Is it even worth it to go for 9-10 days? Help!

[loewfat]

I'm thinking of getting some buddies together and taking a trip to Europe, but we only want/can afford to do it for about 9-10 days. We want to hit Amsterdam, Stone Henge, and Rome for sure. We were thinking about flying into London and going from there. Is this even possible?

Im starting to plan this from ground zero, so if anyone has any suggestions at all for me, like where to find a route/pricing for al of this, that would be awesome. We are in our early to mid twenties and we want to go have a good time and party hard, but still see some big site seeing things as well. Any and all input will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[madamtrashheap]

Welcome loewfat!

Your "wish-list" is possible, as long as you do a bit of research on how to get where and what costs are involoved. If you stick with the London - Amsteram- Rome plan, it could look something like this:

London - 3 nights; this would involve 1 full day to do a trip to, say, Stonehenge and Bath, and one full day to sightsee the rest of London. The other time could be spend recovering from jetlag and doing a little exploring before travelling to Amsterdam. Note: if your flight gets in to London in the morning, it's often not possible to check into hotels/hostels until after 2pm, so don't count on resting straight away.

Amsterdam - 3 nights; there are cheap flights (EasyJet) to Amsterdam from London and this will maximise your time in both cities, rather than taking the train.

Rome - 3 nights; again this would be a flying thing. Check KLM, Alitalia, Condor. Herrbert may have a better suggestion for an airline. 3 nights (2 full days) in Rome will mean picking a few things keys you want to see/do as there is enought time to see a few things, but not enough to cover everything.

Points to consider:

1. Jetlag - not sure where you'll be flying in from, but you'll feel the effects if it's a long-haul flight. Many people allow at least a day to sleep it off and adjust to local time, but you won't have this luxury, so be prepared to either just keep going and be a little blurry or maybe consider taking a day to recover (in London, at the start).

2. You won't get a full overview of each city, nor will you see everything in the time you have. As long as you're OK with this, go for it.

3. Open-Jaw ticket: I'm assuming you're flying in to London and out from Rome, yes?

4. You won't have time to sleep in if you still want to sightsee. Pick the key sights you want to visit in each city and go from there.

A few quetions for you:

what time of year are you thinking of travelling?
what's your budget?
how many of you might there be?

Have a look through the other Itinerary and Country & City Advice posts to get some ideas on what to see and travel methods (trains, planes, busses, this may help you make decisions and give you an idea of what's possible. Let us know what you come up with. Happy planning!

[loewfat]

wow, im impressed at the speed and detail of your reply.

we are thinking around july or august of 2007, and will be flying out of michigan, usa.
our budget isnt really that big of a deal as we are going to save up from now until about the time we leave, but we were thinking 2000 to 2500 if thats possible. i have no clue if thats even a resonable budget or not. do you think thats enough? is it possible to have more days out there with that budget?

as far as how many of us are going, im not sure. we are probably going to have maybe as little as 4 to as many as 11. once again we want to go and have a good time, party hard, and meet a lot of people, and see the sites during the day. we wont be too picky on site seeing, we are going more to experience the culture, and have a few beers with some interesting people.

i will definately be looking at all the other posts, and once again thanks for all the info, its making this turn out to be a lot easier than i imagined.

[madamtrashheap]

No problem loewfat. Starting the planning is the hardest part - and you've got through that so it's all cruisey from here! ;D

Obviously, the more time you can slot in to travel the better. I'm gathering the budget you quoted is in US$. Once you've done a bit of research on flight costs you'll have a better idea of what you have left to play with, but those figures seem pretty reasonable. Have a look at the suggested budget posts on this site for some guidelines.

August is hot and busy in Europe (except Italy and France when all the residents go on holidays - just the tourists left!) so the sooner you make accommodation bookings the better. The larger the group, the harder it is for you to all get accommodation in the same place (generally speaking), esp in Summer.

Also, make that list of "must-see" things and go from there. Keep us posted with your progress and if you end up adding a few more days. Once you set a few things in place, you'll find that we can provide more detailed suggestions for what to see and do.

[herrbert]

I would leave out Amsterdam, and concentrate on London and Rome. This way you can have one day in London to get rid of the time difference. But it would also give you a little bit more time to really see the city, and have some time to do daytrips. You already mentioned Stonehenge, but for Rome, you could do Pompeii.

If you still would like to come to Amsterdam, then I suggest to cut it by a day, and use this day in either London or Rome.

The cheapest flights from Amsterdam to Rome, and amazingly by British Airways, but this is not a direct flight, they will fly you back to London-Gatwick.

Ryan Air can fly you to Rome, but they are flying from Eindhoven Airport (one and a half hour by train, and 20 minutes by bus from the Train Station in Eindhoven to the Airport). Including taxes it'll cost you 41 euro. (and 17 euro's for the train, and some money for the bus)

There is a faster option, and this is to fly by Transavia from Rotterdam Airport, this is faster but it'll cost around 100 euro (but I can't find flights for july next year, at this moment).

The problem with flying from Amsterdam-Schiphol is that there are not a lot of low budget airlines flying from/to this place, and there are not a lot of other airports nearby. I also heared that the taxes at Schiphol are higher than on other airports.

If you decide to leave out Amsterdam, you can fly with RyanAir for a bargain.