Seven Tips for Connecting the Dots on Your European Adventure and Our Western European Whirlwind Itinerary

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I always knew I wanted to go on a whirlwind tour of Europe. I even had the chance in the summer of 2011. I was studying abroad in Barcelona and had an extra 12 days after classes ended before my flight home. But the summer had run my bank account dry, and I was missing someone very special. Fast forward a little while and that someone special became my husband. It then became a dream for us to do a whirlwind tour together. I wanted to show him where I lived in Barcelona, where I had managed to visit (Dublin) and experience a ton of new places with him. It was going to be a college graduation present for him, but life got the better of us. Three years delay isn't a long time, but it felt like an eternity. Spring of 2014 we scored some super cheap round-trip tickets to Copenhagen covering a span of two weeks in September. Finally a chance to make our dream a reality!

I sat on my hands for a couple of months before planning anything in regards to the trip, but as summer got into full swing so did my obsession with planning the perfect trip. I started with Rick Steve's books "Europe through the Back Door" and "Best of Europe 2014." They were great. I definitely recommend using the Best of Europe book for any tour in Europe. I have referred to that book so many times over the last two months is looks like it should be a 2000 edition. There are so many resources/opinions/ideas at our fingertips these days that the obsession can become quite overwhelming. I started to make a list of all of the things I wanted to see using the guidebook, prior knowledge, misc blogs and Pinterest (I would have made a list for my husband too, but the only thing he could come up with was the Eiffel Tower. It immediately became our number one must see for that reason.) Something key I learned early on is that many people can offer suggestions, but you have to make sure your plan works for you. Are you traveling to see big cities, experience a certain culture, relax or enjoy the great outdoors? Are you a fast-paced or slow-paced traveler? All of these things can determine the kind of trip you plan.

One of my struggles is the innate determination to see/experience everything humanly possible. I swear my first of countless itineraries had us seeing upwards of twenty countries in two weeks. To be honest there is such thing as overkill. Yes, I am a fast-paced traveler. No, I am not the Flash. I actually had to convince myself of the truth in that previous statement. (I am still not entirely convinced but the way my husband's eyes bulged out of his head when I read my first suggestion at least solidified that he is not the Flash!) I am mentioning this in case anyone else suffers from this same disease because the sooner you realize this (preferably before the first 50 wads of paper), the better. That being said I do believe that you can set a pace for yourself that may leave onlookers breathless, but will mostly satisfy your craving. I will follow up on this hypothesis after the trip. Anyways, my concession ending up being to plan a Western European trip (because more of my must sees were on that side of the continent) where we hit the highlights (not every destination on my travel Pinterest board) with the intention to have follow up trips for Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and a cruise of the Greek isles.

Having a list of what you want to see and actually having an itinerary are two very different things. Pinterest has hundreds of suggestions for logical orders for connecting the dots between your destinations. Eurail and other tour companies offer many suggestions. Even Rick Steve's book and website had several suggestions. My final itinerary looks nothing like any of them. Again its what works for you. Yes I really wanted to draw a logical circle that anyone who saw on their Pinterest feed would want to repin. Yes I really wanted to follow Rick Steve's advice about touring in order of cultural variance (a really neat philosophy about starting in countries more like your own and working towards the more culturally diverse countries to not overwhelm your senses right off and have to follow it up with a country that would leave your senses underwhelmed). Did it work out that way? Not quite. I think I beat my head against the wall the most on this. I wanted to create that perfect connect the dots map. But when it came down to it, it just wasn't happening. What I ended up doing was mapping out sixteen variations using ideas I had gathered. Then I calculated the transportation costs for each variation as well as grading them on how well they fit Steve's advice and my list of must sees (sadly not everything made the cut). Unless you an obsessive compulsive finance major like myself, this probably sounds like a nightmare, but I will share seven insights from the experience:

1. Start by getting a grip on what kind of trip you want and what you want to see/do. Try and think of an overarching theme to describe your vision. This theme will become the driver for all future trip planning. Our theme: Whirlwind Tour of the highlights of Western Europe. So when a beautiful picture of some off the wall cottage in Scotland pops up on your Pinterest feed, you can immediately repin it to your future travels board knowing that it doesn't fit the theme of your trip. If from my highlights tour, I determine that I really passionately like the British Isles, I will start to plan a subsequent trip and that cottage may find its place in that itinerary.

2. With that being said it is important to understand that sometimes a certain item on your list is just too oddballish to fit. I really really wanted to see Santorini on our trip. But the time/cost to get us to that Greek Isle so far from all of the other destinations couldn't justify it. This really fits into the first tip about fitting the theme, but it's such a struggle that it's a good reminder.

3. Start your connecting the dots stage by opening a browser for Ryan Air and Easy Jet. They have super cheap flights (like $25) all over the place which save time as well! They have route maps, which I used extensively to figure out the best cities to connect via air. Just click on a city you want to see and it'll automatically filter to the cities that fly there.

4. On that note, don't be afraid to jump around a little. Surprisingly the cheapest/shortest leg of our trip is between Paris and Venice via a Ryan Air flight.

5. While you are at it open a browser for City Line Night Line, which offers night routes between major destinations. Another provider of these handy routes is Thello. A night train can help you cover long distances and double as a hotel for the night. Don't let these routes inhibit your planning though. I got caught up for quite a while trying to make the whole trip work through night trains, but to be honest the flights ended up being a lot easier/cheaper.

6. Make sure you know when your must-sees are open before you start mapping everything out. A lot of major attractions can be closed on certain random weekdays and might throw a wrench in the most well thought out plan. I used the methodology above and came up with what I have since deemed perfect plan A only to realize it had us in Barcelona on a day when the Magic Fountain did not have a show. The Magic Fountain was my favorite thing in Barcelona and an absolute must to show my husband, so I had to rearrange everything to eventually come up with perfect plan B so that we could see it.

7. Know why you are going somewhere and exactly what you want to see. If you know this ahead of time, it'll help you better gauge how much time you need to allocate to a destination. For example we do not like art or museums in general. When I looked at suggestions for time spent in certain cities, a large chunk of that time was spent wandering exhibit halls. I was able to reallocate that time to other destinations that we wanted to fit in as well. Also, if you don't want to get too detailed beforehand, a simple morning, afternoon, evening, night spreadsheet can help estimate how much time each destination as well as travel time will consume.

Okay moving on to the fun part: our itinerary! Drum roll please.....

Day One: Dublin: A Night on the Town

Day Two: A Taste of Ireland

Day Three: London

Day Four: London

Day Five: Barcelona in a Day

Day Six: Exploring the French Riviera

Day Seven: Exploring the Italian Riviera

Day Eight: When in Rome…

Day Nine: Pompeii Day Trip

Day Ten: Venice

Day Eleven: Paris

Day Twelve: Paris

Day Thirteen: Biking the Loire Valley



Day Fourteen: Amsterdam




Okay I may have just lost some readers because they think I am crazy, but I think this itinerary works absolutely perfect for us! Here are a couple of reasons why it ended up the way it did. 1. Cheap flights from Copenhagen to Dublin, Dublin to London, London to Barcelona, and Venice to Paris. 2. Convenient trains to connect the dots around the Mediterranean coast as well as a strong desire to incorporate that into the trip 3. A night train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, which was the only affordable last leg to Copenhagen that I could find. 4. All week days worked with the destination's hours of operations.

I am quite pleased with the itinerary. Dare I say it could also make it's rounds on Pinterest to offer others inspiration? Maybe, maybe not, but again it is taking hundred puzzle pieces of constraints, desires, etc. and trying to make the best puzzle you can out of it.

I finished this overarching itinerary about midsummer, but my pride and joy came later when I took a deeper dive into the itinerary. Sure we had the basic idea of where we were going to be on what day, but what would we be doing and how would we ensure that we made all the connections we needed! The last half of my summer was spent on hashing out all of the details. I ended up developing what I dubbed "Daily Missions." If you don't think I am too crazy yet, stay tuned for another post to follow describing them in more detail. They were my favorite part of the whole planning process. In fact, I think I am suffering postpartum now that they are done, but we are still three weeks out from our trip.

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