How does this itinerary look?

[hockey27]

Hey board,

My friend and I are looking to travel to Europe around mid July this year and this is what we have for an itinerary thus far:
Arrive July 18th - Frankfurt at 8:55 am and then we want to buy the Eurail Global 15 day 2nd class youth flexipass and get on the rail to Amsterdam (we heard Frankfurt is kinda dry, and also is pretty expensive)
We will stay in Amsterdam for 4 days, then from there will go as follows:
Brussels - Paris - Madrid (this will be the overnight to Madrid - we will book this one in advance) - Barcelona - Nice - Milan (we will stay 4 or 5 nights at a friends house) - Rome - Venice - Munich - Vienna - Bratislava (this is by shuttle, so we don't have to buy a European East pass... and we canceled Prague for this reason... we will head back to Vienna to catch the rail to Budapest then will catch a flight to Varna, Bulgaria for a week to stay at a friends house... Afterwards we will return and stay in Budapest - Berlin - Frankfurt - Home
Now I know this looks like an ambitious intinerary... but we are already looking at hostels and looking at travel times for rails (longest day travel time is around 5 to 6 hours... most are shorter). Overall it appears we will have to stay in 38 nights of hostels at around $30 CAD a night whilst buying a $750 CAD euro-rail pass... our flights are aeromiles and we plan on budgeting around 3 to 4 thousand dollars for the spending money. Overall, the trip looks around $5,000 - $6000 CAD. I know too you can't rush Europe... and our minimum stay in each place is 3 nights with the exception of two places (two very expensive places). How does this itinerary look and are there any improvements that can be made? (Trip Duration- 45 to 46 days)

[hockey27]

opps i meant around 50 to 52 days for the duration

[madamtrashheap]

Hello hockey27 and welcome to the boards.

No doubt you've read enought posts here about the benefits of flying the long legs of journeys, so the Paris-Madrid section would be the ideal point for this. But I'm guessing you want to take advantage of your pass and also save on accommodation by using the night train - would this be correct?

Few other questions/observations:
Amsterdam- 4 days might be a little long (depends on how many you intened to float on), but look at day trips too.
Brussels - also look at 1 day Brussels and maybe 2-3 in Brugge which will allow for day trips to the battlefields (Ypres) and maybe even Ghent.
Milan and no Florence? I realise you have friends here, but you should consider Florence at some point too (depends on your interests, but it's a cool city all round really).
Nice - that train ride from Barcelona is super long and only during the day at this stage so unless you really have to go (an you're not seeing anything else of France other than Paris, which is a pity, but you get that) then I'd do the flying thing from Barcelona to Milan/Italy.
Vienna - when you speak about Shuttle to Bratislava, look into the hydrofoil on the Danube as another way to get there (very cool)
Prague - such a shame you cancelled it. Is it really that much of an issue? You could do a P2P ticket if it fits into your budget. Plus I'm intrigued that Budapest is included but Prague is considered the east.
Madrid - day trips (as seen on may other posts) to places like Toledo should also be factored in here
Munich - from here you could drop down to Salzburg for a night or 2 then over to Vienna; just a suggestion; or even stop in Innsbruck on the way between Venice and Munich as they are different parts of Austria to Vienna and worth seeing.
Bulgaria- great you have a friend to stay with; great country, see if you can get spend a day on the beach at the Black Sea (or visit one of the old Communist resorts - v interesting) and if they've cleaned the huge "black" church in the second centre square (just before the main pedestrian square)! Hope you get to do a little more sightseeing too.

See if these points suit you and your friend and if you can tweak your itinerary a little. As far as budget, you're on track, but know that the average is US$75 a day (CAN$85-ish) so see how the math works into your budget. Hostels in some places will obviously be more than CAN$30 a night pp (Euro20) so you will need to either book far ahead to get the places you want or plan for the possibility of spending more in some places. Good that you have friends to stay with though as that will help. If you need info on hostel prices, look on the GFE listings (home page link) for ideas as well as other posts in accommodation as there are lots of recommendations there too.

Happy planning!

[hockey27]

Thanks for the input, madamtrashheap. The 4 nights in Amsterdam may be a little too much but I'm also looking at possibly flying in on the Thursday and not the Wednesday to reduce this to 3 nights. The Brussels part of the journey will be two nights long, so I'll look into going on a day trip of some sort to Brugge. For the Paris-Madrid portion, I know this is VERY long but yes it is to make the most of my pass.
As for Nice, it's quite the distance to travel (about 3 hrs then layover then 3 hours; the longest leg with the exception of Paris-Madrid) but is once again to make most of our pass. Plus, we'd really like to just chill out on the beaches a couple days.
We were going to go to Florence, but after our friend offered us a place to stay in Milan we had to give up somewhere in Italy. (Which would you rather give up - Florence or Venice?)
Yeah I found it odd too that Hungary was apart of the pass and not Czech Republic or Slovakia... I will also look into the cost of buying a separate ticket for Prague. Also, I have friends that live in Bratislava and Munich (old hockey teammates) that I'm trying to get in touch with to help alleviate some costs and have a place to stay. As for Hostels, we are looking for some that are close to the rail station or at least in a good location within the city and are booking early (within the next week or so) We actually went through and picked all our hostels and the cost came out to be around $30 CAD a night. We are both pretty excited for this trip and we are trying to plan it as good as possible... so thanks for the feedback its greatly appreciated! We are on a budget but at the same time we wanna experience Europe as best as we can.

[madamtrashheap]

Well you're on the right track to a fab trip! Sounds like you've done a lot of the ground work, which is great, so filling in the blanks isn't hard now. Great that you've found the hostels at prices you like - gotta be happy with that! Hope you find the Munich and Bratislava friends. If you want to keep in budget, find out if the hostels have kitchens and if not, you can always buy "picnic" foods (bread, cheese, olives, salami, etc) and get outside without having to cook. That way you can treat yourselves to the odd meal out (Beerhall, Pizza trattoria, etc) in cities you really want to experience.

On the Belgium point - is there any way you can do 1 Brussels and 2 Brugge? Or even look at staying in Brugge instead? I love Brussels (one of the few on the boards who do) but if you've not been before, you'll find Brugge has more of what you're looking for. Brussels has great nightlife and pubs, but Brugge has it on a smaller scale. Up to you though. And if you've found a good central hostel in Brussels then well done you!

[hockey27]

Haha yeah well for the food bit I plan on packing many Nutri-Grain bars and other bits of food that aren't too heavy and at the same time provide a much needed energy boost. Yeah I looked into getting hostels with kitchens... I found that some say they do but when you read comments posted by other people you find out their "kitchen" consists of only a microwave. If Brussels has a great nightlife we are there... me and my friend like to party. Our plan is to buy cheap beer at the supermarket then go to a club and maybe buy 1 beer haha... we are cheap like that. I'm also a 19 yr old university student working part-time and paying his way through school so that's about all I can afford! And I also forgot to mention that one of my friends has a beachhouse in Nice... I have to look into that as well and see whether she will be there! Things are looking up thats for sure

[madamtrashheap]

hockey27 said:

As for Nice, it's quite the distance to travel (about 3 hrs then layover then 3 hours;

I think the train trip is longer (more like 11 hours incl 2 hour layover).

Oh and just saw the point about Florence vs Venice - I'm biased so would say Florence everytime, but it's up to you as to what you're interested in, how much you want to see Venice and the fact that it fits nicely into your travel plans - direction wise (dammit!).

[hockey27]

yeah you are correct about the distance to Nice... starts in the morning and we dont arrive till 7:30 pm... o well... its better than dishing out another $100 or more canadian for a flight... gives a good day to load up on nutri grain bars (I hear food on trains is rather expensive)

[lia]

well well..i just read your plan, hockey27, looks great! it's just funny madamtrashheap's comment about florence vs venice..that's always a great battle - with no winners and no losers, i'd better add it before she hits me ;D that's a hard choice, they're 2astonishing cities, so, yes, you'd better be direction wise. if you fall on venice, there are good places for students; you won't have beer, though - you'll have to try "spritz"! it's the city's "official drink" - and it's cheaper than fruit juice, actually! anyway, apart from the choice between venice and florence, check out flashbooking for the hostels, as well as hostelworld; they're good sites and offer good prices for hostels around the world. have fun with your planning!!!

[herrbert]

Just one comment: I believe you will have done some calculations already, but are you sure the GlobalPass is best? I mean if you can take some cheap flights, wouldn't that make it possible to get cheaper passes (therefor traveling faster, and cheaper?)

Vienna - Bratislava is just a short ride, so even if you have to buy p2p-tickets for the train, it wouldn't hurt your wallet badly.

[hockey27]

Well I looked into getting some flights from the longer places and at the cheapest we could find flights from EasyJet and RyanAir from arond $100 CAD or so... but we are going to so many places that I dont think we would be able to get it down to 10 places that would qualify as being a cheaper pass... and even then those 5 airfares will total around $500 Canadian or so... correct me if I am wrong I mean I have been searching only on the internet but the fares that I have been receiving plus taxes make air travel between the number of places I want to go to fairly more expensive than to just buy the one pass.

[hockey27]

And Herrbert I think I'm going to get the shuttle bus or take the hydrofoil on the Danube (as was suggested to me earlier) You may have been referring instead to Prague... and yes I badly want to go and a ticket to Prague. It looks like the cheapest ticket to get into and outta Prague would be the Prague Excursion 2 day pass... its valued at $200 American... Im wondering possibly if prices are inflated on the internet or if it would really cost this much. Because if it does... well I guess I'll be saving Prague till next time.

[herrbert]

hockey27 said:

Well I looked into getting some flights from the longer places and at the cheapest we could find flights from EasyJet and RyanAir from arond $100 CAD or so... but we are going to so many places that I dont think we would be able to get it down to 10 places that would qualify as being a cheaper pass... and even then those 5 airfares will total around $500 Canadian or so... correct me if I am wrong I mean I have been searching only on the internet but the fares that I have been receiving plus taxes make air travel between the number of places I want to go to fairly more expensive than to just buy the one pass.

The taxes vary at every airport, that makes it a little hard too compare.

For 55 euro, you fly Paris - Madrid (Vueling Airlines).

Madrid - Barcelona (agian Vueling for 20 euro).

And for 66 euro, you can fly Budapest to Berlin.

Those prices are including taxes! (in total 141 euros for 3 flights). If you can change the itinerary to fly in and out of Nice, you will have two more flights.

How much is the difference between those two cards?

[hockey27]

The difference between the two cards (a 10 day youth flexipass and a 15 day youth flexipass) is around $150 American. 15 day pass = $649 + $14 American while 10 day pass = $489 + $14 American

[herrbert]

That would be about 115 euros. Getting 5 flights for that will be impossible.

I tried to look up much a ticket to Prague would cost, you I can only see the details for the route. But maybe that Ray can help you. you can try a post in his own topic. 200 dollar seems like a lot for just a trip to Prague, and back out again.