I'm a student looking to travel, likely solo, in the summer of 2011 for 4 months. Looking for advice on places to visit, and the order in which to visit them.
My plan is to fly from Canada to Dubai to visit family for a week or so, then fly to Europe, then trek through a few countries before getting to the UK where I plan to visit friends and fly home from. I plan to get a Eurail Global Pass (2 or 3 month pass) once I arrive in a participating country, and a Britrail Pass (15 day pass) once in the UK. I will stay in hostels as much as possible, so feel free to recommend any! I'll run through a pretty rough itinerary, the hardest part is figuring out what order to visit places, the list is a first thought of the order I'd go in, with a approximate number of days I'd spend in each place . Here goes:
Dubai (7)
Rome (1)
Venice (1)
Florence (1)
Pisa (1)
Cinque Terre (3)
Genoa (1)
Nice (1)
Marseille (1)
Barcelona (3)
Madrid (2)
Lisbon (2)
Bordeaux (1)
Paris (4)
Versailles (1)
Bern (1)
Interlaken (1)
Lauterbrunnen (1)
Zurich (3)
Innsbruck (1)
Graz (2)
Budapest (3)
Vienna (3)
Bratislava (2)
Brno (1)
Krakow (1)
Auschwitz (1)
Warsaw (2)
Wroclaw (1)
Prague (4)
Regensburg (1)
Munich (2)
Nuremberg (2)
Leipzig (1)
Berlin (4)
Hamburg (1)
Bremen (1)
Amsterdam (4)
Rotterdam (1)
Cologne (2)
Frankfurt (3)
Luxembourg (2)
Brussels (3)
Dieppe (1)
Vimy Ridge (1)
London (5)
Stonehenge (1)
Bath (2)
Cambridge (2)
York (1)
Edinburgh (3)
Belfast (2)
Dublin (3)
Flight Home
Okay so that adds up to around 105 days, which gives me a bit under 2 weeks to work with, I'm guessing those will be the travel days, although I hope I don't have to spend entire days travelling as everything seems relatively close. Is this route completely inefficient? I was thinking of the weather and heading north as it gets hotter. Am I missing anything really important, or spending too much time in one place and not enough in another? I am open to suggestion. Any idea what an average price per day would be, excluding travel costs.
Reply to this
I would probably spend longer in Bern than Zurich. Bern, as you know is the capital and has so much to offer. I am going there in a week or so and have all the tourist info.
What I would suggest (as we are travelling round Europe too) is to go online and get the tourist boards to send you information. Many have been so helpful. Also check out Google Eart. This is where I planned my entire trip. You can view road layouts, zoom in to get a good 3D view and also view members photos of the areas.
Reply to this Thanks for the info. Any suggestions on where it is best to see/visit the Alps in Switzerland? I had read that Lauterbrunnen is near Schilthorn which I hear is incredible. Do you know if it is possible to see the rail layouts on Google Earth?
Reply to this I noticed above that you are only spending one night in some places. Rome, Florence... are big cities. If you have been to them before and already know your way around you might enjoy hopping in and out like that. If you dont know those cities at all I would recommend you spend longer in each even if you have to take some some places off your itinery to do so.
Mel
Reply to this I have been to Rome before, and saw many of the sights. I did not realize Florence was that big of a city, I just ordered a few brochures to get an idea of what to see and do in each place, but I'll definitely make some room to spend more time in Florence, thanks! Do you recommend buying any particular books for travelling in Europe, like Lonely Planet or Frommer's?
Reply to this Well I have revised my itinerary a bit, any comments/suggestions would be great! Instead of writing it out day by day I'll just name the places in the order I'll visit them, and the number of nights in each place in brackets.
Dubai (7)
Venice (3)
Florence (4)
Pisa (1)
Cinque Terre (4)
Genova (2)
Barcelona (3)
Madrid (4)
Lisbon (4)
Paris (7) -> Daytrips to Versailles and Dieppe
Bern (4)
Interlaken (2)
Lauterbrunnen (2) -> Daytrip to Schilthorn
Zurich (3)
Munich (3)
Budapest (6)
Vienna (6)
Prague (6)
Berlin (6)
Amsterdam (5)
Cologne (2)
Luxembourg (4)
Brussels (4)
Arras (2) -> Daytrip to Vimy Ridge
London (6)
Bath (2)
Salisbury (2) -> Daytrip to Stonehenge
Oxford/Cambridge (2)
Leeds/York (2)
Edinburgh (3)
Belfast (3)
Dublin (4)
Does this seem better? I decided to remove Poland as it is not covered in the Eurail pass, and I hope to take a trip covering Eastern Europe later in life.
Reply to this Sounds pretty good, but you are missing the best city in Europe.....St.Petersburg.
Reply to this I just returned from Budapest and Vienna.
3 days is more than enough for Budapest and about 4 for Vienna. IMO.
Have fun!
Reply to this Do you recommend buying any particular books for travelling in Europe, like Lonely Planet or Frommer's?
I usually take a copy of the Lonely Planet when I travel. It has good general information for backpackers. There is one book which covers all of Europe. It might be called Europe on a Shoestring by Lonely Planet.
Reply to this Thanks for the info about Vienna and Budapest. Any ideas on how much a trip like this would cost? I am thinking $2000 on airfare, $2000 on rail passes, around $125/day on lodging, food, and incidentals. That puts me near $20k or 13k euros. Is this realistic? Price will of course go up over the next 3 years, but in todays costs is this possible? I don't want to spend the bare minimum on everything, I want to have a comfortable trip, so would $25k be more realistic?
Reply to this I went for 3 weeks, during high season and tried to do everything relatively cheap, still comfortable. Buses, no taxis unless necessary, museums, historical sight fees, eating out every 2 days, cooking the rest of my meals.
I brought $500 (not including hotels and airfare) and blew through it. Bring as much as you can and a credit card in case of emergency. :p
Reply to this 
