XP: Planning first trip to Europe

[agnes]

I figured it couldn't hurt to post here too!

Original thread on MM: pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=mm&action=display&thread=70039

H and I are planning on going to Europe for about 2 weeks this summer. This will be our first time in Europe. Our budget is 10k. The only set plan we have is the Speedway Grand Prix in Cardiff on June 1st.

The only other thing H wants to see is the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

I however want to see EVERYTHING. So, it's hard to narrow down where to go. The most narrow I can get is that I want to go to Paris.

So, I guess it would be UK, Germany, France. Do you think we could add another country in there or would that be pushing it? H has a couple of friends in Greenland and Denmark.

I love doing touristy stuff. I'm cool with rushing. H...Not so much. I don't think he will appreciate being rushed everywhere to see a little taste of everything.

Do you have any must see places in those 3 countries? What has been your favorite sight to see/place to go?

I know you guys are always recommending Rick Steve's books. I will def check those out.

Honestly, I'm not all that interested in Greenland. It looks beautiful but effing cold in all of the friend's photos.

I was also thinking that instead of going to the Cardiff Grand Prix, we could go to the Copenhagen Grand Prix on the 29th and that would be the end of the trip (H has to be back to work by July 3rd). But the price in flights are a bit more.

Oh that reminds me of another question...What airlines have you used and which ones do you prefer?

[GilliC]

Greenland is actually near the top of my travel list, but it really doesn't make sense to visit on a trip to Europe. Most likely, you'd need to fly to Copenhagen and then back to Kangerlussuaq, so you'd be spending a lot of travel time flying back and forth across the north Atlantic. Especially for a 2-week trip.

The UK, Germany, and France are all pretty big countries. Are you just thinking of Cardiff, Stuttgart, and Paris, or were you planning to visit other cities as well? I generally find that trips around Europe are easier to plan in terms of cities/areas rather than countries. For example, you might want to spend 2 days in one city and 4 in another, but you could spend an entire two weeks exploring different parts of Germany, so it really depends on how many specific places you want to visit.

As for airlines, I find that for the most part I agree with the Skytrax ratings. I like most of the 4-stars: www.airlinequality.com/StarRanking/4star.htm. For Europe, I think my favorite is Swiss, followed by Lufthansa (though their ground staff tends to be very serious bordering on curt). I also really like British Airways and Air France most of the time. I'm not as big a fan of Finnair, but I've only flown one of their older planes to India.

[hz80408]

We just did out first trip to Europe in Spring. Like Gilli said; it doesn't make much sense to do Greenland at the same time as Europe. I'd recommend a separate trip for that.

In 18 days time we flew from O'Hare to Amsterdam, spent 3 nights in Amsterdam. Train to Paris, 4 nights in Paris, flew to Barcelona, 4 nights in Barcelona, flew to London, 5 nights in a town outside of London with day trips into London and surrounding cities. Flew from London to O'Hare

My recommendations would be:
-Train travel btwn countries when possible. It's cheaper, VERY easy and convenient. It can also end up taking the same or less amount of time as flying when you consider check-in and customs time added to flights.
-Consider an open-jaw/multi-city flight. It was cheaper for us to fly into AMS and out of LHR than to fly r/t with one of the airports and to buy a one-way flight once in Europe to get back to the arrival airport; plus we saved at least half a day of travel

Our trip was a whirlwind and jam packed. However, we anticipated that and truly didn't mind it. Having a full 3 days/4 nights in most cities gave us enough time to cover the sites and experiences we wanted without feeling too rushed. It was only looking back that we realized how much we really did in a short time period.

Does your 2 wks include travel time to/from Europe? With 2 weeks time, if you want to visit more than one country, I'd recommend considering 3 major cities, if you want to hit "hot spots"/major cities. Consider flying into Germany and then working your way east with your flight back to the US from London.

[agnes]

Oct 9, 2012 6:05:21 GMT -5 GilliC said:

The UK, Germany, and France are all pretty big countries. Are you just thinking of Cardiff, Stuttgart, and Paris, or were you planning to visit other cities as well? I generally find that trips around Europe are easier to plan in terms of cities/areas rather than countries. For example, you might want to spend 2 days in one city and 4 in another, but you could spend an entire two weeks exploring different parts of Germany, so it really depends on how many specific places you want to visit.

From the looks of it, we'll be flying into London, so we will definitely spend a couple days there at least. But those are the specific places we want to visit. This is about as far as we have planned. Do you have any suggestions on other cities to visit in those areas?

[agnes]

Oct 9, 2012 9:16:16 GMT -5 hz80408 said:

We just did out first trip to Europe in Spring. Like Gilli said; it doesn't make much sense to do Greenland at the same time as Europe. I'd recommend a separate trip for that.

In 18 days time we flew from O'Hare to Amsterdam, spent 3 nights in Amsterdam. Train to Paris, 4 nights in Paris, flew to Barcelona, 4 nights in Barcelona, flew to London, 5 nights in a town outside of London with day trips into London and surrounding cities. Flew from London to O'Hare

My recommendations would be:
-Train travel btwn countries when possible. It's cheaper, VERY easy and convenient. It can also end up taking the same or less amount of time as flying when you consider check-in and customs time added to flights.
-Consider an open-jaw/multi-city flight. It was cheaper for us to fly into AMS and out of LHR than to fly r/t with one of the airports and to buy a one-way flight once in Europe to get back to the arrival airport; plus we saved at least half a day of travel

Our trip was a whirlwind and jam packed. However, we anticipated that and truly didn't mind it. Having a full 3 days/4 nights in most cities gave us enough time to cover the sites and experiences we wanted without feeling too rushed. It was only looking back that we realized how much we really did in a short time period.

Does your 2 wks include travel time to/from Europe? With 2 weeks time, if you want to visit more than one country, I'd recommend considering 3 major cities, if you want to hit "hot spots"/major cities. Consider flying into Germany and then working your way east with your flight back to the US from London.

This is very helpful seeing your stops and how long you spent.

I just figured out how to search multi-city flights. lol I am so behind the curve when it comes to traveling.

Our 2 weeks will include travel time, but it doesn't have to be exactly 2 weeks. The only things we have to think about are that H has be back at work by the July 3rd and he either wants to see the Speedway GP on June 1st in Cardiff or June 29th in Copenhaagen. I think he has a friend racing in the Cardiff GP.

[GilliC]

Maybe a stop in Strasbourg or a few days along the German wine route while you're traveling between Paris and Stuttgart? If you want to travel a bit farther or visit another city, it would probably be an easy trip on to Munich. Around Cardiff, you might consider Bath or the Cotswolds.

[anasara]

Jealous of the Greenland idea! We stopped in Iceland on our way to France this year & had an awesome time. I saw lots of adverts for Greenland flights while there. Maybe something to think about in the future?

[marytini]

We recently spent 2 weeks (12 days actually) in Europe, visiting Amsterdam, London and Paris. We spent 4 days in each city. I personally would not do anymore than 3 cities/areas in that amount of time.
When I originally started planning our trip, we were going to go to London, Amsterdam and SW Germany, including the Stuttgart area. After looking at logistics, I just felt that was spreading ourselves too thin, so I cut out Germany and added Paris. I figured we would someday hit up that area of Germany, along with Switzerland and maybe northen Italy.
So if you do go there, I will be super envious
Like PP said, I recommend flying into one city and out of another so you won't have to backtrack and lose time. For our recent trip, we flew in to A'dam, spent 3 nights, took overnight ferry to London, spent 4 nights, train to Paris, spent 4 nights, and flew home from there.
As for budget, I think yours is definately doable. We spent roughly $7000 for our whole trip, flights, trains, hotel/apts, sights, food, spending cash etc.

[hz80408]

I wanted to add that I think your budget is good too. For our 18 days, we spent roughly $8K (our flights were "cheap" at $1,800 totaly); although we did save on lodging for the 5 nights in UK by staying with my sister.

It'd be really cool to be able to see your friend race. Since both options are summer, I don't know that the flights would really change that much, but you many want to look at both options to see if there's a difference