We are going to Europe!

For the past 7 months, I have been diligently planning the Hurns’ DREAM VACATION! This fall, we will be traveling to Europe, and I cannot believe that our departure date is so soon! I have done all of the planning and booking myself, and I did a ton of research through travel blogs. So, I decided that I would share my Europe trip planning tips and steps.

1. Narrow down your options.

Planning a trip to “Europe” is super daunting because Europe is a huge place with so many wonderful cities! Our first step was to make a list of all of the places/cities that we were interested in. This list included: Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague, Switzerland, Vienna, Ireland, Tuscany, London, and Athens. Visiting all of these places would be impossible in one short trip.

I read some travel blogs, articles, and travel sites to see some sample European itineraries. I marked the places on a map to see what paths made sense geographically. I researched train and plane schedules and prices to see which cities were easy to travel to.

Paris was a no-brainer. I have already been there. I knew that I wanted to go back, and I wanted to take Jeff to see my favorite city. Italy was a must, but I just didn’t know what specific cities we would go to. Ireland was far away from our other destinations, as was Greece and Spain.

After a ton of thought and research, I narrowed it down to Paris, London, Italy (Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice).

2. Pick your dates and book a flight!

Due to our work schedules, we knew that a typical summer vacation was not possible. (Jeff’s super busy time at work is June & July.) So, we first started looking at traveling in August. Due to some luck and Pinterest, I discovered Norwegian airlines. Norwegian airlines only flies out of a couple of airports in the U.S., but their prices are great! I once found a one-way flight to Paris for $169! [I’m still mad at myself for not booking that flight immediately.] After some procrastination, the prices for August flights rose too high, so we started looking at September. September actually seems like the best month because (hopefully) the weather will be nice, but it is not peak tourist travel season.  Plus, if you travel around Labor Day, you get an extra free day off work!

We made list after list of available flights overseas and return flights back to the U.S. We compared dates, prices, possible itineraries, and travel times. Finally, we decided to fly into Paris, and fly home from Barcelona. [The flights from Barcelona to U.S. were so much cheaper, that it made sense to make an extra stop in Europe to save money on the return flight home.]

We booked our overseas flights directly from the Norwegian Airlines site, and our trip was now official!

3. Make an itinerary.

Because geography, I knew that we would visit Paris and London, and then move over to Italy. However, I had no idea which order to visit the Italy stops, nor did I know how long to spend in each city.

We had narrowed our Italy stops down to Rome, Florence, Venice, and Cinque Terre. I created a calendar in Excel with the dates of our trips, and played around with different itineraries. I knew that I wanted to stay in Paris for at least 3 full days, but I thought that 2 days was sufficient for London. So, I went ahead and marked those on the calendar.

I made separate itineraries for different possibilities, comparing travel time, costs, and accessibility. For instance, flights from London to Rome were more frequent and way cheaper than flights from London to Venice. There is a direct fast train from Florence to Venice. So, I settled on this order: Rome, Cinque Terre, Florence, Venice.

4. Book hotels.

From booking our regular New Year’s Eve trips, I had some of favorite sites for hotels/apartments/houses. I checked Airbnb, VRBO, Wimdu and of course the regular Expedia, Hotels.com, Kayak, etc.

Paris: Apartment booked through VRBO in the Latin Quarter

London: London was by far the hardest stop to find a place to stay. London is exponentially more expensive than any of our other stops. I ended up booking a budget hotel with Tune Hotels. I am comparing our room to a cruise ship room – just a bed and a bathroom, no window. We only have two days in London, so I am sure that we will be busy running around the city. As long as it is clean, we should be good to go.

Rome: Apartment booked through VRBO

Cinque Terre: We will be staying in the town of Vernazza in a bed and breakfast booked through Airbnb.

Florence: Apartment booked through Airbnb close to the main squares

Venice: Bed and breakfast booked through Airbnb

Barcelona: We will only be in Barcelona for one afternoon, and our flight home leaves at 8AM the next morning. We decided to stay in an airport hotel, so that we can be sure to make it to the airport on time.

5. Start booking trains and flights.

One of my favorite things about Europe is the ease of travel. I absolutely love trains! We booked our train from Paris to London through Eurostar. I used the Trentalia website to book most of our trains through Italy. I have read great things about the Italo train line and wish that we could have used them more. Italo only stops in certain cities, and only in certain order. We are using Italo for our Florence-Venice train. We will be flying RyanAir from London-Rome and Venice-Barcelona.

6. Now for the fun stuff!

Now it is time to start looking at fun things to do! Read blogs. Read TripAdvisor. Look at Pinterest. Make sure that you look at hours/dates because some museums are closed one day of the week. For instance, the Louvre is closed every Tuesday. Wouldn’t it be a huge bummer if you showed up on your last day in Paris, and the museum was closed?? If museums/attractions allowed online ticket ordering, I booked things ahead of time. No sense in wasting my time abroad waiting in line after line. Some places pretty much require reservations months ahead of time – the Accademia Gallery in Florence (home of Michelangelo’s David). I tried to book our tickets to the Eiffel Tower the day that they became available, and they had already sold out. Guess we will be waiting in line for that one.

We are so excited for our trip. I hope to continue blogging throughout our trip to keep everyone updated on our travels!