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Yes!! They are so worth it!! But perhaps that's just for history buffs like me. I was enamored with all the info I learned from my tour guide when I went to Europe! I loved the fact that I had someone who could answer all my questions about either an artifact I saw, the location, or anything about the city and culture in general.
The tour company we are looking at is called GoAhead Tours, we're specifically looking at a 16 day trip that includes London, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Cologne, Lucerne, Rome, Como and another city that I'm forgetting.
As we like to joke, it's a "if it's Tuesday it must be Brussels" trip. You will spend much if not most of your time in buses, airplanes and trains. Is that why you want to go to Europe? Moving around from place to place constantly is tiring in itself.
My suggestion? Go to the travel section of your local bookstore. Flip through the guidebooks on the various countries. Identify a few places you'd like to go to.
Sit down and map out an itinerary. Start with the city of origin (where your flight arrives from the US) and map out a route that takes you back to the city of origin for the departure flight. Decide how many days you want to spend in each place.
For two weeks don't go to more than three countries. You'll get much more out of your trip the longer you spend in each place as all European countries can easily keep you occupied for months. Two weeks will barely introduce you to either France, UK, Italy or Germany.
Then book flight tickets (kayak.com is good).
Use booking.com to find hotels.
As for planning travel routes try to focus on a certain area. You can spend two weeks in Italy easily, doing the classic Rome-Florence-Venice route with smaller trips to Naples/Amalfi Coast or the Italian Riviera or Lake Como/Bergamo.
Or do northern Italy then swing through the Alps for a few days in the Swiss Alps.
For France, start in Paris and do a loop through Strasbourg and Colmar and Dijon. Or go to Normandy/Brittany. Or Provence.
It's easy to combine France with a few days in London, or start in the UK and finish with a few days in Paris.
But, believe me, you do not want to go from London-Paris-Amsterdam-Cologne-Venice-Rome all in one trip.
If you want to tour with people your own age, I'd look at Contiki, which is entirely for 18-35 year olds.
my girlfriend and i did contiki in 2002 and it was AMAZING. 13 countries in 27 days. started in london, to paris, beaujolais, barcelona, nice, cannes, monaco, florence, rome, verona, venice, lucerne, lichtenstein, innsbruck, munich, vienna, amsterdam,
let's see... saw the notre dame and louvre in paris, stayed in a chateau in lyon, partied in a cellar, drank wine at a vineyard, ate tapas on a boat in barcelona, saw guitars and dance and drank sangria and saw the giant water fountain show at night, nude beach in nice, saw where the man in the iron mask was jailed on isle st marguerite, gambled at the grand casino in monaco, stood in center of colosseum in rome, threw pennies into trevi fountain with girlfriend in rome, ate mcdonald's across from pantheon watching gypsy begger children, rode gondolas in venice, saw the pigeons at st mark's, rubbed the brass breast of juliet's statue in verona, bought a watch in switzerland, ate fondue, went to top of jungfrau in a blizzard, white water rafted, walked through cave carved in glacier, saw klimt museum in vienna, bought switchblade, rode bikes around city, drank beer in steins at hofbrauhaus in munich where hitler had rallies, went to madhausen concentration camp, jumped off mountain and paraponted in austria, smoked pot at grasshopper in red light district in amsterdam, saw anne frank's house, saw the bookshelf that hid the secret door, saw van gogh museum, went to sex show in red light district, rode bikes to see windmills, saw wooden shoes in belgium, then back through the tunnel under the english channel to london.
my girlfriend and i did contiki in 2002 and it was AMAZING. 13 countries in 27 days. started in london, to paris, beaujolais, barcelona, nice, cannes, monaco, florence, rome, verona, venice, lucerne, lichtenstein, innsbruck, munich, vienna, amsterdam,
let's see... saw the notre dame and louvre in paris, stayed in a chateau in lyon, partied in a cellar, drank wine at a vineyard, ate tapas on a boat in barcelona, saw guitars and dance and drank sangria and saw the giant water fountain show at night, nude beach in nice, saw where the man in the iron mask was jailed on isle st marguerite, gambled at the grand casino in monaco, stood in center of colosseum in rome, threw pennies into trevi fountain with girlfriend in rome, ate mcdonald's across from pantheon watching gypsy begger children, rode gondolas in venice, saw the pigeons at st mark's, rubbed the brass breast of juliet's statue in verona, bought a watch in switzerland, ate fondue, went to top of jungfrau in a blizzard, white water rafted, walked through cave carved in glacier, saw klimt museum in vienna, bought switchblade, rode bikes around city, drank beer in steins at hofbrauhaus in munich where hitler had rallies, went to madhausen concentration camp, jumped off mountain and paraponted in austria, smoked pot at grasshopper in red light district in amsterdam, saw anne frank's house, saw the bookshelf that hid the secret door, saw van gogh museum, went to sex show in red light district, rode bikes to see windmills, saw wooden shoes in belgium, then back through the tunnel under the english channel to london.
my girlfriend and i did contiki in 2002 and it was AMAZING. 13 countries in 27 days. started in london, to paris, beaujolais, barcelona, nice, cannes, monaco, florence, rome, verona, venice, lucerne, lichtenstein, innsbruck, munich, vienna, amsterdam,
let's see... saw the notre dame and louvre in paris, stayed in a chateau in lyon, partied in a cellar, drank wine at a vineyard, ate tapas on a boat in barcelona, saw guitars and dance and drank sangria and saw the giant water fountain show at night, nude beach in nice, saw where the man in the iron mask was jailed on isle st marguerite, gambled at the grand casino in monaco, stood in center of colosseum in rome, threw pennies into trevi fountain with girlfriend in rome, ate mcdonald's across from pantheon watching gypsy begger children, rode gondolas in venice, saw the pigeons at st mark's, rubbed the brass breast of juliet's statue in verona, bought a watch in switzerland, ate fondue, went to top of jungfrau in a blizzard, white water rafted, walked through cave carved in glacier, saw klimt museum in vienna, bought switchblade, rode bikes around city, drank beer in steins at hofbrauhaus in munich where hitler had rallies, went to madhausen concentration camp, jumped off mountain and paraponted in austria, smoked pot at grasshopper in red light district in amsterdam, saw anne frank's house, saw the bookshelf that hid the secret door, saw van gogh museum, went to sex show in red light district, rode bikes to see windmills, saw wooden shoes in belgium, then back through the tunnel under the english channel to london.
A person could arrange all the above on their own, but you'd really have to work at it.
When I've traveled Europe on my own, I've spent a good part of my time figuring out train schedules, dealing with innkeepers, turning maps this way to find my way to things. Once ended up staying in a hotel in Amsterdam in the red light district. Now that was an adventure and a half.
Contiki tours seem to combine the best of tours and independent travel. Travel and accommodations are arranged, but meals are mostly breakfasts, leaving you to explore on your own throughout the day.
Plus, you have guides for advice on what not to miss.
I have done both the tours and the self guided trips. If your heart is set on seeing all of the different cities you listed, the tour is a reasonable way to do it. A lot of the stress and logistics will be taken care of for you. You will be able to focus on just seeing the sights and enjoying yourselves. Plus you will have a knowledgeable guide who can answer questions and make recommendations. A good guide can really make a big difference on this kind of trip.
However, if you want to focus on just one or two cities you could probably do it yourself.
One nice thing about doing a trip on your own, is that you can always book single day or half day tours in the bigger cities. We booked an absolutely fantastic "Chocolate Tour" in Brussels that was one of the biggest highlights of our entire trip. This allows you the best of both worlds. You get the freedom of a self guided vacation combined with at least some local expertise.
Ugh! Guided tours, meaning stuck with people you don't know, and may not like for days! Literally! Did it once, never, ever again. It was the worst experience of my life.
Now, maybe if you get in a group your same age and interests it would be different.
And talk about herd mentality! You get exactly 30 minutes to see this, 30 minutes for that...what if you want to spend 2 hours? Forget it, back on the bus.
Last edited by jasper12; 12-12-2013 at 06:47 AM..
Reason: Edit
Ugh! Guided tours, meaning stuck with people you don't know, and may not like for days! Literally! Did it once, never, ever again. It was the worst experience of my life.
Now, maybe if you get in a group your same age and interests it would be different.
And talk about herd mentality! You get exactly 30 minutes to see this, 30 minutes for that...what if you want to spend 2 hours? Forget it, back on the bus.
Really appreciate all the feed back guys and gals. To answer Tallybalt's question, that's my biggest fear. I told her we were going to be on a 7 hour bus ride to get from one place to another. I'm not feeling it, it sounds great on paper but when you get into the logistics and details of it, we are going to be rushed from one place to another and not really take anything in. I also plan on proposing to her, ideally in a city like Paris (cliche, I know), and I ask myself where am I going to fit that in?
Our ideal European trip involves London, France (Paris), Italy (Rome, Florence and maybe Venice), and Amsterdam, at the very least. My biggest worry is getting from one place to another.
I did read about Contiki and some of the reviews stated that they put you in hotels that are nowhere near the center of the city. Airfare isn't even included, which GoAhead at least provides.
Just my opinion but 16 days to go to 8 or more of the "big" cities in Europe including traveling to and from seems like you may be spreading yourselves thin...
Do you want to do this trip so that you can get a pic of the Eiffel Tower and all the other touristy monument photo-ops and to fill up your passport stamps or do you really want to go to get a sense of each country's unique culture/history/cuisine/vibe/etc.?
If the former, a guided trip would certainly save you the headache of logistically planning a fairly complex excursion.
But if the latter, I would seriously consider limiting myself to half as many destinations for 16 days. As one commenter said, even that would probably not be enough time to see the bulk of Italy and it's diverse cities and regions.
My wife and I just did 8 days in Florence and Rome and I felt like I could've been happy continuing to explore just those two cities for another 8 days!
Good luck and happy travels to wherever you decide to go!
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