Planning and Enjoying a 25-Day European Itinerary from London to Rome, part 1

This is a travel post on a recent solo trip I took in March. It is a lengthy post, and its slant is my planning process and some of the things I have learned rather than my impression of tourist sites.

I know most people who enjoy taking trips would likely travel more if not for the constraints we all face, such as having time or money, health issues, raising kids, caring for family members, school calendars, or being able to schedule time away from work.  For me, some of these constraints have been lifted as I have gotten older.

I have always enjoyed watching travel shows, reading about travel and following travel blogs, in anticipation of the day when I could begin to take the trips of my dreams.  In the past year or two I also purposefully began following several hundred more travel blogs to help me get started.  There are bloggers focusing on all types of trips including family travel, female travelers, volunteer travel, couples travel, student and educational travel, luxury travel, long term travel, backpacking, solo travel, cruising, rail journeys, retirement travel, sustainable travel, road tripping and a lot more. I prefer Twitter to follow travel bloggers but some people also like Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and other platforms.  The Mercer County Library System also has an extensive collection on travel planning resources which is not to be missed.

Travel hacking appealed to me as a way to partially fund a budget-friendly trip.  There are myriad resources on doing this - collecting frequent flier points and miles to earn free tours, flights and hotels. To begin, we applied for and were approved for a travel rewards credit card in early 2017 that offered a good signup bonus. Charging last year’s family vacation to California on that new card quickly met our four month spending minimum, and by the fall of 2017, had earned roughly the equivalent of $1,000 worth of award travel.

Once I had accumulated those points, it was a matter of nailing down the dates for my trip and deciding on an itinerary. Some people do it the other way around, by choosing their style of travel and itinerary for the trip and then setting out to earn the required points accordingly.    Redeeming rewards points can be done in various ways, including transferring points to affiliated airline or hotel partners, which can be more complicated.  As a travel hacking newbie, I decided to focus on booking directly through the travel portal of our credit card.

Transferring to partners has its benefits, but can also involve fuel surcharges and other taxes or expenses.  I began monitoring the prices of flights into and out of potential cities of interest to me in Europe, using this travel portal.   I knew I wanted to do an open jaw trip, one that began in one city and ended in another.  I also wanted to remain flexible so that I could book this trip at the best possible price relative to its comfort level.  I was willing to take non-direct flights but my hope was a round trip flight in economy class.  Alternatively, some folks like to purposefully plan trips incorporating either stop-overs or layovers to see more cities. Again, as a newbie, I wanted to simplify the arrival and departure for this first biggie solo trip.

From the start, I did not have a strict itinerary in mind, other than being sure I wanted to visit Europe.  Initially I thought I might use my reward points only to cover the flights and then perhaps join an escorted tour and pay out of pocket for the bulk of the trip.  I was thinking of a time frame between one and two weeks.  The more I priced the tours however, the more I realized it would be a more expensive trip than I had originally thought.  Some tour operators charge single supplements for solo travelers.  Others endeavor to group you with like-minded solo travelers for shared accommodations to avoid the single supplement. Others include lodging, some meals and transportation but not daily activities or excursions in their price quotes.

Taking a good look at the various tour operators’ websites was a very helpful process to me and I really recommend doing this.  It gave me a good idea of price levels, length of itineraries and which cities are normally grouped together with connections via bus, train, ferries,

flying or self-driving.  Some also offer packages for independent travelers whereby the hotel and air or rail portions of the journeys are booked for you, and you do the sight-seeing on your own.   The price point of these independent style trips immediately appealed to me, as it likely meant saving money or even taking a potentially longer trip.  Eventually I wondered if I might just be able to do it on my own, booking my own low-cost accommodations and also using credit card reward points.  So many of the blogs I followed were full of detailed advice on the pros and cons of solo travel and I felt I was absorbing a lot by reading them.

I assembled lists of trips that had itineraries with cities and countries that matched those I wanted to see.  There are many websites and travel resources listing itineraries for “first time Europe trips.”    Most advised against far flung or off the beaten path places and encouraged focusing on the classic or famous cities.  Many cautioned against travel that was “too fast” or which involved more travel time than actual sight-seeing.   After further research, I had a list
of places I wanted to see that included Iceland, Ireland, London, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Berlin, Paris, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, Paris, Slovenia, Prague, Venice, Cinque Terre, Barcelona, Porto, Rome, Sorrento and Dubrovnik. Quite a long list with many more countries and cities than was likely feasible.  This was not actually my first trip to Europe either, as I had been to Germany once, 25 years ago with my husband.

I kept working through these itineraries and settled on the idea that I’d logically need to dedicate at least 3 weeks for such a trip.  But more days likely meant a higher budget.   Narrowing down my itinerary was one of the most difficult things to do, as there were so many choices.  I finally decided that I could not see it all in one trip and lopped off half of the list.   I would focus on a regional-style trip hitting cities closer together in logical succession. Other people’s ideas and sample itineraries were helpful but I needed to be honest with myself about what I most wanted to see.

I had also decided early on that I’d prefer rail travel as a means of getting around, though it is not necessarily the cheapest.    I liked the idea of avoiding the cost and hassle of airport transfers and arriving in each new city right in the center of town. I settled on the idea of a potential trip through a good portion of the places on my list that would either begin or end in Amsterdam, London, Paris or Rome.  On our credit card’s travel portal, regular monitoring of flight combinations revealed that Rome was an economical arrival or departure city as were Paris and London. Newark was an economical city to fly in and out of, Philadelphia was not.  Other cities in Europe were consistently higher in cost or involved complicated stopovers or layovers.  Remaining flexible on dates was key.  I was checking about 6-8 weeks ahead.  In our household, plans made too far in advance tend not to work out whereas those in the shorter term do. Finally, a good price for a combination of direct flights came up, into London and out of Rome.  I didn’t want to hesitate too long and risk potentially not getting that price.  It amounted to about $400 round trip (but using reward points not dollars) in and out of Newark from March 2 to March 27th.  I booked it. That was a few days longer than the three weeks I wanted to be away, but it was a good price.  Staying fewer days would have meant a flight costing $200 more.   I decided to pay a bit more for the costs involved to stay for a few more days.

From this point on my itinerary naturally started falling into place.   I’d start in London, take the train to Edinburgh, fly to Amsterdam, then take the train for the rest of the cities along the way.  My research had indicated that buying point to point advanced saver fare tickets from home would be cheaper than rail passes if I was willing to commit to a strict itinerary.   So, I continued to finalize that itinerary, city by city.  Switzerland had not been on my original wish list because of its high cost, however it made sense to stop there to break up the rail journey from Paris to Milan, so I incorporated it. (It was still very expensive to stop there, but I enjoyed it.) The more I researched Italy, the more I realized I wanted to spend more time there so I adjusted the balance of time in the earlier cities accordingly.   The full list of cities included London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Bruges, Paris, Interlaken, Murren, Milan, Venice, Florence, Spezia and Cinque Terre, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast and Rome.  (Photos in this post appear in that order.) I stayed in each city from 1-4 nights, and saw a few of them as side trips.

After booking my flights with reward points, I continued doing the same with accommodations in the cities that came early in my itinerary.  Shopping again on the credit card travel portal, I balanced location with price.  I was willing to stay somewhat farther away from main tourist areas to save money so long as there was handy transportation to get me back and forth.   Using award points I stayed in Earls Court in London, in the Haymarket district in Edinburgh, at the Radisson Blu close to Disneyland Paris, and in Interlaken in Switzerland.  That was a total of 8 free nights of lodging using my remaining award points.  Some simple and some quite luxurious.  It would have been possible to stretch those points even further for more free nights, but I was also considering location for convenience in relation to train stations and the airport, as well as the safety of each particular neighborhood.  I also used reward points for my flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam.

For the remainder of my accommodations I started researching hostels, though I also looked into Airbnbs and Couchsurfing.   Amsterdam is notoriously expensive and I was going to be there over a Friday night.  So, I booked my 3 nights there at a hostel, paying out of pocket.   For Switzerland I wanted to stay in Murren to be right up in the Alps for the scenery, and splurged out of pocket for an overnight stay in a rustic hotel. The second night in Switzerland I used award points for a hotel in Interlaken, to be close to the train station for my early train departure headed to Milan.   In Venice I booked one night in a convent—Casa Carburlotto, located right on the island a short walk from the train station - for 50 euros. It was clean, safe, comfy, affordable and included breakfast. There was no TV and I used a shared bathroom though I only saw a few other travelers at breakfast.  The rest of my stays were all in hostels.  Four nights in Paris in a St. Christopher’s Hostel (buy 3 nights get one free that week) and then at other hostels in Florence, Cinque Terre, Sorrento and Rome.

I bought city cards to cover attractions in London, Paris and Rome. I paid to have them shipped home before the trip began. In Amsterdam, I purchased one at the airport upon arrival.  These cards included transportation within each of those cities but not airport transfers.  I found them to be easy to use and a good value, and would recommend them or repeat buying them myself for future trips.  Any city card that includes a hop on hop off bus or boat tour has strong value in my opinion for getting an overview of a city or orienting yourself for further exploration. Some city cards also include a choice of specialty walking tours or bicycle tours in addition to the list of included museums and attractions.  As I hadn’t been to any of these cities before, I was interested in seeing as many things as I could.  For most cards, you won’t likely
have time to see all that is offered in the time frame allotted and will have to prioritize and be realistic about what you might be able to fit in for the amount of days you purchase.   In cities that sold 24 or 48 hour transportation cards I bought them and found them to be convenient and a good value.   In Venice, I bought the 24 hour vaporetto pass and enjoyed taking the boats back and forth for the views, both at night and during the daytime.

I definitely found cities with large Metro systems to be the easiest to conquer. During the course of my trip though, I did mistakenly take at least 5 short Metro rides in the wrong direction.  I used public city buses in most places with success, though I found they took more of my time relative to other methods of transport for accurate route planning and with some uncertainty as to stops, schedule and payment.  Using local city transportation apps or those such as Citymapper for transit routes or walking directions was invaluable, though I had to be careful about using too much data. I had purchased an international phone plan, but many travelers find success in having their phones unlocked and buying local Sim cards. Next time, I’d put a priority on having more data to be able to freely rely on mapping apps for walking and transit directions.  In Paris, I booked a half day tour through my hostel to the Palace of Versailles, with direct van pickup and drop off service, for 17 euros. The admission to the Palace itself
was included in my city card.  In Sorrento I joined a day-long shared tour of the Amalfi Coast via mini-van, for 50 euros.  In some places I used trams or ferries; other cities were more walkable requiring little need to use public transport.  Only in one instance in Florence did I take an 8 euro taxi ride out of necessity to get to the Accademia Gallery for a 9:00am appointment rather than risk potentially forfeiting my timed reservation.   I had misjudged the walking distance from my hostel, and also taken a wrong turn during my walk, so I felt I had no choice.

I truly enjoyed each of the cities I saw.   I traveled with one rolling backpack that I pulled though I could have carried it if I had to.  That meant regularly washing laundry by hand or in laundromats along the way. I wore my winter coat, scarf, hat and gloves throughout most days as the weather was cool. I experienced sunny and rainy days and even some light snow in the Alps and in Venice.  Most of my travel transfers went smoothly.   My initial flight out of Newark was delayed several hours due to high winds.  In Edinburgh there was record level snowfall the week of my trip, but it was fine by my travel day. One train ride in France was canceled/merged with another - instead of traveling from Brussels Midi station to Marne la Vallee, my train went to Lille where I needed to make a connection to Marne La Vallee. I hardly even understood that this was what was actually happening as I found my way to the

first, extremely crowded train. Fortunately an English speaker nearby explained it to me when another woman showed up to claim the same reserved seat as mine.  For one of my train bookings, I paid extra to take an earlier train. For another, I wanted to do that but the cost was too high, so I waited around for my scheduled departure.  All but the last 8 days of my train travel was booked in advance, from home. I printed both paper and electronic tickets to my phone.  Once I arrived in Italy I used station kiosks, online apps or waited in line to buy my tickets. I do recommend buying train tickets in advance if cost is a prevailing factor but, in some cases, waiting can also be smart if weather might affect your plans or if you might wish to have flexibility to stay in a place longer or move on to the next one a bit sooner.  Saver fares bought in advance are intended only for that specific journey. In some places, it makes no difference in price to buy in advance, except for the convenience.  I recommend researching the logistics of ticketing rules and procedures as much as you

can. Double check details with staff for each step along the way if it is possible to do so.  Some tickets need to be validated on the platform before you board your train.   In one instance in Edinburgh, I did not understand that I needed to use my phone to validate my ticket using a small QR code posted on a wall on the platform.  I approached the tram attendant, who pointed to the code at the next stop and he did insist that I quickly exit the train to validate my ticket.  Knowing the order of the stops on your train route is also helpful for peace of mind.  I would set a timer for roughly my arrival time, and asked others

around me if I wasn’t sure.  Some trains regularly advertise stops in 3 or more languages, others not at all.  Some post them on monitors at the front of the car.  I did enjoy taking the trains for comfort, compared to flying but every trip is different and I would take advantage of cheap flights instead for an itinerary that required it.

The hostels I stayed in were a pleasant surprise to me, as I had never stayed in one before.  I was able to book female dorms in all but one place, and they were clean, centrally located, affordable and comfortable.  Only one, in Florence, was of less of a standard compared to the others, though it had character all its own.  I preferred
hostels with bathrooms right in the sleeping quarters, but for some it was only a short walk down a hallway to shower or use the toilet. For two of them, I was assigned a top bunk, which could not be changed, so I made the best of it. I had not been in a top bunk since my kids were little!  All of the young people that I met in the hostels were courteous and nice to talk to. There were also seniors, multi-generational families and friendly solo travelers my age as well.  I stayed with travelers from Brazil, Ukraine, New Zealand, Germany, England, Australia, India, China, Ireland and Argentina.  Most of the hostels cost less than 35 euros a night and included a simple breakfast.  Hostel staff were very helpful with directions, questions about laundry and with booking affordable tours. I recommend reading the online reviews carefully and with an open mind. As with all reviews they are subjective.  I definitely prioritized safety, cleanliness, and location above other factors. I also came to very much appreciate those hostels that had restaurants attached to them or at least within a very short walking distance as I tended to use them over and over, particularly for the free wifi while I ate or relaxed. They became a familiar haven for kicking back after busy sight-seeing days.

This is part one of a two part blog post.  Part two will be published on Friday at 2:00pm.

- Laura G., Lawrence Branch