Let’s begin planning for our trip, these are the main topics we are focused on right now:

1. What is our budget?
2. Where are we going?
3. When are we going?

Budget

Since S and I do not want to use up all of our vacation at once, we decided to take a 2-week vacation.  So, we now know the length.  Next we asked some of our friends how much a typical 2-week trip to Europe was. Most people mentioned around $5000 a person if we are staying in hotels and $4000 if we were staying in Hostels.  Since I’m traveling with S, I want to make sure she’s safe throughout the trip, so Hostels (cue the movie) are out of the question.  I don’t want to have to worry about someone creeping up on her in the middle of the night, or having our luggage stolen from us when we’re in the bathroom (this may happen, but European backpacking is usually safe for men and women).  Therefore, we decided to stay within a $5000 budget range per person.  That’s $10,000, which I hope we do not completely spend.  Here is our proposed budget:

I highly doubt we would spend this much, but it’s always good to plan a little extra just in case.

Destination

So, knowing how much we wanted to spend, now it’s time to figure out where we want to go.  Since this is my first time going to Europe, I wanted to go to the more touristy areas.  When Western Europe comes to mind, I think of London, Amsterdam, Rome, and Paris.  S has already been to Amsterdam, and London seems too much like many American cities. So, the logical choice was Paris and Rome.  S also mentioned that she really wanted to go to Barcelona in Spain.  Looking at the map of Europe, it doesn’t look like any of these cities were really that accessible to each other.  My imagination of traveling through Europe was through trains thanks to the great game of “Ticket to Ride”.  With further research, though, we’ve found that flying is another economical and efficient manner of traveling between cities.

Here’s our list of cities we would like to go to: Barcelona, Paris, and Rome.

Date of Travel

Timing this trip can make or break our budget.  If we decide to fly out in High Season for any of the countries, we’d be paying a pretty high premium for flights and lodging.  Plus, we’d miss people-watching many of the locals (that would be no fun).  We decided to choose our dates based on weather, middle to low season, and work schedules.  The best time for us is October.  Fall weather should not be too bad, and a majority of the tourists are long gone.  Plus we should be saving almost half on airfare and lodgings.  We also decided to maximize our savings by flying out on weekdays so we’re selecting dates on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.