Home  Travel Tips  Making an Itinerary

Rule #1: No one can tell you where to go.
Rule #2: Don't try to see "all-Europe" in one trip.

Some fellow travelers like to make one city per day, which in my personal opinion: traveling everyday of the week in a night train can leave you so tired that you might not be able to really enjoy the trip. Another approach is to take it easy and asume up front that you will not see all Europe in one single trip.

I personally like the second approach; which by the way gives me the perfect excuse to come back.

Also, I recommend that -if possible- you sleep two nights on the same city. That can give you a sense of stability and saves time in the long term because looking for a hostel takes time and in some cases you have to stop sightseeing early (5:00 pm) to take the train at 7:00 pm.

Whatever your style is, you should do some planning ahead of time, that will give you an idea of what you want to see and it will save you time when you are overseas. Here is an example itinerary that will allow you to see the Best of Europe in 5 weeks.

Country	days
London	2 days
Paris	4 days
Brugge	1 days
Amsterdam	2 days
Berlin	3 days
Prague	2 days
Vienna	2 days
Munich	2 days
Venice	2 days
Rome	3 days
Firenze	2 days
Milan	1 day
Barcelona	3 days
Seville	3 days
Madrid	2 days
return to home	1 day

Total: 35 days of travel, with 14 trips inside Europe

You might have noticed that we start in one city and end in a different one. This is called "to travel open jaws", which saves time, and if the same airline covers both cities then you still get a good price.

Now what?, you might want to buy an Eurail pass for this trip, but which one is better? How many days? First, we'll see how much will it cost with single tickets. (Youth prices)

Trip	Price
London - Paris	$199
Paris - Brugge	$34
Brugge - Amsterdam	$42
Amsterdam - Berlin	$104
Berlin- Prague	$57
Prague - Vienna	$49
Vienna - Munich	$65
Munich - Venice	$72
Venice - Rome	$54
Rome - Firenze	$36
Firenze - Milano	$36
Milano - Barcelona	$103
Barcelona - Seville	$74
Seville - Madrid	$72
Total:	$997 in 14 trips

Now, you could choose to use an Eurail pass, lets consider to but a 10 days or 15 days in two months. We'll put the 10 days Eurrail pass thinking that we will need to buy 4 more individual tickets.

·14 individual tickets:	$997
·10 day Eurailpass in 2 months	$473
·15 day Eurailpass in 2 months	$622

But there are some trains that need you to pay a reservation fee (pass holder fee), those are:

1. London - Paris	$79
2. Milano - Barcelona	$75
3. Seville - Madrid	$12
4. Prague excursion	$30
Total:	$200

So, now the expense is:

·14 individual tickets:	$997
·10 day Eurailpass in 2 months $473 + $200 =	$673
·15 day Eurailpass in 2 months $622 + $200 =	$822

At this moment the 15 days Eurail pass seems to be the best option.

Perhaps you could use the 10 days trip and buy 4 additional individual tickets. The cheapest of our travel are:

1. Paris - Brugge	$34
2. Milano - Barcelona	$36
3. Firenze - Milano	$36
4. Brugge - Amsterdam	$42
Total:	$148

Now the expenses could be:

·14 individual tickets:	$997
·10 day Eurailpass in 2 months  $673 + $148 =	$821
·15 day Eurailpass in 2 months	$822

So, at the end we can see that for this case the 15 days Eurail pass is our best option. We get 15 days of travel instead of 14 just for one more dollar.

This is just an example, and in some cases it is cheaper to buy individual tickets that buying an expensive europass, it all depends on what you want and what you need.

There might be for sure other cheaper options, like bus travel, the purpose of all this page is to give you an idea on how to plan a train itinerary and how to calculate the expense of it.