How to Plan a Trip to Europe: A Step-by-Step 2026 Guide

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, one of the best places to visit in Europe

By Hannah Brooks, Senior Europe Editor — Last updated: June 2026

I have planned more European trips than I can count — my own, my friends’, and, in fifteen years of doing this for a living, a fair number of strangers’ over email. So when people ask me how to plan a trip to Europe, I give them the same honest answer: a great trip is mostly made at the kitchen table, months before you ever reach the airport. Get the planning right and Europe is one of the most rewarding, easy-to-travel places on earth. Get it wrong and you spend your holiday on trains, wondering why you booked five cities in nine days.

How to plan a trip to Europe, in short: decide when you’re going and what kind of trip you want, pick one or two regions rather than a whole continent, give each city at least two to three nights, set a realistic budget, then book in the right order — flights first (3–6 months out), then accommodation, trains, and any must-see tickets. Sort your documents early and leave room to wander.

That’s the whole method in one paragraph. The rest of this guide is the detail that actually makes it work: how long you really need, what it costs in 2026, the booking order I use every time, the current entry rules (they changed this year), and the practical money-and-packing things first-timers always ask me about. Wherever a topic deserves its own deep dive, I’ll point you to a dedicated guide.

How to plan a trip to Europe: your planning timeline at a glance

Here’s the shape of a well-planned trip, from the first daydream to the day you fly. Treat the lead times as “peak-season safe” — if you’re travelling in the quieter shoulder months you can shave a few weeks off each step.

When What to do Why it matters
5–6 months out Set dates & budget, choose your region(s), sketch a rough route Decisions here shape everything; flights and summer hotels are cheapest now
3–5 months out Book international flights; lock the first & last night’s hotel Best fares to Europe sit around the 3-month mark; arrival beds remove stress
2–3 months out Book remaining accommodation, reserve any high-speed/scenic trains, buy skip-the-line tickets The famous sights (Vatican, Eiffel, Alhambra, Anne Frank House) sell out weeks ahead
1 month out Travel insurance, eSIM, no-fee bank card, check entry rules, restaurant bookings Admin you’ll be glad is done; rules can change, so verify close to departure
1–2 weeks out Pack light, download offline maps & tickets, tell your bank, print key confirmations A carry-on and a charged phone beat a giant suitcase on cobblestones every time

Want this as a tick-box list you can work through? I keep a full Europe trip planning checklist that breaks every one of these stages into individual tasks.

Step 1: Decide when to go — and what kind of trip you actually want

Before you so much as glance at a map, answer two questions: when can you travel, and what do you want this trip to feel like? Everything downstream — destinations, budget, how fast you move — falls out of those two answers.

Choosing your season

Europe has a genuine high, shoulder, and low season, and the gap between them is enormous in both crowds and cost. July and August are peak: long days, warm seas, every terrace open — and also the highest prices, the longest queues, and serious heat in southern cities (Rome, Seville and Athens regularly push past 38°C/100°F). Shoulder season — roughly late April to June, and September to mid-October — is my standing recommendation for a first trip. The weather is comfortable, the light is beautiful, the big sights are bearable, and you’ll often pay 20–30% less than in August. Winter is low season almost everywhere except the Alps and the Christmas-market cities, which means cheap flights and empty museums if you don’t mind short, cool days.

If your dates are fixed (school holidays, work leave), plan around the season rather than fighting it — head north in a heatwave, south in the shoulder months. I go much deeper into the month-by-month trade-offs in our guide to the best time to visit Europe, including a region-by-region weather table.

Cypress trees on the hills of Val d'Orcia, Tuscany, in early summer

What kind of trip is this?

“Europe” is not one holiday. A week of museums, espresso and aperitivo in Italy is a completely different trip from hiking the Alps, island-hopping the Greek Cyclades, or doing a fast capitals-and-trains loop. Before you choose cities, choose a theme: food and culture, beaches and islands, mountains and nature, history and architecture, or a greatest-hits first-timer loop. Naming the theme makes the next decision — where to go — almost choose itself, and it stops you assembling a random list of famous dots that happen to be 600km apart.

Not sure what’s out there yet? Our roundup of the best places to visit in Europe is built exactly for this stage — browse it by the kind of experience you’re after, not by ticking off capitals. If you already know you want one country in depth, the country guides (for Italy, France, Spain and Greece, among others) go region by region.

Step 2: Decide how long you need — and how many places to visit

This is where almost every first trip goes wrong, so I’ll be blunt: you are going to want to see too much, and you should resist it. Europe looks tiny on a map, but the distances are real and the joy is in the lingering, not the ticking-off. The single biggest upgrade you can make to any itinerary is to cut a city.

How many days do you need?

Ten days is about the minimum for a trip that justifies a long-haul flight; two weeks is the sweet spot for a first visit, giving you depth without exhaustion. If you’ve only got a week, treat it as one city plus a day trip or two, not a country tour. Whatever your total, I plan in nights, not days — a “3-day” stop that arrives at 4pm and leaves at 9am the next-but-one morning is really one full day. Our full breakdown of how many days in Europe you need maps this out for trips from 7 to 30 days.

The two-to-three-nights rule

Here’s the rule I never break: minimum two nights everywhere, three in any major city. Two nights means one full, unhurried day; three lets a big city like Paris, Rome or Barcelona breathe. One-night stops are a trap — you spend the evening exhausted, the morning packing, and most of the value on the platform. With two weeks, that math works out to roughly three to four countries and four to five cities, maximum. Yes, you can physically do six countries in fourteen days. You just won’t enjoy any of them.

Trip length Realistic scope Example shape
1 week 1 country, 2 cities Paris + Loire, or Rome + Florence
10 days 1–2 countries, 3 cities Rome → Florence → Venice
2 weeks 2–3 countries, 4–5 cities Paris → Lyon → Nice → Cinque Terre → Florence
3–4 weeks 3–4 countries, slower pace A full rail loop with rest days built in

Going to more than one country

Multi-country trips are wonderful when the countries are neighbours and the route is a logical line, not a zigzag. Pair Italy with France or Switzerland; Spain with Portugal; Germany with Austria and Czechia. What kills a multi-country trip is backtracking and budget-airline hops that eat half a day each. I walk through how to chain countries without wasting days in our guide to planning a multi-country Europe trip, and our Europe itinerary routes give you tested, ready-made loops you can copy or tweak.

The colourful clifftop village of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre, Italy

Step 3: Choose your destinations and build a logical route

Now you turn a theme and a length into an actual list of places. The trick is to think geographically from the start, so your route is a smooth line or loop rather than a series of expensive hops back and forth.

Start with one anchor city

Pick the one place you most want to see — your anchor — and build outward from it along good transport links. If Paris is non-negotiable, a natural two-week line runs Paris → Lyon → the Riviera → into Italy. If it’s Rome, you’ve got Florence, Venice and the Amalfi Coast all within easy reach. Anchoring stops you scattering your stops across the map and instantly narrows the realistic options.

Mix big cities with something slower

The trips people remember aren’t all cathedrals and capitals. Blend two or three headline cities with one slower place — a hill town, a stretch of coast, a lake, a national park. It changes the rhythm, shows you a side of Europe the city-hoppers miss, and gives you a rest day that doesn’t feel like a wasted one. A first trip especially benefits from this balance; I’ve gathered the lessons I most often pass on in our first trip to Europe tips.

Classic first-timer routes that just work

If you want to skip the agonising and copy something proven, these are the loops I recommend most often:

  • The Italian classic (10–14 days): Rome → Florence → Venice, with a Tuscan or Amalfi detour. All connected by fast trains; impossible to get wrong.
  • Paris & beyond (10–14 days): Paris → the Loire or Normandy → south to Lyon and the Riviera, optionally crossing into Italy.
  • Iberian sun (12–16 days): Lisbon → Seville → Granada → Barcelona, mixing Portugal and southern Spain.
  • Central Europe (10–14 days): Prague → Vienna → Budapest, three gorgeous capitals on one rail spine.
  • Greek island escape (10–14 days): Athens plus two or three islands, with ferries doing the heavy lifting.

Each of these is built around fast, frequent trains or short ferries — which is exactly why they flow. For the full menu of ready-made loops with day-by-day notes, see our Europe itinerary routes, and if you’re leaning toward a rail-based trip, our guide to train travel in Europe shows which of these legs are genuinely better by train than by plane (most of them).

Step 4: Set a realistic budget — what a Europe trip costs in 2026

Let’s talk money, because a vague budget is how trips quietly blow up. The honest answer to “how much does a trip to Europe cost” is it depends enormously on where you go and how you travel — Eastern Europe can cost a third of what Switzerland does. But here are the 2026 numbers I’d actually plan around, per person, excluding your international flight.

Daily on-the-ground budgets by region

Region Budget / day Mid-range / day Comfortable+ / day
Eastern Europe (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, the Balkans) $70–90 $120–160 $200+
Southern & Western Europe (Italy, Spain, France, Germany) $120–180 $180–260 $300+
Switzerland, Iceland & the Nordics $180–280 $280–380 $450+

“Budget” here means hostels or cheap guesthouses, self-catering and street food, public transport and mostly-free sights. “Mid-range” is a comfortable 3-star or solid apartment, a mix of restaurants and markets, the odd taxi and paid attraction. Add it up and a realistic two-week trip lands around $1,800–3,500 per person on a budget, $3,500–7,000 mid-range, and $8,000+ for luxury — before flights.

Don’t forget the flight

Round-trip flights from North America run roughly $500–1,200 depending on season and origin, spiking toward $1,500 in peak July. From the UK and within Europe, budget carriers can get you between countries for €20–60 if you book ahead and travel light. Finding those fares is a skill in itself — I’ve put everything I know into finding cheap flights to Europe, from the best booking window to the fare-alert tools I actually use.

Where the money really goes — and where to save

Accommodation and food are usually your two biggest line items, followed by transport and paid attractions. The biggest levers you can pull are season and geography: travelling in the shoulder months instead of August can cut accommodation 20–30%, and weighting your route toward Eastern or southern Europe stretches the same budget much further. Cooking the odd breakfast, carrying a refillable water bottle, walking instead of taxiing, and buying a city transport pass all add up quietly. For a full toolkit of these tactics, our guide to doing Europe on a budget goes deep on the trade-offs, and the best time to visit Europe guide shows exactly how much you save by shifting your dates.

Euro banknotes and coins — budgeting is a key part of how to plan a trip to Europe

Step 5: Book in the right order (flights, beds, trains, tickets)

Once the route is set, booking is just a sequence. Do it in the wrong order — hotels before flights, say — and you’ll end up paying to fix it. Here’s the order I use every single time, and the timing for each piece. There’s a fuller walkthrough in our step-by-step guide to how to book a Europe trip, and a deeper dive on the timing question in when to book a trip to Europe.

1. International flights first

Your long-haul flight sets your dates in stone, so book it first. For Europe, the sweet spot is roughly three to five months before departure — Google Flights data consistently shows the best fares appearing around 90+ days out. For peak summer or the Christmas markets, push that to five or six months. Midweek departures (Tuesday and Wednesday) are usually cheaper than weekends, and flexible dates plus a fare alert are worth more than any single “secret” trick. Consider flying into one city and out of another (an “open-jaw”) so you don’t waste a day backtracking to your arrival airport.

2. Your first and last nights’ accommodation

The moment your flights are confirmed, book the bed for your arrival night and your departure night. Arriving jet-lagged with nowhere certain to go is miserable, and being near the airport on your last night saves a frantic morning. For everything in between, popular cities and the shoulder-to-peak season reward booking two to three months ahead; quieter places and low season you can leave later. Wherever you can, choose free-cancellation rates — Europe’s prices wobble right up to arrival, and flexibility lets you rebook if something better appears.

3. Trains and any internal transport

Most regional and many high-speed trains in Europe you can simply turn up and ride, but the fast intercity services (France’s TGV, Spain’s AVE, Italy’s Frecce, the Eurostar) get markedly more expensive as they fill, and scenic specials like the Glacier Express need reservations. Book those as soon as the route is fixed — often two to three months out — to catch the cheap advance fares. If you’re doing a lot of rail, this is where you decide between point-to-point tickets and a rail pass; our train travel in Europe guide runs the numbers on which wins for your route.

4. Must-see tickets and tours

This is the step first-timers forget, and it causes more heartbreak than anything else. The headline sights now run on timed entry and sell out weeks ahead: the Vatican Museums and Colosseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower summit, the Alhambra in Granada, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, the Uffizi in Florence. The day your dates are firm, list every “I’d be devastated to miss this” sight and book it. Everything else you can decide on the day — and should, to leave room for the wandering that makes a trip.

Step 6: Work out how you’ll get around

How you move between places shapes the whole feel of a trip. Europe gives you three good options, and the right answer is usually “mostly trains, occasionally a flight, rarely a car.”

A scenic train winding through the Swiss Alps — trains are the backbone of most Europe trips

Trains: the default, and usually the best

For most city-to-city trips under about four or five hours, the train wins outright. It runs centre to centre, so you step off in the heart of the city with no airport transfer, no two-hour check-in, and no baggage fees. Rome to Florence is 1h30, Paris to Lyon under 2 hours, Amsterdam to Paris 3h20 on the Eurostar. It’s comfortable, scenic, and you can work or nap the whole way. Nine times out of ten when someone asks me “should I fly or take the train?” between two European cities a few hundred kilometres apart, the answer is the train. The full case — passes, reservations, night trains — is in our train travel in Europe guide.

Budget flights: for the long hops only

For genuinely long distances — London to Athens, Lisbon to Vienna — a budget airline like Ryanair, easyJet or Wizz Air is faster and often cheaper. Just price the real cost: the headline €25 fare becomes €70 once you add a cabin bag, and the “city” airport may be an hour from town. Factor in the trip to and from both airports and a short flight often loses to a direct train once you count door to door.

Rental cars: countryside only

I almost never recommend a car for a city-based trip — parking is expensive, historic centres are closed to traffic (and the fines for driving into Italy’s ZTL zones are notorious), and you’d be paying to leave it in a garage. Where a car shines is rural: Tuscany’s back roads, Andalucía’s white villages, the Scottish Highlands, Ireland’s coast. Rent it for that leg only and hand it back before the next city.

Step 7: Sort your documents and entry requirements early

Do this before you book anything non-refundable, because a passport problem is the one mistake you can’t fix at the airport. The rules also changed in 2026, so here’s exactly where things stand as I write this in June 2026 — but always confirm against the official EU travel portal close to your trip, since dates are still moving.

Your passport

For the Schengen Area your passport must be valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure from Europe and have been issued within the previous ten years. Check both dates now — renewals can take weeks in peak season. You’ll also want two blank pages and, ideally, a photo of the ID page stored somewhere separate from the passport itself.

Do you need a visa? The 90/180 rule

Citizens of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries can visit the Schengen Area (29 countries) visa-free for up to 90 days within any 180-day period. That allowance is shared across the whole area, not per country, so a long multi-country trip can quietly use it up. If your nationality does need a Schengen visa, apply through the consulate of your main destination well ahead. We unpack all of this in the Schengen visa & ETIAS guide.

EES and ETIAS — what’s actually live in 2026

Two new systems have been in the headlines, and there’s a lot of confusion, so let me be precise:

  • EES (Entry/Exit System) — live since 10 April 2026. This is the one you’ll actually meet at the border. It replaces the ink passport stamp with a digital record, taking your fingerprints and a photo the first time you enter. Practically, expect your first crossing to take a little longer; after that it’s quick. There’s nothing to apply for and no fee.
  • ETIAS — not required yet. The travel authorisation everyone’s been bracing for is still not in force as of mid-2026; the EU now expects it to start in the last quarter of 2026, followed by a transitional grace period of several months during which you can still travel without it. When it does go live it’ll cost €7 (free for under-18s and over-70s), be valid three years, and take minutes to apply for online. For a 2026 trip you very likely won’t need it — but check the official portal before you fly, because this timeline has shifted before.

The rest of your document checklist

Beyond the passport, I keep printed and offline-saved copies of every booking confirmation, my travel-insurance policy and emergency number, and — if I’m renting a car — an International Driving Permit for the countries that ask for one. The complete, tick-box version lives in our guide to the documents needed to travel to Europe.

Step 8: Money, phones and packing — the practical layer

With the big decisions made, a handful of practical choices will make your day-to-day travel smoother and cheaper. None of this is hard; it’s just the stuff nobody tells first-timers until they’ve already paid the “tourist tax” of learning it the hard way.

Money and currencies

Europe is not one currency. Twenty countries use the euro (€), but plenty don’t: the UK has the pound (£), Switzerland the franc (CHF), and Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and the Nordic countries all keep their own. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but I always carry a little local cash for markets, small cafés and tips. Three habits save real money: get a card with no foreign-transaction fees, always pay in the local currency (decline the machine’s offer to “convert” for you — that’s dynamic currency conversion, and the rate is terrible), and use bank ATMs rather than the Euronet machines that cluster around tourist sights. Tell your bank your dates so a foreign charge doesn’t get frozen.

Staying connected

The easiest fix for data is an eSIM you install before you leave — providers like Airalo or Holafly give you a European data plan that activates the moment you land, no fumbling for a SIM card. If your home plan includes EU roaming (many UK and EU plans do), check the fair-use cap. Download offline Google Maps for each city and your tickets to your phone wallet, so a dead signal never strands you.

Canal houses along an Amsterdam waterway, the Netherlands

Pack light — I mean it

Europe is built on cobblestones, stairs and trains with no porters, and you will carry your own bag up four flights to a charming apartment with no lift. A carry-on and a small day bag is genuinely enough for two weeks if you pack mix-and-match layers and plan to do one load of laundry. Light luggage means you can walk from the station, hop on a regional train on a whim, and never pay a budget-airline bag fee. Comfortable, already-broken-in walking shoes matter more than any outfit.

Plugs and power

Most of continental Europe uses the Type C/E/F plug at 230V; the UK and Ireland use the chunky Type G. A single universal adapter covers the lot, and a small power bank keeps your phone — which is now your map, ticket, and camera — alive through a long sightseeing day.

Step 9: Stay safe, healthy and insured

Europe is, on the whole, a very safe place to travel — violent crime is rare and the public infrastructure is excellent. The risks that actually affect tourists are mundane: pickpockets, a missed connection, a stomach bug, the occasional sprained ankle on a cobbled lane. A little preparation handles all of them.

Pickpockets, not danger

The one genuine nuisance is petty theft in crowded tourist hotspots — the Paris Métro, Rome’s bus 64, Barcelona’s Las Ramblas, busy train stations. It’s opportunistic, not threatening. Keep your phone and wallet in a front or zipped inner pocket, wear bags across your body and in front of you in crowds, and never leave a phone on a café table by the pavement. A cheap crossbody bag with a zip defeats 95% of it.

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia rising over Barcelona, Spain

Travel insurance is not optional

I never travel without it, and I’d urge you not to either. Good travel insurance covers the two things that can genuinely wreck you financially: medical care abroad and trip cancellation or interruption. EU and UK residents should also carry their EHIC/GHIC card, but that’s not a substitute for proper insurance and it doesn’t help non-residents at all. Buy your policy when you book your flights, not the week before you fly, so cancellation cover is in force for the whole run-up. We compare what to look for in our guide to travel insurance for Europe.

Health basics

No special vaccinations are needed for general travel in Western Europe. Pack any prescription medication in its original packaging with a copy of the prescription, throw in a small kit for headaches and blisters, and note that 112 is the single emergency number across the EU. Tap water is safe to drink in the vast majority of European countries — a refillable bottle saves money and plastic.

Planning by traveler type

The same nine steps apply to everyone, but the emphasis shifts depending on who’s going. Here’s how I’d tweak the plan for different travellers.

Whitewashed houses and blue domes in Oia, Santorini, Greece

First-timers

Keep it simple and central. Pick one or two famous, well-connected countries, stick to big cities and easy day trips, and don’t try to prove anything with your itinerary. Trains over flights, two weeks over one, depth over breadth. Our first trip to Europe tips are written for exactly this traveller.

Couples

Build in romance and downtime — a slow lunch, a sunset spot, one splurge dinner or hotel. The Italian lakes, the Amalfi Coast, Paris, Prague and the Greek islands are couple-pleasers for a reason. Two unhurried bases usually beat five quick stops.

Families

Slow right down: fewer cities, longer stays, apartments over hotel rooms, and a pool or a park within reach. Pick destinations with easy logistics and direct trains, alternate “grown-up” sights with kid-friendly ones (a science museum, a boat ride, a beach), and book family rooms early — they’re the first to sell out.

Budget travellers and backpackers

Lean east and south, travel in shoulder or low season, sleep in hostels or guesthouses, and let a rail pass or budget flights carry you. The savings compound fast. Everything I know about stretching a trip is in Europe on a budget.

Luxury and slow travellers

If budget isn’t the constraint, time and energy are — so spend on what removes friction: first-class rail, central boutique hotels, private guides for the big sights, and fewer, longer stays. A week in one beautiful region, properly, beats a frantic grand tour every time.

Frequently asked questions about planning a trip to Europe

How far in advance should I plan a trip to Europe?

Start the big decisions — dates, budget, destinations — about five to six months out, especially for peak-summer travel. Book international flights three to five months ahead, accommodation two to three months ahead, and your must-see tickets as soon as your dates are firm. For shoulder-season trips you can compress all of this by a few weeks. See our when to book a trip to Europe guide for the full timeline.

How many days do you need for a trip to Europe?

Ten days is a sensible minimum to justify a long flight, and two weeks is the sweet spot for a first trip — enough for three to five cities at a humane pace. With only a week, focus on one country or even one city plus day trips. Always plan in nights, not days, and give every city at least two. More detail in how many days in Europe.

How much does a two-week trip to Europe cost in 2026?

Excluding international flights, budget travellers spend roughly $1,800–3,500 per person for two weeks, mid-range travellers $3,500–7,000, and luxury travellers $8,000 and up. Add about $500–1,200 for a round-trip flight from North America. Your region matters enormously — Eastern Europe costs a fraction of Switzerland. Our Europe on a budget guide breaks it down line by line.

What is the cheapest time to visit Europe?

Late autumn and winter (excluding the Christmas-market weeks and ski resorts) are cheapest, with the lowest flights and accommodation. For a balance of decent weather and lower prices, the shoulder months — late April to June and September to October — are the sweet spot, often 20–30% cheaper than August. Compare month by month in the best time to visit Europe guide.

Do I need a visa or ETIAS to visit Europe in 2026?

Most visitors from the US, UK, Canada and Australia can travel visa-free for up to 90 days in any 180. As of mid-2026, ETIAS is still not required — it’s expected to launch in late 2026 with a grace period after that. The EES biometric border system, however, has been live since April 2026, so expect fingerprints and a photo at your first entry. Always confirm on the official EU portal; full detail in our Schengen visa & ETIAS guide.

How many countries can you realistically visit in two weeks?

Three to four neighbouring countries is the comfortable maximum for two weeks, ideally four or five cities total. You can tick off more, but you’ll spend the trip in transit. For depth on a first visit, many people are happier with just one or two countries done well. See planning a multi-country Europe trip.

Is it better to travel around Europe by train or plane?

For journeys under about four or five hours, the train almost always wins — it runs city-centre to city-centre with no airport hassle or bag fees. Save budget flights for genuinely long hops across the continent. Our train travel in Europe guide compares the real door-to-door times and costs.

What should I book before I go, and what can I leave?

Book the things that sell out or get pricier: international flights, your first and last nights’ beds, fast or scenic trains, and timed tickets to the famous sights. Leave casual restaurants, day trips and local museums for the day itself — that flexibility is where the best, unplanned moments live. Our how to book a Europe trip guide lists exactly what falls in each bucket.

Is Europe safe for first-time travellers?

Yes — Europe is among the safest regions in the world for tourists, with low violent crime and excellent emergency services (dial 112 anywhere in the EU). The main risk is petty pickpocketing in crowded tourist areas, which a zipped crossbody bag and a bit of awareness defeat. Carry travel insurance and you’ve covered the rest.

Final thoughts

If you take one thing from all of this, let it be this: plan the structure, then leave room for the trip to happen. Lock the flights, the beds, the trains and the handful of sights you’d hate to miss — and then deliberately leave gaps. The market you stumble into, the café you stay at for two hours, the church bells over an empty square at dusk: those are the moments people come home talking about, and you can’t book them in advance. A good plan isn’t a minute-by-minute schedule. It’s a sturdy frame that frees you to wander inside it.

Start with one anchor city, give every place enough time, respect the season and your budget, and sort your documents before anything else. Do that and you’ve already avoided the mistakes that trip up most first-timers. The rest — the specific routes, the exact costs, the booking timing — is all detailed in the guides linked throughout this page. Browse the best places to visit in Europe to spark the idea, then work back through these steps. Your trip starts at the kitchen table. Pour a coffee and begin.

Hannah Brooks has spent fifteen years travelling, living and writing across Europe, from the Arctic tip of Norway to the south of Sicily. She has planned hundreds of European itineraries for readers and is Senior Europe Editor at EuropeanTourism.org.

Photo credits

  • Eiffel Tower, Paris — Photo: Pierre Blaché (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
  • Val d’Orcia, Tuscany — Photo: Teseo / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Vernazza, Cinque Terre — Photo: WikiLucas00 / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Euro banknotes and coins — Photo: Avij / Public domain (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
  • Scenic train in the Swiss Alps — Photo: User:Möchtegern (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
  • Amsterdam canal houses — Photo: Basile Morin / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Sagrada Família, Barcelona — Photo: Didier Descouens / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Oia, Santorini — Photo: Giles Laurent / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons