When you are in Denmark and go to Christiania, remember that weed isn't legal even though it's openly sold. Many tourists mistakenly think it's legal and cops love busting them. It's an instant 2k fine. Also I see you don't have Germany on your list, that's a good thing.

Make sure to eat a bosna when you are in Salzburg.

Be sure to find the secluded lake while hiking in the foothills of mount Tibidabo.

I'll be 38 years old in December. I do not need to do this on a budget but I think staying in hostels may be the optimal route anyway b/c it'll be a good way to meet people. I can stay in private rooms.

Certainly going to take the train through mainland Europe.

Just finding the planning to be kind of a pain b/c I have to do it all by myself. So I think I'm going to take the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki and then fly to the mainland of Europe when I am ready. I will probably fly to Krakow or Warsaw from Helsinki.

Is Helsinki an awesome time? Worth the trip?

Austria is a good choice. Beautiful country and incredibly hospitable people. Salzburg in particular is supposed to be very pretty. I've actually been about 4 times but only to the airport for ski trips, I wish I could have seen more of it.

Helsinki is a really cool city. But you should do all of the Northern European stuff early in your trip, daily highs in October are usually in the high 40s to low 50s and it’s getting dark pretty early already. November would obviously make matters worse. OTOH, it’s still pretty nice in Southern Europe in late October.

We just show up and they let us stay for 3 months.

so jealous

Tallinn is great and you can take the ferry there from Helsinki. Make sure to eat some of the horrible licorice the Finns like on the ride over.

Skip Copenhagen and the ridiculously overrated city of Prague. Definitely go to Berlin. Go up the mountain in Budapest and have some amazing hot chocolate, then rent a bike and criss cross back and forth over the bridges.

Max out at 7 destinations, stay at least 3 days minimum in any one place. Take overnight trains for long hauls to max your time enjoying the different places.


No plan. Smallest backpack possible. Minimal clothes - just get them washed more often. Schedules are horrible. Use both trains and regional carriers - Wizzair is great. Ryanair, not so much. Talk with other travelers you meet and be willing to change your plans and join them for a few days.


It will be super easy if you stay in hostels. You can also attend local couchsurfing meetings and meet tons of travelers that way as well.


Not really.
Yes, been to all of them.
Sofia, Bucharest, Istanbul, Berlin, Malmo, Geneva, Milan, Bordeaux region, Sevilla, etc




I'll likely be overlanding west from Istanbul -> Madrid starting a month from now, perhaps our paths will cross somewhere.

Copying my post from the travel thread

I did this last year. Aside from the order of the cities I traveled to, I planned everything as I went. Only housing problem along the way was an unresponsive AirBnB host in Belgium. But a call to AirBnB's customer service was a huge help and I found a place on short time very quickly. I also had trouble finding transport from Copenhagen to Stockholm but that was because it was Easter. Instead, I stopped over in Gothenburg not expecting much but really enjoyed myself.

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. You'll meet a lot of locals rather than travelers that way. 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.

Forgot to second Zangy's comment regarding smaller cities & towns.

Some of the best experiences I've had have been in little no name villages far from the big capital cities.

Again, it depends on why you are traveling and what kind of experiences you are looking for. Spending a couple of days in a little town or village that rarely or never gets international tourists is a fantastic experience if you really want to get a feel for how the locals live, and have some meaningful interaction with them.


Also forgot to mention - while English is spoken pretty much everywhere in Europe, learning how to say at least "thank you" and "hello" in the local language of wherever you are goes a really long way. It shows both interest and respect, and locals always appreciate the effort, even if you only learn a couple of words.

I recommend also picking up a slightly less common word or phrase to use as well, that tends to really delight them. My go-to is "good luck", but I also like "very funny" or "good joke", which is also a useful response to being quoted a tourist price for something. Saved a lot of money over the years with that one.

The word for "cheese" is also good to yell out when taking a group photo, and always gets a laugh, and usually leads to a fun discussion about what (if anything) people in that country say when taking a photo together.

Are you from Europe? Did you really try that out?

I started once reading through this visa stuff for USA and visa waver stuff and so.... After about 5 min I got a feeling that I am doing my Tax return and I decided that I can live without.

Schengen visa waiver allows USA#1ers to visit the Schengen area for 90 days in any 180 day period. This used to be a fixed window. Now it is a rolling window.

The elite strategy used to be to enter the Schengen area on Day 1 to start the 180 day clock, then immediately leave and later come back on day 92. Spend 89 days, step outside for a day, then come back and get 90 more days in the second 180 day period. Gave you almost 178 consecutive days with only a one day break in the middle.

However, the 180 day window was changed from a fixed window to a rolling window back in 2013, so now that strategy no longer works. Now the window is always just the 180 days prior to the current day.

sad!

Go further south....

....or take a big coat

Just a hasty response as I'm in a rush but I'd be happy to help out later in more detail. I'm from Helsinki and have traveled around a bunch.

If you want to visit Helsinki and you're a single male, definitely take the overnight boat from Stockholm. Viking Line and Silja Line are the two companies, you can book the boats from their website. Should cost like 40 euros or something. They depart Stockholm at 5PMish and arrive in Helsinki at 9AM or so. It also stops in Åland (independent island region between Sweden and Finland) and if you want you can stay there and continue on the next boat 24 hours later. Can't remember if this costs extra, probably some tiny amount, I'd be happy to look into it later.

Google "rooshv stockholm helsinki boat" and read the forum thread if you need further clarification about why this boat is a great idea. It's not necessarily a young people's party boat, people from all age groups go there to hook up. They are also insanely fun in many ways, can't recommend it enough as a weird tourist experience type thing.

Not much to see in Helsinki, both in general and at that time of the year. I'd plan to spend 1-2 days here and move on to more interesting places. If you have more time, you can fly to Lapland for about 90 euros for a return flight and go check out the fall colors that should be incredible around the time you're coming.

If you make it to Helsinki, def def def go to Tallinn. Contrary to some other posts ITT I think it's an amazing city. Yes it's the most western of the three Baltic capitals, but it has LOTS to do and there are some insane value restaurants in there as well. You can get Michelin level **** for 10 euros. There are boats every couple of hours from Helsinki that cost practically nothing. If you plan to not see Riga/Vilnius and fly to Copenhagen from Helsinki (there are very cheap Norwegian flights from here to CPH for 30-40 euros) then what I would do is to simply book a day trip to Tallinn. Departs at 8-9AM, returns at 9PM, costs maybe 15 euros. I'd be happy to help you book it. If you have 2 days here, I'd spend one in Helsinki and one in Tallinn.

You can also venture down the Baltics using buses / trains, should be very cheap. You can fly Air Baltic to anywhere for dirt cheap from Riga which is their home base, so one very solid option would be:

Stockholm -> Helsinki boat
One day in Helsinki
Morning boat to Tallinn ->
Onto Riga by bus
Fly to xxx from Riga for like 30 euros.

The only downside is that you'd miss out on Vilnius which is def my favorite of the three Baltic capitals, but hey can't have them all.

Stockholm and Helsinki hotels are super expensive but you can get good lodging for 25 euros in all the Baltics. So it also makes financial sense to spend less time around here and more in the Baltics, plus the Baltics are more interesting anyway.

Anyway lmk if you have any questions about this region and or need help booking stuff. Would be happy to have beers if I'm here when you arrive, but I'm traveling for about 60% of October myself.

Regarding other cities on your list, I think Budapest is very cool and Prague is very overrated. I never enjoyed Paris at all either and I've been there probably 7 times. But these all come down to personal preferences I guess and I definitely get wanting to visit the "must-see" cities. The thing about Prague tho is that it's the stereotypical "old European city that all tourists must visit" meaning it's very unauthentic and boring. There are still heaps of cities that fit the description and are significantly more interesting all around Europe that just don't get the marketing hype. Kinda like Paris is the "City of love" but when you go there it's the most unpleasant, hostile city in all of Europe and you'd find a more romantic atmosphere in any city by throwing a dart at a world map.

I think the actual must-see major cities in Europe are Berlin and Barcelona. After that I'd add Budapest or something similar, Amsterdam, some sort of Italian experience, and the Baltics (assuming you don't have time to make it to southeastern europe). I only listed big, easy to get places as I assume you're on a bit of a schedule. I wholeheartedly second chopstick's post about all the good stuff being scattered around between the major cities, but that's a whole different story. I also think it's much better to travel without making too many plans, I wrote this post under the assumption that you want to plan stuff tho.

If you do this in Southern Europe, be prepared for pick-pockets. The Munich to Italy overnight route was famous for theft when I lived in Germany. I knew several people who had items from their luggage stolen, and heard of several who had their wallets in their pockets and had them stolen in their sleep.

I've been to all of those places except Tallinn, and enjoyed most of them, but it definitely seems big-city centric. Depends what you like, but I didn't enjoy Helsinki much (sorry Chuck) and disagree that Prague is over-rated. I loved Prague.

Seville but it's a long way from your other choices.

My favorite city in Spain. Barcelona is overrated, overcrowded, and littered with pickpockets. Madrid is a hot, dirty mess. Both are worthy of a visit imo but Seville is too often skipped by tourists who travel to Spain. Seville has the feel of Barcelona but without the chaos.

Of course, the disadvantages of Seville are the absurdly hot summer weather (even by Spanish standards) and the lack of beaches. The former is a moot point for OP though.

He’s talking about US to Europe I think? That direction, it’s just that easy. My wife is a US citizen and we travel to Europe several times a year. Never takes more than a minute at immigration.

Europe to US, you need something called ESTA to take part in the visa waiver program. You can fill that out online, takes maybe 5 minutes and costs around 10€. With that, you can stay up to 3 month in the US if you can give the immigration officer a good enough explanation for your trip. “I am rich and like to travel, here are some financial statements” usually works unless you look like a criminal. (Or are an actual criminal, that excludes you from the visa waiver program).

Flying to Europe, customs and immigration rarely take more than 5 minutes including wait time. Going back to the US, it often takes up to an hour for residents on even longer for tourists.

Yes.

At this time of the year there are two separate, very different but equally brilliant European tours - Baltic/Scandi/Northern/Central Europe, and France/Italy/Spain/Portugal.

OP may have to come back to do #2.

Also note that you have to renew ESTA every two years. Solid moneymaker for the government that way. I got one on my other passport in case I lose my American passport.

Travelling into America for me is a *****. I am always taken to the side for "extra screening" where they take you to a room, give you an aggressive pat down and search through your carry-on before sending you on your way. It's pretty likely that I'm on a watch list. I don't know why. I'm white. I'm American. I'm not a Muslim and don't have a criminal record. Yet, I still get searched.

Traveling to Europe from America is rarely a long wait though Heathrow has these goofy machines where you look into a camera in front of a closed gate while scanning your passport or something like that. Adds a bit of time to entering the country.

They always ask my wife stupid questions and I’ve wondered what they can really do when you aren’t cooperating? It’s not like they can prevent a US citizen from entering the country? Obv. something you don’t want to try out though.

I think they are at most major airports now? Have seen them at FRA, CDG and also at Schiphol IIRC. It’s actually faster for me to go to the non-EU citizen counter when traveling with the family.

Still, the fact that nobody asks stupid questions like “what did you do in XYZ?” - “visited my parents” - “what did you do with them?” makes life so much easier.

They can't. What they can do is hold onto you for an extended period of time just for ****s and giggles. No skin off their nose. After all, they get paid by the hour. Probably easier to answer a few questions in a few minutes than spend hours waiting in a room getting your privacy invaded as agents hack your phone and computer to see everything you're bringing with you.

I don't recall them being in Edinburgh. But then again, I was arriving there from London. So, they might not be used for domestic travel.

Over the last 15 months, I've only been to four airports. I think Iceland's airport might have had those things but I don't really recall.

Fair to say that the less time you spend talking to people when flying, the better things are.

Granted, that's not always the case. Had a friendly conversation with a guy checking passports before the metal detectors at Paphos Airport in Cyprus. Then again, there were only four flights going out that morning from the airport. So he had plenty of time to chat.

Cool thread.

How come Krakow made your list? I found the city itself pretty touristy and not really anything special. On the other hand, whoever mentioned Auschwitz was right -- obviously an incredibly depressing experience, but one that will stay with me forever. If you're in the mood for it, it's a fascinating way to spend the day and really the only reason to go to Krakow IMO. On the other hand, Warsaw is pretty nice.

Other than that I like all the cities you mentioned, or haven't been to them.

I'll be doing a bunch of European travel too over the next 7 months. Couple questions for the group: (1) is it weird to stay in hostels once you're out of your 20s? I'm now 31 and can easily afford a hotel, but the idea of the social aspect of hostels appeals to me. (2) I've really liked Eastern Europe, what are good cities to go to that might be more on the adventurous side? Like, I really enjoy Prague, but coming from America I don't feel as if it gets me out of my comfort zone at all. I was thinking of checking out Minsk. Any others worth looking at?