When you visit Europe there are so many must-see destinations to squeeze into your trip. This can make planning your trip quite overwhelming. We’ll show you how to break it down into smaller chunks, and how to plan your perfect Europe Itinerary ranging from 2 weeks to 4 weeks.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy for more information.
Step 1: Book Your Holidays
Sounds obvious right? The thing is, it’s important to lock in some dates so you can seriously start looking at airfares. So it’s better if you submit that leave form at work, and lock in your holiday dates. Now you can seriously start your European plan.
Airfares to Europe should be booked at least 3 months in advance so you can secure some decent deals. Actually it’s even better to book 6 months out because accommodation availability will be much better and you will have more options to choose from.
Step 2: Check the Weather
Maybe you should have done this first. It pays to know if you’re travelling into hot weather or cold weather. Which would you prefer… a wintery ski holiday, a summery beach holiday. Or maybe something in between, like a crisp autumn break.
Our favourite time of year in Europe is early Autumn. That’s normally September-October. This is the shoulder season and you tend to get great deals on accommodation, and the weather is glorious. Not too hot, and not yet snowing either.
Spring is a close second for us, from March to May. Depends where you go, but this time of year you will get pleasant weather and picturesque snow-capped mountain peaks. Accommodation is still reasonably priced and plentiful.
Step 3: Set Your Budget
Why is budget so important in Europe? It’s because of the vast difference in costs between different parts of Europe. Eastern Europe is generally the cheapest part to visit. If your budget is tight, you might be best sticking to Eastern Europe.
You just need to google “cheapest cities in Europe” and you’ll get loads of results like this one from TripSavvy. In a typical Europe trip you’ll need to set a budget for these 5 different categories:
- Airfares
- Ground Transport
- Accommodation
- Daily Expenses
- Tours
Once you have set a budget and a duration, you can start working out your Europe Trip Itinerary by itemising each of these 5 travel categories and aligning your region to the relative cost of the area. For example, Scandinavia can be triple the cost of Eastern Europe. Thus a tight budget may put Scandinavia in the “maybe next time” bucket.
Step 3: Find the Best Airfares
I guess it comes down to personal preference, but we use the Skyscanner app for all our airfares. This useful app/website compares all the different airlines and travel agents to find the cheapest deals.
But you must be careful, sometimes Skyscanner refers you to some rather dodgy travel agents. You figure this out when the dodgy travel agent suddenly increases the price when it’s time to pay. If you encounter this, just pick the next cheapest on the list. Easy.
Where Are You Flying From?
The first step is to figure out where you’re leaving from. This is normally fairly obvious, it’s normally where you live.
Where Would You Like to Go?
The next step is the fun part. We recommend just browsing through all the cities in Skyscanner on your chosen dates, and looking for the cheapest fares.
Perhaps start off with a part of Europe. “I’ve always wanted to go to Greece”. “I have to see the City of Love (Paris)”. Then check out all the cities in the region. Look for return airfares on your chosen dates, and try moving a couple of days either way.
Look for return airfares to your origin. Quite often 1 or 2 cities will stand out with awesome cheap deals. For example, Norwegian Air often has crazy cheap flights via Oslo or Stockholm to all parts of Europe.
We’ve seen return Airfares from Bangkok to Barcelona on top-class airlines for $600 Australian, that’s like about US$450. And I’ve also flown return from Vietnam to Switzerland for $500 Australian, about US$400.
Check your Airline Rating
I always go to Skytrax to check out the rating of the airline. Generally, I don’t choose them if the rating is below 5, aim for an overall score of 6+. Skytrax is fairly accurate in my experience. If it’s a dud airline, just forget them and move on to another one.
Airfare Checklist
- Do you have sufficient baggage allowance?
- Are the arrival times in line with hotel times? We prefer to arrive around lunchtime to check-in to the hotel at 2 pm and depart mid-afternoon to check out of the hotel around 11 am.
- Is the Skytrax rating 6 or above?
- Are your airport transfer times sufficient between flights?
Step 4: Check Visa Requirements
Make sure you check the tourist visa requirement in the country you intend on staying. And check if you satisfy all the requirements. Visas are generally not negotiable so you need to get this one right.
For example, I once booked all our family airfare tickets for 1 week in Moscow. Then after researching the visa requirements I learnt that we needed to send our passports away for 3 weeks to get stamps.
But we also needed our passports in our possession for other travels. In the end, the Russian visa was impossible for us, and we had to cancel our airfares. That is sad and expensive.
Oh and make sure you fully understand the Schengen visa requirements, that is mandatory knowledge when travelling to Europe. This is the most common visa for visiting Europe, and it does have some limitations.
Visa Checklist
- Is your country eligible for a travel visa in your intended Europe trip itinerary?
- Do need to submit visa applications in advance?
- Are there sufficient pages remaining in your passport?
- Are you passport expiry dates at least 6 months after travel dates?
Step 5: Create Your Europe Itinerary
Now for the fun part. You should now have a landing point somewhere in Europe. It’s time to plan your Europe trip itinerary from your point of arrival in Europe. Here are our golden rules of travel in Europe.
Golden Rules for Travelling in Europe
Minimum Stay:
Stay a minimum of 3 nights in each place. 4-6 nights is the optimum duration in any one place for us. Any longer and you will probably regret not moving on to see more places.
Boring Cities in Europe
There’s no such thing as a boring city in Europe. Every city we’ve been to, even those not really on the tourist map, has an amazing variety of things to see. The best Europe itinerary usually includes a place which is not the most popular for tourists.
Airfares are Cheap
Airfares in Europe can be ridiculously cheap. So you can travel by land in any direction from the city you arrived in, then simply catch a one-way flight back there on the day of your departure. We always use this method to plan a Europe tour itinerary.
Trains are Awesome
Travelling by train in Europe is awesome. The systems are so well established and there are so many interlinked tracks that you can get virtually anywhere. And they’re modestly priced.
Crossing Borders
It’s easy to cross borders in Europe. Generally, once you are in the Schengen area there are minimal border checks. Feel free to move through different countries.
Buses are Cheap
Buses in Europe are ridiculously cheap. And they don’t take much longer than flying. Remember you have to get to the airport, check-in, wait, fly, pick up your bags, find a taxi. It’s often just as quick to catch a bus and a fraction of the price. We love FlixBus and used them often.
Bonus Stopovers
Sometimes you can get a bonus stopover for a couple of hours or an afternoon in a random city. For example, flying Geneva to Budapest on Brussels Airlines, we stopped in Brussels for around 8 hours. This gave us time to catch a train into the old city centre and do some exploring for a few hours.
Wasted Travel Days
Each day spent travelling between destinations is normally a wasted day. Travelling through Europe is a balance between seeing as much as you can, and not wasting too many days travelling. A perfect Europe 2 week trip may only allow 2 or 3 travel days, so you don’t waste too many days travelling.
5 Sample Itineraries in Europe
Here are a few of the 2 week Europe trip itineraries that we’ve tried out using the above strategies. It’s just a case of choosing point A to start and point B to finish. Then select 2 or 3 stops in between. Then figure out easy train or bus options to move between the different stops. It’s that simple.
1. Central Europe Itinerary: Geneva to Prague
- Land in Geneva, Switzerland. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Budapest, Hungary via Brussels, Belgium. Day tour in Brussels. Stay in Budapest 4 nights.
- Train to Vienna, Austria. Stay 3 nights.
- Bus to Prague, Czech Republic. Stay 4 nights.
- Fly to Geneva, Switzerland. Connect to homeward flight.
2. Northern Itinerary: Geneva to Copenhagen
OK, this is a heavy schedule. Much better to take 3 weeks or more for this itinerary.
- Land in Geneva, Switzerland.
- Train to Basel, Switzerland. Stay 2 nights.
- Bus to Heidelberg, Germany. Stay 2 nights.
- Train to Koblenz, Germany. Stay for 2 nights.
- Train to Luxembourg City. Stay for 2 nights.
- Bus to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Stay 3 nights
- Fly to Copenhagen, Denmark. Stay 3 nights
- Fly to Basel, Switzerland then trains to Geneva, Switzerland. Connect to home flight.
3. Eastern Europe Itinerary: Moscow to Athens
- Fly to Moscow, Russia. Stay 2 nights.
- Fly to Bucharest, Romania. Stay 3 nights.
- Bus to Sofia, Bulgaria. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Athens, Greece. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Santorini, Greece. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Athens, Greece. Connect to home flight.
4. Southern Europe Itinerary: Barcelona to Casablanca
- Fly to Barcelona, Spain. Stay 4 nights.
- Bus to Madrid, Spain. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Lisbon, Portugal. Stay 4 nights.
- Fly to Casablanca, Morocco. Stay 3 nights.
- Fly to Barcelona, Spain. Connect to homeward flight.
5. Western Europe Itinerary: London to Geneva
- Fly to London, United Kingdom. Stay 4 nights.
- Train to Paris, France. Stay 4 nights.
- Train to Lyon, France. Stay 2 nights.
- Train to Geneva, Switzerland. Stay 4 nights.
- Fly to London, United Kingdom. Connect to homeward flight.
Get Creative
OK, so you can see that the sky is the limit when you get creative with your travel between cities. All the above have been chosen because they have economical and easy transport options between each city.
If you really want to be adventurous, you could just book your return flights from home, and a flight from Point B back to Point A. Then makeup all the stops in-between point A and point B as you go.
I don’t recommend this option because things do tend to get booked out early in some cases. Even buses and trains can get booked out, and especially accommodation. For inter-country transport and accommodation, I suggest booking at least a couple of weeks in advance.
SIM Cards
It’s really important to keep a smartphone with data at all times. Especially one a 2 week Europe trip, you simply can’t afford to lose time getting lost during your travel days. Smartphones are invaluable for using Google Maps and accessing the transport timetables for buses and trains.
Throughout most of Europe, you can use the same SIM card as you move through different countries. You just need to do a little research to make sure that your purchase the right one. Or ask the person at the counter it works where you are going.
For example, we purchased SIM cards on arrival at Heathrow Airport in London. The brand was Three, and they can be purchased in a kiosk in the arrivals hall. These SIM cards worked fine in every country we travelled to, except in Eastern Europe.
It can be a little tricky recharging the SIM card each month, but we managed to do it and did not have to purchase another SIM card in other countries.
Hot tip: Buy some recharge cards when you purchase your SIM card.
Currencies and Money Exchange
Whilst many countries use the Euro as their official currencies, there are many countries who do not. For these, you simply need to withdraw the local currency at an ATM machine on arrival.
It pays to make sure you have a suitable card to use at the ATM. For example, our everyday Australian ATM charges $30 per transaction, just because we’re overseas. And then they add some more fees and give a terrible exchange rate. Needless to say, we never used that card.
Our best travel ATM card is Citibank. These are renowned for having great ATM cards for travelling. Our second favourite is HSBC. Be sure to choose an account with no fees for using ATM’s in other countries. It pays to organise a good ATM card, it can save you hundreds of dollars in unnecessary fees.
The Best European Plan
Now for the fun part. You have your airfares and your visas sorted. You have accommodation sorted as well as your transportation between cities. Activities each day can be safely left until you get there, these are the easy part to figure out, and they may depend on the weather.
We believe this is the best Europe Itinerary because you’ve optimised your budget, your trip duration, your bucket list and the pace of your sightseeing. The good news is the cost of a Europe trip does not need to be prohibitive. We do hope you enjoy your trip. Bon Voyage…
Do Your Research
You can never really do enough research when planning the trip of a lifetime. Here are some hand-picked gems to help you along the way.
Would you like a free copy of our Ultimate Bucket List?
Not sure where to travel to next? We have created the Ultimate Bucket List to help you plan your next trip. 1170 awesome travel destinations in 167 countries. And we want you to have it for FREE.
