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#1
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European trip ?'s
Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe
this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? |
#2
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European trip ?'s
jst wrote:
Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. Your choice, of course, but personally I hate group tours and always make plans on my own. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15 thousand what? If you mean US dollars, for 7-10 days for 3 people, it should be more than sufficient unless you insist on first-class everything. -- Ken Blake Please reply to the newsgroup |
#3
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European trip ?'s
Ken Blake wrote:
jst wrote: Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. Your choice, of course, but personally I hate group tours and always make plans on my own. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15 thousand what? If you mean US dollars, for 7-10 days for 3 people, it should be more than sufficient unless you insist on first-class everything. First class everything for my family, you must be kidding. LOL. We have saved a while for this trip as gift for our daughter who reaaallly wants to go. Any Ideas on where to start planning? |
#4
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European trip ?'s
jst wrote:
Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. I think that group tours sometimes have a place- I've enjoyed the very few I've been on- but I think you'd do better on this kind of trip by yourselves. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15k USD I take it? That's a very generous budget. You can easily spend that much, but you could also get by on a lot less. -- David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org |
#5
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European trip ?'s
"Ken Blake" wrote in message ... jst wrote: Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. Your choice, of course, but personally I hate group tours and always make plans on my own. As you say, it's personal choice, but I couldn't agree more. My wife and I travel a lot and the European destinations in the OP's post are particularly easy to visit on one's own. Wherever we travel, we always see herds of tourists ("herd" is the only word I can think of to describe these groups), piling out of busses, having a "genuine" espresso in an "approved" cafe, buying the requisite souvenir, and then piling back on their bus. I honestly can't think of a more unpleasant way to travel. As has been noted a number of times in this ng, one of the most exciting and fun parts of foreign travel is not to see sites, but simply to be somewhere else, with a different culture and a different aesthetic. It's fine to see the Eiffel Tower, but far finer (IMHO) to walk the streets, drop into a boucherie, sit for an hour in a cafe sipping a capuchino (in the morning, only, of course ) With the growth of the internet, it's easy to book hotels, trains and airfare, and my wife and I have found that a good part of the fun of a trip is the planning. Paraphrasing Anthony Bourdain -- be a traveller, not a tourist. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15 thousand what? If you mean US dollars, for 7-10 days for 3 people, it should be more than sufficient unless you insist on first-class everything. -- Ken Blake Please reply to the newsgroup |
#6
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European trip ?'s
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:37:12 -0600, jst wrote:
Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? You can easily organise this yourself, London is obviously completely trivial for you, you speak English, and we're very used to American tourists, and the same with Paris of course. First step is to find a flight - open jaw Your place to London / Geneva, you should be able to get this for under 1500 USD each (depending on where you are in the US which I'm assuming). Hopefully well under, but that would depend a bit where you are and when you're travelling. Then it's find a hotel, there are loads in all budgets from a travellodge in London for 150 dollars that would sleep all 3 of you, to top of the range hotels that would probably blow your budget in a day. I'd say 300 dollars a day would get you and partner and your daughter seperate average rooms in London or Paris. Travel between London and Paris and Geneva (say) would cost another 200 ish dollars each. So that's 8100 for your basic travel and living, at 10 days you then have somewhere between 190 and 750 dollars a day to spend on food and entertainment - that's lots! There's lots of sites on the web for looking at hotels, and look at the archive for the group for specific recommendations or places to avoid in London and Paris - but remember these are 2 of the most touristed places in the world, you'd have to be extremely naiive not to be able to get around yourself! Jim. |
#7
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European trip ?'s
"jst" wrote in message news:77juf.1487$Dh.457@dukeread04... Ken Blake wrote: jst wrote: Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. Your choice, of course, but personally I hate group tours and always make plans on my own. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15 thousand what? If you mean US dollars, for 7-10 days for 3 people, it should be more than sufficient unless you insist on first-class everything. First class everything for my family, you must be kidding. LOL. We have saved a while for this trip as gift for our daughter who reaaallly wants to go. Any Ideas on where to start planning? Decide on the cities you want to visit (though 3 days is barely enough to scratch the surface of London, and a week is just enough to give you a nice feel for Paris). Since this is your first trip to Europe, I wouldn't spend it running from city to city. Remember, too, that your arrival day is pretty much shot, even if you're one of the lucky few who doesn't suffer much from jet lag. I can't make recommendations in the Alps -- my experience of Switzerland is limited to Zurich -- but I'd suggest trying to plan an open jaw trip, i.e. fly into one city and home from another. There is no cost penalty to do this, and avoids having to backtrack. Remember that summer is high season for European travel -- you usually can do better, airfare-and-hotel-wise, if you travel in the shoulder seasons, April/May or October/November. Also remember that August is the month of La Grande Vacance, when the French traditionally vacation. I'd recommend that you pick up a couple of good guide books to start. My wife and I like the DK Eyewitness series -- they're beautifully illustrated and make nice souvenirs after the trip. They contain illustrated neighborhood maps, and will help you decide where you want to stay. They also contain hotel recommendations, which will give you a starting place. You'll do better on airfares if you arrive and depart midweek. Once you've selected your gateway cities, and priced airfare, just move on to selecting your hotels. To get from London to Paris you'll want to take the train under the channel. Last time I checked, first class was around $350 US per person -- a bit pricey, but it takes you from city center to city center, saving a huge amount of time and money over flying, as you do not have to get to the airports, which are fairly distant from London and Paris. For Paris to Switzerland, consider the train. European trains are comfortable, reliable and inexpensive. In any city, we always try to schedule day trips. These are particularly easy from London and Paris, as both are central hubs for train travel. For London, one of our favorite excursions was to Bath, a beautiful Georgian city about one hour away. For Paris, a day trip to Versailles is almost a requirement. Within each city, it's really a question of what you enjoy -- are you an art museum and old castle kind of person? Shopping and culture? Pub crawler? |
#8
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European trip ?'s
jst wrote:
Ken Blake wrote: jst wrote: Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. Your choice, of course, but personally I hate group tours and always make plans on my own. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? 10-15 thousand what? If you mean US dollars, for 7-10 days for 3 people, it should be more than sufficient unless you insist on first-class everything. First class everything for my family, you must be kidding. LOL. We have saved a while for this trip as gift for our daughter who reaaallly wants to go. Any Ideas on where to start planning? My biggest suggestion is to realize that 7-10 days is a very short amount of time for a trip to several places, *especially* when those several places include major cities like Paris and London. You could very easily spend the entire 7-10 days profitably in either one of those cities without having enough time to do morethan scratch the surface. So my suggestion is that less is more. You have to decide where to go, but whatever you do, don't try to go to too many places. The more places you visit the lower the ratio of "being there" to traveling, checking into hotels, packing, unpacking etc., and more tiring your trip will be. If you're willing to spend as much as $15,000, think about the possibility of going more frugally and doubling the time to 2-3 weeks. Alternatively, if you can't get away for that long, save part of your travel fund for another trip another time. My other suggestion: go to Rome and Venice instead of London and Paris. ;-) (But that's a very personal view, and reflects my personal tastes, which you understandably may not share.) -- Ken Blake Please reply to the newsgroup |
#9
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European trip ?'s
PTRAVEL wrote:
With the growth of the internet, it's easy to book hotels, trains and airfare, and my wife and I have found that a good part of the fun of a trip is the planning. Yes! That coincides with my point of view exacltly. When I plan a trip myself, it's almost as if the trip starts before I leave home. In fact the internet almost makes it too easy. I now spend much less time planning than I used to, and that's a detriment. -- Ken Blake Please reply to the newsgroup |
#10
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European trip ?'s
Jim Ley wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:37:12 -0600, jst wrote: Our family of three( 2 adults & 17 y/o )are considering a trip to Europe this summer. We would want to spend at least 2-3 days in London then 5-7 days going from France ( Paris a must ) to Switzerland ( the alps ). We have traveled the states extensively and have never been overseas.Is this the type of trip that we should do exclusively with a travel agency and do the group tour bit. We have never been the types to do a group tour but would do one if we could find the right locations included. We are just starting to look into this and any recommendations would be appreciated. We are budgeting 10 - 15 thousand , is this reasonable ??? You can easily organise this yourself, London is obviously completely trivial for you, you speak English, and we're very used to American tourists, and the same with Paris of course. First step is to find a flight - open jaw Your place to London / Geneva, you should be able to get this for under 1500 USD each (depending on where you are in the US which I'm assuming). Hopefully well under, but that would depend a bit where you are and when you're travelling. Then it's find a hotel, there are loads in all budgets from a travellodge in London for 150 dollars that would sleep all 3 of you, to top of the range hotels that would probably blow your budget in a day. I'd say 300 dollars a day would get you and partner and your daughter seperate average rooms in London or Paris. Travel between London and Paris and Geneva (say) would cost another 200 ish dollars each. So that's 8100 for your basic travel and living, at 10 days you then have somewhere between 190 and 750 dollars a day to spend on food and entertainment - that's lots! There's lots of sites on the web for looking at hotels, and look at the archive for the group for specific recommendations or places to avoid in London and Paris - but remember these are 2 of the most touristed places in the world, you'd have to be extremely naiive not to be able to get around yourself! Jim. We are definitely the adventurous type of family and have found our best vacations in the states off of the beaten path. That is one of the reasons why I am here on this group. The thought of being with a hundred other people with different ideas on what to see is scary to me. Just the few responses here have given me new insight on the trip. Since it is Europe ( NEW )it is a little intimidating at first. I figure that we can take the Chunnel to Paris and would you guys suggest trains for the rest of the trip? |
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