Be it a backpacking trip in Europe, a rail trip in Europe or a road trip in Europe – our guide will help you cover all basics.
Here comes Skyscanner’s guide on planning an amazing Europe trip!
1. Fix your travel budget and days of travel: Based on the budget you are comfortable with, Skyscanner travel tools can help you finalize the destinations and number of days on a Europe trip. The oh-so-cool Map Tool enables you to view all the destinations that you can head to, along with the prices for those destinations. The Map Tool also offers a very useful feature customised just for budget travellers. Under the ‘Flying from’ field is the ‘Price’ menu, which gives you an option to fix your budget for flight tickets.
Read more: Skyscanner’s Map Tool: Find destinations that fit your budget
2. Shortlist your destinations on a Europe trip: We would recommend spending at least three days in each European city to have enough time to explore top sights and enjoy the local experiences. Apart from visiting the capital cities, do make a trip to the smaller towns and scenic countrysides – you can opt for a farm-stay as well! Our multi-city flight search tool is great for booking multiple flights at one go. If a European road trip is your idea of a perfect adventure, check out car rentals on Skyscanner’s new 3-in-1 travel app. For booking train journeys, check Eurail passes.
3. Determine the best time to travel to Europe: Summers are the peak tourist season, but you will experience warm temperatures. Budget travellers should opt for shoulder seasons, and plan a trip in winters to experience a white Christmas. Skyscanner also offers an intelligent whole month search feature that suggests the cheapest travel date across a chosen month to your preferred destination. What’s more – if you are flexible with the dates, we offer the “cheapest month view” across the year for all destinations that helps you decide when to fly.
4. Find the best time to book your Europe tickets: If planning a trip to Europe during summer vacations, Skyscanner’s data recommends booking 24 weeks in advance for savings of up to 22%. Our dynamic Price alert tool scans prices real time and notifies you whenever the price of your flight goes up, or down, you get a notification.
5. Book your flight tickets & hotels: Skyscanner collects flight prices from over 1200 major airlines and online travel sites so that you need not bother about spending time in comparing prices. The award-winning Skyscanner’s new 3-in-1 travel app makes your flight, hotel and car booking superbly easy!
6. Apply for a Schengen visa: With your flight and hotel bookings done, you are now ready to apply for a Schengen visa, you can visit nearly 30 European countries on a single visa! Collect all documents required and put them together in a folder for your visa appointment.
Read more: Europe with the Schengen visa
7. Plan your local sightseeing: To optimise time while travelling, it is recommended that you plan your Europe trip itinerary for each day in advance. A number of apps and websites now offer tips and recommendations from locals. Viator, freetoursbyfoot, toursbylocals are a few options.
8. Checklist, Pack right & Fly high: Please do travel light! It is very cumbersome to lug around heavy suitcases. Remember to check the temperatures in your destination on planned days of travel and pack clothes accordingly. Save space by minimising toiletries – you can always pick these up at local convenience stores in your destinations. No need to pick up prepaid international calling cards from India, free wifi is available at most places these days. You can also buy local country prepaid calling and data cards at the destination airports or convenience stores.
Read more: Top 5 tips on how to save on your Europe trip
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