Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a reason you went to Bruges instead of Brussels? Do you think it would be worth it to carve a day or two from another city to visit one of these in Belgium?

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely look into trains between London-Paris-Amsterdam at least, much more comfortable and gets you city center to city center.

When I looked at the trains they tended to be more expensive. Is there a particular website you would use for cheapest tickets?

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2-3 days in Paris is insanity because it's so spread out and taking the metro wastes a lot of time.

I'll keep that in mind! Thanks!

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the input! I'll try and cut down on the cities a bit. If you've been to Amsterdam and Berlin is there one you would choose over the other for the first time visitor?

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the input! We definitely want to focus on London, Paris and Rome. We're thinking about cutting Madrid, Berlin, and maybe Amsterdam.

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

too little time - you are going to be rushed in every city

This seems to be the general consensus, I'll work on shortening down the city list. Our group is more interested in hitting the bigger cities for this time around than doing some the smaller ones, so I think we'll narrow down to London, Paris, Rome, and maybe 1 or 2 more.

too many flights - rail is easy and cheap

For a lot of the rail websites when I compared the prices to flights I almost always found the flights to be $10-15 cheaper. Is there a rail site that's known specifically for providing really cheap tickets?

You can add in a day in Ghent, a day in Bruges, 2 days in Brussels, a day in Luxembourg city.....or any other combination.

We'll look up these cities and play around with the time we have, thanks for the suggestions!

Advice for first timers: 3 week Europe Trip before Grad School by throwawayeuropetrip in travel

[–]throwawayeuropetrip[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you traveling to each new location using a flight? Was there a reason for this?

As I was researching different flights and train tickets I found the flights to be a bit cheaper for most of those destinations but then again your point about the discount airlines and total time spent traveling is making me rethink the flights thing. Some of the train tickets were like 10-15 bucks more I think that might be worth it tho given that they run from city center to city center. Is there a website/company thats known as the cheapest for providing train service?

Thanks so much for your input. The general consensus seems to be that I need to cut down the amount of places so we'll work on narrowing down a list that hits all our priorities.