1 Planning the Essentials in Advance

It’s the most important step for any trip. I have divided my planning in 4 categories:

Decide on countries to visit

As Europe has many countries, you might want to take time to decide which all countries you want to visit. If you want to see Northern Lights you may want to add Norway or Iceland to your list. If you just want to go and relax in Santorini, then you may even just have Greece in your list. So, it’s up to you and your partner and co-travellers to decide on which countries to travel to in your Euro trip 🙂

We chose France, Switzerland and Italy.

Flight Tickets

So once you have decided on the countries to visit, locking down on your entry country and exit country should be next.Followed by booking flight tickets. You may even decide your entry and exit as per ticket prices as well 😛 Getting your tickets done well in advance is always a good idea to save money. Summer is usually the best time to travel most of Europe.

For us, we landed in Paris and returned from Rome. Yes, flight prices did decide that a bit 😉

Hotels/Resorts Booking

Figure out where you want to stay based on price, scenery, transportation accessibility, distance from city center etc. We generally choose resorts based on transportation accessibility as we were going to use it very frequently.

Tip: Go on forums like TripAdvisor to search for resorts/hotels.

Recommended sites: Resorts from Booking.com; Stay like a local with Airbnb

Visa

Applying for Visa, is another milestone towards planning your trip. If you are applying for Schengen Visa then whichever country you are planning to stay most number of days, Visa must be taken for that country only and it will be valid for other countries you are visiting. For United Kingdom there is separate visa procedure. So if you are planning to visit the Schengen counties as well as London, you must apply for two Visas, one Schengen Visa and another one for UK. Usually while applying for visa, you must present your hotel/resorts booking details, flight to and fro tickets, bank account statements, etc.