Howdy all! Today’s post I want to talk about how to plan your first trip to Europe. We’ll talk about how to pick where and when to go, how to score cheap flights, find hotels, and bounce around once you’ve made it across the pond.
For those who aren’t inclined to read, you can check out my YouTube video on the subject below:
Booking flights for your first trip to Europe
For booking flights, there are few good options such as Google Flights and Skyscanner. I would suggest these two mainly, with the main differences coming down to their interfaces. Whichever you choose, make sure you search in private browsing or incognito mode. The reason for this is to prevent your cookies from being tracked. Airlines and these websites are very good at seeing what you search for, and changing the prices around between searches. Prices for flights obviously fluctuate all the time, but this will help save on some price surges.
For this walkthrough, we’re going to use Google Flights’ explore page. Here, you can put in your departure airport and dates that work for you, then look at a map to see what the prices are for various locations.
You can choose to do flexible dates or specific dates if you’re constrained. It will then show you on a map where you can go and how little flights could cost. I recommend adding additional filters such as number of stops and travel duration time or you might get some wonky itineraries. Or, if you’re really on a budget, go for whatever $300 flight from Dallas to Paris you can get.
For this example, I put Dallas in as the starting point, but it works just as well from Phoenix, Columbus, Wichita, Pittsburgh, you name it!
Once you’ve found a city that looks fairly cheap, you can play around with some of the dates and check different options. You can also look to do multi-city trips (check out my post on that) on the main Google Flights tab if that’s of interest.
If the place you want to go is way more expensive than other places around it: check how much it would be to get from a cheaper hub and then take a train or budget airline to your desired destination. My first trip to Europe, I wanted to go to Prague, but flights were significantly more expensive than if I flew to Munich for some reason. So, I flew into Munich, and took a cheap train to Prague. This saved me some money and gave me the added bonus of experiencing Munich and the Czech countryside for a bit.
This tool is also useful for looking at budget flights within Europe, after you’ve flown into one of the major hubs.
Finding accommodation
For finding hotels, you can choose from any number of websites. Booking.com, Hotels.com, Expedia are all hard to go wrong on. My personal favorite, however, is Booking.com. I have used them for the last 8 years, attained a high level in their Genius loyalty program (for free), and use them for almost every trip I go on.
So, my personal suggestion is to make an account with Booking.com, and use them. Typically, I filter for hotels that don’t require prepayment or at least offer free cancellation so that I can be flexible. I also filter for stays with ratings that are 8+ (out of 10). This doesn’t mean 4 star hotels, it just means that they have been met with positive experiences.
What I like about Booking.com is that they have hotels, hostels, and private home/apartment stays similar to Airbnb. I have booked glamping sites, hotels and hostels all here.
As far as where to stay within the destination, I like to read up on TripAdvisor and Reddit forums about what the best neighborhoods are in a given city. Then, I’ll go on Booking.com and either filter by those neighborhoods or simply switch to Map view and look around those areas.
Getting around on your first trip to Europe
As I mentioned before, Google Flights is your friend when looking at budget airlines to bounce around. Personally, I prefer to take trains where I can. They can sometimes be a bit more expensive, but you get to see more of the country you’re in and avoid the hassle of airport security. Additionally, airports tend to be far out of the cities, while trains go right in and also to some more obscure destinations.
If you decide you want to venture out and travel via train, I cannot recommend enough The Man in Seat 61. I have read his blog for years now when planning my trips and have found them to be very helpful and extremely comprehensive. For your first trip to Europe, there is no better place to start when it comes to train travel.
Conclusion
These tips will work for Europe just as well as Asia or pretty much any other region. You might find certain areas where it makes sense to book through local methods, particularly accommodation.
Please leave a comment below if you have any thoughts or questions on what we discussed here! This is a very basic starting point for planning a trip but you might find some of my other posts more helpful for specific cities.
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