. Too many 2- or 3-week holidays in Europe turn into forced marches, unnecessarily. Europe is not exactly going away tomorrow, there are no plans to turn the Duomo into a K-Mart, so relax and go "deep" rather than "wide." Pick some place that has access to a great city, pretty countryside, nice drives, maybe some water feature, and camp for the whole time, using the car to explore the world, just as you would at home. Obviously some areas lend themselves better to this than others, but there are a bazillion good areas. Plus you might look at so-called "villa rentals" or self-catering solutions, too - way less expensive, and having to go to the shops or market will really help you get a feel of a place. Again, use Fodors or google some web references yourself. Try www.vrbo.com for a start. If your house in the US is in a desirable tourist location, also think about house exchange for a bargain adventure - see www.homelink.org for an intro.

4. Combine travel with other passions. Pick a place where there are goings-on that are compatible with interests your family might also have. Golf, fine. Drama/music/cinema/sports/theatre/art...? How about big agricultural shows like in Dublin, or the Highland Show in Edinburgh? Check out www.whatsonwhen.com for numerous leads.

5. Use the resources of these boards and other boards. Too many Fodorites post on Travel Talk but never seem to investigate the rest of the site. Pity, because there is a lot of good information buried here. Same goes for the other travel websites, who shall remain nameless here ;) but you know who they are.

6. Finally, don't sweat it. Millions of American families go on holiday to Europe or vice versa every year, and most come back better for the experience and eager to go again. Piece of gateau.

<How do I book a Paris hotel?>

First you of course need to choose one. For that, get a map of Paris so you can compare locations, read recommendations and favorite picks on the Fodors Europe branch by doing a search 'Paris hotels', look at individual hotel websites which many of the posters include, cross-check in your guidebook(s), visit tripadvisor.com to read review (you don't have to do *all* these things, but this includes any method I can think of).

One you have it narrowed down to a couple choices you can book thru a general booking website or contact the hotel front desk directly by phone, fax, or email. Confirm rates, room types, and check availability for the dates you want.

Voila!