Planning a European itinerary
A good way to start building a travel itinerary is to brainstorm a wish list of destinations. It’s okay to dream, but have a good reason for every stop. Don’t visit Casablanca because you liked the movie.
Take the weather into account; for instance, Scandinavia is best in summer. In spring and fall, snow can close alpine trails in Switzerland and northern Italy.
While small towns can be dreadful in the off-season, big cities are interesting year-round.
Once you make a list of destinations, group them geographically. Circle your destinations on a map, then figure out the most logical order to visit them. Write down how many days you’d like to spend in each place, and tally it up. Compare that number to how much time you have for your vacation—then, if necessary, start cutting.
To pare down your itinerary, minimize redundancy. If both the Italian Riviera and the French Riviera are on your list, skip one. You don’t need to see multiple English university towns. Choose one (I prefer Cambridge over Oxford).
You can also trim time from each stop. Although five days in Paris would be grand, you can see the high points in three. Try for at least two nights per stop.
It’s smart to strike the right balance between intense big cities and laidback villages. For instance, breaking up a tour of Venice, Florence, and Rome with an easygoing time in Italy’s hill towns provides a nice and often necessary breather — a vacation from your vacation. Sometimes logistics can help guide your decisions. For instance, on a three-week grand tour of Europe, a stop in Istanbul may take too long. Consider distance and convenience, and eliminate destinations that take too much time and effort to get to. Instead of spending precious daylight hours on the train, fly or take overnight trains. Flying into one city at the start of your trip and out of another at the end is usually more efficient (and not much more expensive) than a round-trip flight.
Rick Steves