Hello everyone, I am leaving for Europe on Thursday the 27th of September. First I am heading to Reykjavik, Iceland and will spend three days there before heading to Stockholm, Sweden.

Other places I am planning to visit include:

Helsinki, Finland
Tallinn, Estonia (maybe)
Copenhagen, Denmark
Krakow, Poland
Prague, Czech Republic
Budapest, Hungary
Salzburg, Austria
Paris

I plan to be gone for about five weeks.

My questions are:

1) What is the right way to plan this? How much planning should be involved? So far I have booked only my flights to Iceland and to Stockholm, as well as my lodging in Iceland. Should I plan the whole thing or should I fly by the seat of my pants so I can spend however much time I want in each location? I understand this is a personal preference, but how would YOU do it?

2) How easy or difficult will it be to meet people to hang out with? I am going alone because none of my friends can join. I'm thinking of staying in hostels so I can encounter other world travelers and maybe meet people to hang out with that way.

3) Is this a good list of places to visit? Any experiences in these places? Anywhere else I should check out?


Thanks very much for the replies.

1) I think u should have a plan about your route. See what kind of connections are available between the cities, for your budget. I would not book everything before the trip since plans can change, maybe u wanna skip something or like some place and wanna stay longer than planned.

2) this is also something u could plan for. Doing a little research about some hostels/ cafes /what ever good places to meet people would help for sure. Especially if ur not a very outgoing person.

3) I might wanna add berlin and Amsterdam to that list if possible. I would probably skip tallinn since ur going to many eastern european cities and Helsinki anyway

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Good luck OP!

Add Amsterdam, stay at the flying pig downtown if its not already booked.

I was in Krakow, Wroclaw, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest this summer. Travel in central europe was extremely easy. I usually went by bus as it was cheaper and easier and you can just buy the flixbus tickets online. I wouldn't book anything too far ahead of time, maybe just do your hotels/hostels a day or two in advance. The more popular hostels would sometimes sell out in the summer.

And I do think hostels are the way to go for meeting people, although the party hostels are extremely heavy on the 18-23 crowd, (and I don't know your age) but it made me feel way too old to be there (I'm 32). Although not everyone around my age feels out of place with the youngins! You might want to book more a bit more the upmarket hostels if you're looking for a slightly older crowd.

I did this last year. Aside from the order of the cities I traveled to, I planned everything as I went. Then again, my trip started in January, not during high season.

I've been to the cities on your list. I'd skip Helsinki and not spend much time in Tallinn unless there's something specific you want to see there. I found Riga and Vilnius more interesting Baltic capitals than Tallinn IMO.

Copenhagen is solid, though expensive and not particularly friendly. You don't have to spend more than a weekend there. Amsterdam is way, way better IMO.

Your last five places are solid and well worth visiting. Stay in the city of Paris rather than outside the center. The extra cost is worth not spending a couple of hours every day on public transport.

When it comes to hanging out, MeetUp is good for countries where it is popular. Hostels can be good in your 20s when you don't care about having a good night's sleep. Once I hit 30 or so, hostels were more stressful and annoying than enjoyable. I was content spending more on AirBnB and relying on MeetUp.

A hint of advice would be to pace yourself. It's surprising how much energy nonstop travel can take out of you. Don't think of a day off a week or a night where you don't go out as a waste of time. It's a way to recover and keep going strong in the long run.

Hard to recommend day trips or other cities without knowing what you're interested in.

If you really want to go Helsinki, you can take boat from Stocholm and Helsinki you can take boat to Tallinn(quite short trip, maybe even direct boat from Stocholm but longer trip). Also you could go copenhagen by land from stockholm but it isn't really same way as Helsinki. So maybe choose another or fly. Not many hostels in Finland(or other nordic countries, well there are some but the accomondation isn't so cheap)