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Help - Travel Newbies!
My husband and I are planning a trip to Europe for this summer/early fall. We've finally nailed down where we want to go - Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague.
Unfortunately, we aren't sure what to do next! We were thinking two weeks, but I'm a little worried that won't be long enough to hit all of those places. We also aren't set on when to go - is it too late to book for July/August? We have a budget of 6-7k, based on what little research I've done, that seems reasonable, but would love to hear from more seasoned travelers to know if I'm way off.
Regarding how to book, since there will be multi-city travel, would it be easier and/or cheaper to go through a travel agent? We were thinking about flying into Munich, taking the train through the other locations, and then flying out of Prague (we're in DC), but would it be cheaper to get a round trip flight out in/out of Munich and just take the train from Prague at the end of the trip?
DH has never been to Europe, and I've only been on escorted trips, so we're really at a loss here. If anyone has any pointers to help us get started, we'd much appreciate!
Re: Help - Travel Newbies!
We have done a bunch of Europe trips now with strings of cities like your itinerary. We haven't used a travel agent. However, I like doing hotel and airfare research. Also, DH and I are more into exploring the cities on our own by foot with a tourbook and some concierge recommendations rather than spending the whole day inside a museum looking at art. We like the Fodor tourbooks, especially the slim and compact "Top 25" series they have for many world cities. A travel agent maybe helpful in putting together an itinerary if you have specific places you must see and you don't want to do the hotel, air and train research yourself.
If you do your own bookings, what we have found to be most helpful to us is to stay at an American hotel chain in the European city. Our chain of choice is Starwood, but we've stayed at Mariotts and Hiltons as well. It makes the hotel search easier if you are only focusing at looking at a few chains rather than the whole gamut of choices. You won't get the "true to the locals" or "cute and charming B&B" types of places, but what you will get is staff that speak decent English that can take care of you if your itinerary in the local language has you stuck. The train system is much better over there than here. We have always booked our train tickets in the US well before our trip. One time they had to mail a paper ticket so it was good we had given ourselves a few weeks to ensure we got the ticket. If you are going in July/August, that is plenty of time. It may save you more time to fly into Munich and out of Prague rather than returning back to Munich. The airfare prices might not be that much different doing it that way versus a roundtrip out of Munich. Do a "multi city" itinerary search on kayak.com to research what the prices will be like.
Have fun planning - it sounds like a nice itinerary!
I did the same trip in December 2006. It was amazing!! You will LOVE IT!!
I did not use a travel agent. We had a round trip flight to Munich - checked the prices online and it was cheaper for us. Took a train from Munich to Prague, train to Vienna, train to Salzburg, train to southern Germany, and rented a car in Germany to visit some small towns, Konigsee Park (gorgeous), and the castles (Neuschwanstein), then drove back to Munich and dropped the rental car at the airport. It was really pretty easy. And my husband got to drive on the Autobahn, which was a highlight of the trip for him.
I think your budget and two week time frame would be reasonable. We only had 9 days for our trip and we got to see tons of stuff.
I like smaller hotels and did alot of research online to find some good ones. For instance, we ended up staying at hotel that was a converted convent in Prague. It wasn't as fancy as brand new chain hotel, but it was so charming and felt so authentically European. Travel review sites like tripadvisor can really help you find exactly what you are looking for in a hotel. If you pick a smaller hotel, you can do everything over email these days and not worry about making international phone calls when you are trying to book. I actually chose a sweet little private room in a hostel in Salzburg and it was fun to eat breakfast with Australian backpackers in the morning at the hostel cafeteria. Big chain hotels couldn't be easier to book online if that's more your style. If you do your research, especialy directions from the train to the hotel (taxi or subway?), you will be pretty proud of yourself when everything works out great!
It's an adventure for sure.
Book soon for this summer, because hotels will fill up fast in the busy summer months.
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Things you should know... Germany takes the month of August as a holiday. Many of the companies shut down and lots of people are on travel. it is difficult to find reasonable rates as it gets closer to August. So I would suggest July is better. Train tickets are cheaper if you buy them before you go. They are cheaper for US tourists but you cannot buy them at that rate once you are over there. You may be interested in the Eurorail pass depending on how much train travel you plan to do. In Germany (and maybe the other countries too) there are bike rental shops at the train station. Also most cities have trams with passes for the day & week.
When I went to Vienna and Prague it was in August. We ended up at a B&B (apartment in a lady's home) but we did it spur of the moment in Prague. In Salzburg we camped and in Vienna stayed at a hotel we booked ahead. I was also travelling with a Germany friend who was on holiday for the month.
Munich I went to a few years ago. I also enjoyed Nuerenburg (day trip out from Munich). Wonderful medieval history there - castle, dungeons, etc.
Price out train tickets using the TGV and Bahn websites and compare to the RailEurope website. RailEurope tix would have cost us more than 2x what it cost for us to get tix from TGV and Bahn. RailEurope also charges shipping while TGV and Bahn offer the option to print tickets and RailEurope does not display the entire schedule- just select times. Don't be afraid to use foreign websites- if you need need advice, TripAdvisor has a lot of posts about how to navigate those sites. Same with the Eurorail pass- even though we are visiting 4 countries over a few weeks it will still less expensive for us to buy point-to-point tickets. I think passes are more convenient for those that do not have a set itinerary but if you know where you want to be and when it will probably be much less expensive to buy tickets vs. pass. Just price it out at each website and see what option is best.
An American Girl's Travels