Luxury Vacation

Before you can experience authentic Spanish tapas, piazzas in Rome or rooftop terraces in Prague, an important to-do list stands between you and your European vacation. The logistics involved in planning a trip to Europe may seem tedious or overwhelming, but the more prepared you are, the greater your chances of a successful trip that lives up to your expectations. That's why it's important to do a bang-up job creating an itinerary, arranging transportation and tackling the brass tacks before you're off to the Continent. The following simple steps will help you engineer a well-planned escape to Europe -- so you can spend less time worrying about your travel arrangements and more time staring at pictures of castles and men in kilts. 1. Get your documents in order. If you don't have a passport, it will take at least four to six weeks from the time of application for you to receive one. Expedited services can trim the process down to two or three weeks, but it will cost yo...

Whether you are the type who loves pre-trip research, or the type who prefers to just wing it upon arrival, the issue of how long to stay in each place is a major one. We all want to maximize our time in the better places when on multi-stop trips, but figuring out which those are isn’t quite so obvious on your first visit to any part of the world. Some of the best and most famous tourist cities on the planet are actually best visited in one well-planned day, while many others require 3 or 4 days to even feel like you are scratching the surface. Having been around the world a couple of times while studying these places as I go, I’ve sorted out some “best practices” on itinerary planning.  And lately I’ve been answering dozens of questions for readers in both the Europe itinerary planning and Eurorail Pass articles, so hopefully this will be of use for those going through the process soon. How to figure out how long to stay in each city If you are forming an itinerary for a multi-sto...