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.

wont you be going by train through mainland europe? only planning might be if the pass is a deal vs individual tickets.

my sister is in reykjavik playing soccer for the 2nd summer in a row. def check out some of the waterfalls and ocean.

idk what you are looking for but there are obv lots of things to see. historic places, scenic places, modern cities, etc. if you felt like going more west i would def see some of germany, spain, italy, greece. barca looks amazing, obv greek med looks great.

and watch hostel, and dont do whatever they did.

Do it by bicycle imo. You get to see so much more.

I don't know your age offhand but that would help.

Train works well and if you're broke don't forget about Ryanair.

If you're looking to be social the staff/guests at hostels can definitely point you in the right direction.

Capital cities are fine but I like your choices of smaller cities where you may be able to save some cash and still have fun. Something like Plzen, CR might be cool.

Train or bus. Flixbus has a decent net. Spontaneously I would worry most about visa. I am myself from Europe so I don't need one to go to any of this places. I have no idea if it is easy or complicated for someone from USA.

It is very easy.

Hi Joe,

happy to give you some feedback as an European...

1) I suggest using Interrail for transportation, Europe is well connected by train and Interrail should give you the freedom to explore the continent at your own pace: https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrai...t-is-interrail . Of course we do have many cheap airlines, so look into RyanAir / EasyJet / other low cost carriers for longer distance flights (e.g. if heading to Portugal / Spain).
With regards to your travel pace: I have travelled for an extended period in the last year and I really loved to have the freedom to stay in a place without tight schedule. Also check out smaller cities as DZ suggested - Interrail should work well together with this.
I would recommend going by bike only if you are travelling in warm season and if you have more time for a smaller area.

2) Stay in hostels and you won't have any problems connecting with other travellers. Especially as an American.
Most hostels offer single rooms as well if you need privacy, but still want to use common facilities.

3) I find your list quite Northern Europe-heavy. Giving your travel times (October) I would suggest only doing Iceland and one place in the Scandi region before heading further south to get some better climate. I would absolutely throw Portugal / Spain / Italy in there - for me these are absolute top destinations in Europe due to having great culture (very outgoing, life takes place outside, history), excellent food and nice weather.
If you want some great alternative / urban culture I would throw Berlin in the mix, for great historical buildings and a generally nice city Munich.
If adding some Southern/Western countries to your choice it should give you a solid experience but 5 weeks are definitely not enough to see it all. Also, let other travellers give you some hints on what to check out, especially with regards to smaller places.

Enjoy your trip!

Awesome, good for you! I've got zero experience with anything like this so I just want to say good luck, and please post updates.

Hostels are the best ways to meet people. All hostels I've traveled to abroad usually have organized bar crawls and other events. It's probably the easiest way to find a hook up as well

Very easy from USA to the EU and actually not that much more difficult the other way round thanks to the visa waiver program.

The biggest difference is between moving from the US to Europe compared to Europe to USA. I remember when my GF (now wife) moved to the EU, it took us like 30 minutes and a couple bucks to get her a 2 year visa. When I applied for a provisional 2 year green card, that process took almost a year and cost >$1k. After that, the 10 year green card was another >$500..

I agree with taking trains or the bus to travel through Europe and would definitely add a couple days in Germany. You basically have to go through Munich anyway when you want to travel from Vienna to Paris. From there, Berlin is only a couple hours away. From various border cities in Southern Germany, you can take the TGV high speed train to go to Paris. Pretty cool to travel 350 miles in just over 2.5 hours. Taking the car takes twice as long.

I can also vouch for the trains in Europe. Excellent way to travel, so much better than LOLUSA.

+1 to trains in Europe

can we get top gear (the real one) to prove this wrong plz? =p

Well, Top Gear did a race EuroStar/TGV vs. Aston Martin DB9 from London to Monte Carlo, but don't ask me who won. I really do miss the show ...

I think a car lost to public transport only once in a long distance contest and that was a Mustang GT500 to the TGV.

I also remember a bike beat everything else on the streets of London?

yeah i think it went bike > boat > car > trains (rh, jc, jm, stig)

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Ge...ance_900_miles

slow lost in the car woops

Joe,

I assume you're flying Iceland Air to Reykjavik. It's been since 2014 that I was on them, but a couple things.

Kind of older planes, I don't think they had seatback entertainment. Pay for everything (i.e., no free drinks). An ok enough flight, not as nice as BA or Lufthansa.

They used to offer something called Saga Class or some such. It was a way to bid for an upgrade. I think it was something like, you put in a bid, if there were spots, they upgraded the top X bidders. So, possible to get an upgrade for cheapish.

I haven't been to eastern Europe, but I'll go along with the others to say go by train. It's pretty great. Make sure to check rail passes before leaving, it used to be you could score a great deal sometimes, but had to buy from the States.

Have a great trip!

P.S. Put a report in the Travel forum, always interesting to hear of people's adventures.

like i said in first reply (besides the derail[train pun?]) buy the pass if its a good deal, go in a circle and you can hit all the spots including the coasts then inland. if you actually plan, you could fly from heathrow or berlin to save some return costs and enjoy the aforementioned quality airlines.

add some variety to your list. go hard THEN go home

^ Paris (center) is not safe, even for a young male...
Tallinn is a lovely Baltic city in some way more romantic/ Scenic than Helsinki, don't discard it.

Wizzair operates few of your cities OP, is often cheaper than Ryanair -Budapest, is it's hub...

Take note when looking up train tickets on no English websites, or you might end up paying more than airfare like i did over 100eur for one way, Budapest-Warsaw. Hungarian railways will show you what you may think is (still somewhat overpriced) -the fare, but it is only if you buy tickets- at least 3 days in advance. And Euro trains are never even close to booked.
Download gmaps for offline do plan much, each detail/ backup plan...

I just did 3 weeks in Europe back in April, went to a few of the same cities you’re going to.

A lot will depend on your budget, I found this site very helpful for booking rail travel;

https://www.seat61.com/index-mobile.htm

I took trains from Budapest, to Bratislava and some smaller towns in Slovakia. We chartered a van to get us to Krakow, took an overnight train from Krakow to Prague. Took a train from Prague to Berlin. Flew from Berlin to Amsterdam, and took a train from Amsterdam to Paris.

We stayed mostly in AIRBNBs and Hostels.

As far as train travel, if you want to save money, book as far ahead for the long trips as possible.

When you’re in Krakow, think about taking a tour of Auschwitz. It was about an 8 hour tour, very powerful day.

I travelled Europe a few years ago now. Most of it via a contiki tour. However, I did do some separate travelling on my own and one of those cities I went to was Helsinki. On the flight in to Helsinki I stayed at this hostel at the Olympic dtadium

https://www.hostelz.com/hostel/37167-Stadion-Hostel

And on the flight out I stayed at this hostel on Sumolina Island.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...i_Uusimaa.html

Definitely if you only have one night in Helsinki I would be staying at the hostel on Sumolina Island.

I’ve been standing or sitting on the floor countless times on trains in Germany, France and England. Leaving London during rush hour isn’t fun at all. If you want to travel between major cities on a commuter train during popular hours, I’d suggest to spend a couple extra bucks for a seat reservation.

Hu? Not sure where you have that information from, but Paris is as safe as any other big city. Just do not go into the ghetto suburbs, but why would you.

Yep, absolutely correct when travelling on popular commuter routes (rush hour, Friday/Sunday afternoon/evening).