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.
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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!