Need Some Advice on Planning for an Euro Trip

• 

  altomic on 25/03/2017 - 15:03

  +6

  book everything yourself..

  if I was going to Europe again (I've lived in england 3 times - travelled europe many times - took my 3 young kids there 2.5 years ago for 4 weeks) I'd start with booking my flights first.
  then once you know when you arrive and depart and how much time you have, then start making serious plans.

  flights - adult flights have been as low as $900 from sydney. - check sky scanner.
  airbnb - just book a studio apartment in each place (spend a few days in each place - don't try to cram as much as possible in the shortest time.)

  rome2rio.com is an awesome way to check out the various options of travelling from A to B.

  a 3.5 year old.kids get exhausted whilst travelling. don't forget to do stuff for for your kid (i.e. local playground and let him/her play with other kids - and you can watch and relax.

  airbnb allows you to cook at home some nights/have a kitchen. and having washing facilities (unlike hotels).

  what I did on my last trip (I think it worked well).
  Melb —> abu dhabi (3 nights there)
  flew into paris (had 4 night there in an old roof top apartment),
  caught euro start to London and had 3 days there.
  back to paris and picked up rental car (paid about $30 a day)
  to Cologne (just overnight)
  to prague (2 nights)
  to Vienna (3 nights)
  to St Anton (ski village - stayed with friends)
  down to Venice - 2 nights
  over to Nice - 1 night (not much there)
  barcelona 6 nights.
  back to Paris and flew to singapore (2 nights)

  and only take one suitcase. minimalism.

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 15:25

    Thanks a lot altomic. Great advice

  • 

    sparkles on 25/03/2017 - 20:11

    +2

    Definitely recommend Eurostar from Paris to London or vice versa. It saves loads of time travelling to and from and sitting in airports.

  • 

    peterpeterpumpkin on 26/03/2017 - 10:53

    I wonder what the same-day or short-notice (say 1 week or less) cancellation rates are for airbnb and how it compares to the equivalent hotel industry per locality. My airbnb cancellation made me spend more on accommodation than I would have had I just booked the hotel in advance to begin with. Having made 100s of hotel/hostel bookings in the past, in the rare situation that a double-booking has been made they have always found a replacement or upgrade at no extra cost.

    But I have friends that have had no issues so maybe it's just my bad luck (or my face). I promised myself I would never use airbnb in high season in an expensive city unless no other budget options were available (and the pavement was warm that time of year…).

• 

  captobvious on 25/03/2017 - 15:26

  +1

  Leave france till last. Tell your 3.5yr old to be good until disney land.

• 

  mskeggs on 25/03/2017 - 15:34

  +6

  You could easily spend a month in any one of those countries with no danger of being bored or running out of things to see. Some of my favourite hols were a couple of weeks spent in the countryside of France, and a similar trip in Italy. And the cities have lots more to see and do, obviously.
  I second the recommendation for self contained accommodation.
  Train travel in Europe is very nice. Check out Seat61 for all the details.
  I don't really like tours. You can easily go to the main sites yourself, and it is never hard to find things to eat etc. I like to do some relaxing as well as rushing about.
  My tip is to get a guidebook or even travel brochures showing all the famous sights, and make a plan of what you want to see in each place, and prioritise this. That way you can work out a useful itinerary.
  Add a day of doing not much every 5 days or so to allow some rest and to fit in extra things to see you discover when you get there.
  Travelling with a kid slows you down a bit, but has the bonus that will be warmly welcomed everywhere.

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 16:52

    Thanks mskeggs.. Looks like a lot of homework to be done :)

• 

  Baysew on 25/03/2017 - 15:39

  +2

  Citibank Plus (Answer to unasked question)

  • 

    bluesky on 25/03/2017 - 16:25

    Good one :-). Although this recent thread suggests teething problems with the changeover to Mastercard. Hope this does not similarly affect the no-foreign fees ATM withdrawal, or if it does, that the teething problems are quickly sorted out.

• 

  AdosHouse on 25/03/2017 - 17:13

  +1

  You could spend WAY less than $17k for that trip.

  For comparison, I and a friend are flying Emirates to Greece, 3 nights, Lufthansa to Munich, 4 night, Lufthansa to Dubrovnik, 4 night, bus to Split, 4 nights, Germanwings to Barcelona, 4 nights, KLM to Amsterdam, 4 nights, KLM to Moscow, 4 nights, Emirates to Dubai, 3 nights, Emirates to Singapore, 1 night, Emirates back to Bribane, all this for $12k. That's just over 1 months.

  If I was you, Fly to UK, its pretty cheap. Train to Paris, can fly if you want. Bus to save money, or can fly to Switzerland. Then again bus or fly to Italy, depends where you want to go. I personally have been to Florence, Rome and Venice, and can definitely recommend. Then fly to Berlin, if thats where you are going in Germany. Amazing country BTW.

  Handy hints that I discovered booking my holiday, spending literally 100's of hours researching stuff.

  • You can fly into one country and fly out of another on the 1 ticket.

  • Try and combine flights onto 1 ticket on 1 airline to save heaps of money. Eg, (purely made up) Heathrow to Paris might be $200, and Paris to Bern might be $200, but by putting them on a multi-stop ticket, it could be $300.

  • You can save heaps of money on hotels if you compromise a tiny bit. Instead of staying in the heart of the city where hotels are expensive. Save a bit of money and usually get a better class of hotel and stay 1 or 2 train stops from the city. Trains are bloody efficient in most of Europe, and by simply spending 5 minutes on a train you can save hundreds of dollars. Just find hotels close to train stations.

  • Booking earlier is obviously cheaper but you can save money other ways too. Look for discount codes and compare multiple websites. FOr example I looked at Bookings.com, Expedia.com, HotelCombined.com, etc, but I booked through Expedia because the prices were very close and I got a 12% off code through Ozbargain here for using Mastercard. Also I save about $300 on my Emirates flights by getting a $60 membership to the "Entertainment Book".

  • Use skyscanner as a fare finder, especially to get those combined flights I mentioned in point 2, its a quick and easy website. But once you find the flights, book through the airline direct. This can save you a lot of heartache and problems down the road. If a airfare seems too good to be true on Skyscanner, it probably is. Also research the good airlines. I highly recommend KLM and Lufthansa. Used them both, would 100% use them again.

  If I think of more I'll update.

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 19:00

    Thanks a lot for spending the time for a detailed advice. Much appreciated.

    Got a lot out of it :)

    • 

      moar bargains on 26/03/2017 - 17:55

      Price comes down to how much you're willing to do for yourself. My wife and I spent 7 weeks in Europe for $11k incl flights. You could do 3 weeks for half what they quoted.

      Absolutely agree with with Ados,' comment too. Especially about public transport. The only place we hired a car was country Scotland, the rest of the time we got around easily on PT. Obviously a toddler makes that a little trickier, but certainly doable.

  • 

    kiitos on 27/03/2017 - 22:41

    @AdosHouse, your trip is cheap, but you're also travelling almost exclusively to countries where food, accom, transport, etc is relatively cheap. Compared to OP, who is looking at some of the more expensive European countries.

    Not saying OP's $17 quote is cheap, though. We spent around that much (albeit 5 years ago, and I think not including airfares) on nearly 7 weeks for a family of four in Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Barcelona, including a week skiing and plenty of expensive Finnish snow tours.

    • 

      AdosHouse on 28/03/2017 - 04:33

      Last year did Cathay Pacific to London, 3 nights in UK, Top Deck tour from London-Paris-Switzerland-Florence-Rome-Venice-Austria-Prague, got off and then own our own again, fly Lufthansa with 3 nights Berlin, fly Lufthansa with 3 nights Amsterdam, fly KLM with 3 nights Budapest, KLM back for an overnight stay back in Amsterdam, Cathay Pacific back to Hong Kong, where we stayed 3 nights, then Cathay Pacific back to Brisbane. That still only cost $6k each.

      Cheap is doable if you put in the hard yards in research.

• 

  bluesky on 25/03/2017 - 17:29

  +1

  I have done both self-planned, as well as package tours to Europe, and can say that both have their merits depending on your circumstances. And the package tour cost that you mentioned does not seem excessive for 2 adults and 1 child, covering those countries for that time-frame.

  Back when I was very time-poor, and did not have time to do much planning, I went on a guided tour in Europe for 16 days covering a number of countries. It was really good because every detail was taken care of, I just had to get up in the morning, even breakfasts were arranged, and all set to enjoy the sights. Very good if you do not have much time to plan, limited amount of days off work. I enjoyed it just as much as subsequent self-planned tours - it was like a highlights tour, providing overview, so one can note the places of interest and return next time, at a more leisurely pace.

  So, if you happen to be in the time-poor category, do not feel dissuaded by package tours, as self-planned tours do involve more time, and may not be as efficient, especially if you have limited time-off work.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 25/03/2017 - 19:33

    +1

    Yea there is so much to decide and so many things to do.

    What we did was macro-plan the cities we wanted to go as well as the things that we definitely had to see. Beyond that we factored in some flexible time for us to decide what to do when we get there. So we ended up doing the research during the free time at night couple of days in advance. Easier to factor in the energy and motivation level also. You might be super excited planning right now but at day 18 of the trip you just might be sick of moving around but you spent $150 on that ticket already. (As an example).

    • 

      bluesky on 26/03/2017 - 04:56

      +1

      Not a bad strategy at all. High-level aims are met, yet leaving some room for the unplanned adventures. As many have said, the unplanned or spontaneous parts could in fact be the most memorable ones, offering up unexpected surprises.

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 27/03/2017 - 11:37

        A good thing to keep in mind is that you can never see everything as well! So even if number 1 cannot be met just relax and enjoy number 2!

• 

  try2bhelpful on 25/03/2017 - 18:27

  I've been to UK, Switzerland, Italy and France. We are a couple without kids. You should be fine as long as you take a stroller and make sure the kid is entertained whilst you are standing in the, many, queues you are likely to find when going to more popular attractions and whilst you are looking at the galleries and museums.

  Highlights for us:
  a) Paris - so many things to do and see. If you get the Carte D'Musee then you don't need to queue for tickets, but you will still need to queue for the metal detectors. The stroll from the Louvre to the Arc D'Triomphe has some lovely gardens and sights. Public Transport is very good in Paris and it is also worth getting on the boats on the Seine as they drop you off at a number of attractions on the way and the kid might like the travel on the boat. We love doing the walk from the Pantheon to the Moyen Age Museum and then to Notredame. It is also worth going to the top of the Arc D'Triomphe just to see how tangled the traffic gets around it. There is/was a lift but you might want to confirm beforehand - it might be a bit strenuos to carry the kid up otherwise. Versailles is great and you stroll around the gardens with the child.

  b) Italy - chaotic, dusty Rome has so many attractions, Florence - one of my favourite cities, the Cinque Terra - lovely fishing villages with walking paths, and also a boat that travels between them so you can see them from the water as well. Sienna - a medieval walled city that you can walk around and look at the buildings. Lake Como - lots of lovely villages to explore and travelling the ferries between them. Very relaxing after the chaos of other places we visited.

  c) Switzerland is the most beautiful country I've seen. We have stayed in Interlakken - which is the gateway to the moutains and short trip railway journeys and Luzerne with Mt Pilatus. We did the trip to Schilthorn from Interlakken and you will love this. You can go to Trammelback falls and see a waterfalls inside a mountain and then the glass gondalas going up through the villages to get to the top of Schilthorn.

  d) For the UK we have only been to London so far and there are a lot of museums worth going to, including the Victoria and Albert which is full of the most wonderful kitsch I have seen. For one of our future trips we want to go the Lakes District and Oxford/Cambridge.

  I would heavily research everywhere you want to go and understand the public transport systems and how you would get around with a toddler. He/she not going to be interested in a lot of what you want to see so make sure they have entertainment and plenty of rest breaks. You will find a lot of cafes, bakery places, etc so feeding will not be an issue.

  Try to explore a bit further from where an attraction is to find food, the closer you are the more the places tend to charge. Again, online will probably help here with suggestions. Make sure there is a menu out the front so you know what they have and what they charge. It is also very handy to have a currency calculator app so you can get an idea on what this translates to in Australian dollars.

  We find the best time to go to Europe is September/October - the weather is pretty good and August tends to be when Europe takes its own vacations.

  The first time we travelled to Europe we used first class rail tickets to get around betwen major cities - probably not the cheapest travel but it was very nice to travel in quiet spacious carriages, instead of the noise and crowds of "economony" travel. We took our own food onboard and had a little picnic. Double check departure times for travel and give yourselves plenty of time to get to the station - stuff happens and you don't want to be stresed with the kid in tow.

  Take an enormous amount of photos. The kid will probably be too young to remember but he/she will look at this in years to come and "remember" from the pictures.

  Have a great time and the rest of us are envious.

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 22:19

    Thanks a lot for the detailed info.

    I am planning for Sept/Oct. Good to know it is a good time to travel.

• 

  [Deactivated] on 25/03/2017 - 19:24

  I did a trip fairly recently,

  UK
  Greece
  Germany
  Czech
  Netherlands

  over 4+ weeks with wife. Booked everything ourselves. Airfare was about 7k for two (6 flights in total, transiting through singapore), local travel was about 1k for two (car rental or train). Spent about 2.5k on accomodations (combination of aibnb and and some 100+/night hotels). Thats 10.5k there, can spend the rest of your money on attraction tickets and you'll probably end up with 3k to spare. Budget about a 100 per attraction (should be a generous budget). There is a possibility to save more if you do 100% airbnb

  Which brings me to the next item on the list. I can't remember exactly how much we spent on incidentals. Food will be a major part. At least 50EU per day for a family of 3 I reckon, sometimes you'd want to splurge. Can't avoid that. You might want to bring back some souvenirs as well. All in all I think we spent about 16-17k in total and we tried to save where we could, taking a bus or walking but its a holiday in the end eh.

  I found that within the major cities, other than cultural monuments. It'd be chock full or tourists and 2/3 shops will be those generic gaudy tourist trap shops, fridge magnet stands outside, overpriced water and only provides tours and stuff like that. I didn't enjoy those areas very much (other than the cultural stuff).

  Plenty of castles to see everywhere. For the UK you might want to consider getting a english heritage overseas visotors pass if you are spending a long time in that country. The stonehenge is one of the included attractions https://www.visitbritainshop.com/australia/english-heritage-… Pretty sure that there are others in each city you're at and it may include public transport. We did not spend enough time in each city to warrant purchasing those passes.

  A lot of times we drove or cycled (might not be an option with a baby but europe is extremely cycle friendly) out of the city a lot. Trying to live or experience stuff like the locals. Food is mostly good, we just went with tripadvisor. From what I tried, their steak is nothing like Australian so don't waste your time and money.

  Germany was overrated. We liked czech and the UK a lot. I haven't been to the other countries on your list but I'd imagine that I would adjust my expectations as well. I did hear that Rome was amazing from some of the people I met there. I would probably look at doing switzerland, austria and italy the next time I went back.

  We spent about 2-5 days in each city. It was quite tiring near the end and moving between cities sometimes took up an entire day so there was not much that we could do on some days. Other days we were just too tired from walking and trying to see everything we wanted to see. So you'd probably feel like making the most out of your trip but I think you can make it a bit more relaxing and just include some down time or slow days as you've got a kid as well. If we were to do something like this again we would give ourselves at least 5 days in a decent sized city (like berlin) and maybe 6 to 7 days for a place like london and its surrounds. The flights+transferring luggages and trying to see as many museums as possible made as quite weary in the end and we were very relieved to be back home.

  We definitely enjoyed our trip if there was one thing we could change, it would be that.

  Some tips that we learnt the hard way
  1) Bring extra memory cards (lost some pictures when we didn't realize they were getting overwritten)
  2) Put your xiaomi powerbank to good use
  3) Get a travel insurance that includes a generous car-rental coverage. We found that cheap rentals have very high excess and driving on the right it scary enough as it is
  4) Research a good prepaid data plan (you'll need the data to be independent). Found that the vodafone has good intra-europe roaming but you'd need to get a different one in the UK.
  5) Don't overpack. We thought it would be cold, but only the UK was chilly and that felt like an average QLD winter day/night. Very annoying lugging that suitcase around half full of nonsense that we did not use.
  6) Yes PREBOOK your attraction tickets as soon as you are certain. Not necessarily months in advance, but some attractions are super popular so check it out. Others have no capacity limit but you skip the queue if you've booked and paid online.
  Might add another comment if I remember something that I wanted to share. Edit: feel free to ask me anything specific.

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 22:17

    Thanks a lot lolbbq.

    A couple of questions:

    How is driving over there in the Europe?

    I am planning for Sept/Oct? Is it a good time to travel?

    • 

      try2bhelpful on 25/03/2017 - 23:21

      +1

      The man drove in Europe. The major cities were a bit scary but when you are driving between cities it isn't so bad. If you plan to drive in France I would pick a car up in from Versalles rather than Paris and look for something similar with Rome. Althought the man did drive out of Rome it wasn't pleasant. Last time we went to Loire Valley, Limousin and Bordeaux then drove back to Paris. Depending on the cost of drop off - if you are doing something similar take the train back. It was just scary driving near Charles De Gaulle airport and navigating is difficult. Another trick is, if you have an early flight, stay at a hotel near the airport. They normally have shuttles so you don't need to worry about getting to the airport on time. The IBIS we stayed at last time was so close you could take the airport shuttle train to the correct airport terminal.

    • 

      [Deactivated] on 27/03/2017 - 11:39

      I drove in czech and uk. UK is almost identical to Australia. Awesome. London and surrounds is sucky, especially on the main axes to any of the 3 airports. Czech was scary, half the people were driving at 150kmph. I got used to driving at 130. You probably don't want to drive in the big cities as parking as a giant chore and most places are just street side.

      Sept/oct is a good time! Not too warm and not too cold.

• 

  FrenchFrie on 25/03/2017 - 20:41

  +1

  If you, your partner or your 3.5 yo kid read french : https://www.voyagespirates.fr
  Lots of deal within Europe, like short stay in cities or countries and such at a very good price. You don't have a lot of choice about the dates but maybe worth spending some time there to arrange a great trip ! Have fun over there

  • 

    everypenny on 25/03/2017 - 22:29

    Thanks FrenchFrie. The link looks to be useful

    • 

      Geoff-bargain on 26/03/2017 - 08:52

      the dutch have a similar one travelbird.nl use google translate

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  Geoff-bargain on 26/03/2017 - 08:57

  +1

  sept/oct is a fairly good time to go as there are less crowds. But just check and make sure everything is open that you want to see.

  as someone said booking ahead is a good idea for attractions.
  It might also be worth getting a guide book now and flicking through and see if there are things in there that interest you.

  i would try and prebook as much as possible - the best deals on places to stay will get booked up a fair bit in advance

  what did the 17k quote include?

  ive always booked everything myself but a tour might be good too depending if it checks what you want to see

  • 

    everypenny on 26/03/2017 - 21:06

    Hi Geoff,

    The quote included flight, accommodation, travel, airport transfers, tours

• 

  WT on 26/03/2017 - 14:03

  Dont kiss your sister no matter how drunk you get

• 

  jjjaar on 28/03/2017 - 08:32

  +1

  The advice here has been amazing but I just want to add that in September / October, Munich is celebrating Oktoberfest. It truly is an amazing experience and if you have the chance, try and go. It's very family friendly, children are everywhere all dressed up, it's far too adorable. Rides and food stalls galore. And the beer halls until about 12pm on weekends and 2-4pm on weekdays are very calm and definitely fine for kids. (After that it gets a bit messy). The food in the beer halls is amazing too.

  • 

    everypenny on 29/03/2017 - 22:57

    +1

    thanks jjjaar. Good to know

• 

  everypenny on 29/03/2017 - 22:58

  Thanks everyone for the great advice.

  I know a lot more now and can do some research and plan the trip myself.

  Ozbargain rocks!