Never traveled! Where do I even start?

Here’s the chatty detailed version…. Skip to the end for the list if you don’t want to read this part.

The desire to travel with Raven has burned in us both for years. However, we made life choices that fed other amazing opportunities instead. We’ve valued those years of her artsy small school and learned so much from the sacrifices to make it happen. But now, after many years of saving, its time for our first Europe trip! However, we had NO idea where to start. Many we’ve shared our trip with also asked “where do you even start to plan a trip like that when you’ve never traveled?” I thought I’d share what worked for us in case it works for you.

The first thing I did works for all walks of life. I listened. I saw us going when she was in high school, but that never stopped me from dreaming of the possibilities since she was in elementary school. I paid attention anytime I ended up in a conversation of someone who’d traveled or someone from another country. Any country. Any amount of travel. Where was their favorite place? What surprised them? Why did they choose there? Would they go back? The stories shared with me the last several years have stuck with me, each one a seed for this garden of a trip.

If you want to go everywhere like me and don’t have one place to start. Talk with your travel partner. If your top three is completely different than their top three, discuss the whys. You may discover things about a place you never knew that lifts it to the top of your list. If you are traveling alone, you are an awesome adventurer, choose the number one place no matter what. Life is too short and you may never get to go again. Top of the list first. If two trips tie, take the cheaper one so you’ll go sooner.

Raven made my choice easy. Because of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter, she has always wanted to go to London, England. She’ll tell you she has other, more mature reasons, but let’s be honest Benedict Cumberbatch and his adorable accent… main reason. Her Youtube favs, Dan and Phil, are the latest additions to fuel the London fire. (Oops bad reference? Sorry!) Apparently because of Dan and Phil, we need to try a chocolate treat called a Double Decker while we’re there? Londoners…. Are they right? Sorry… chocolate. Very distracting.

My original point was, Raven made it easier to choose since her biggest dream was London and this might be our only chance for this type of trip. So, London became the goal. Now, once we’ve paid all that money to “cross the pond’, I knew we should see at least one more country or city. I investigated travel tours and package deals. They were all too cookie cutter and expensive for what we wanted out of our trip, but it did show me what was easily paired with London.

The tours were all history, museum and tourist trap focused. Now, if you love history, museums and want the ease of following a plan laid out by professionals, there is nothing wrong with that! I didn’t mean to sound judgey. Tourist “traps” are popular with tourist for a reason. Many people I’ve spoken to loved their organized, stress free group travel. We’ve been to a lot of museums and sadly aren’t big history buffs, so we more interested in local art galleries, shopping and natural parks.

What most commonly paired with London was Paris, France and Dublin, Ireland. I would love to see these places. However, Ireland felt like a great place to explore pubs (not the best focus for my 17 year old). I know there is more to Ireland than pubs! Don’t send me hate mail, just saying I WANT the pubs when I finally get to go! Paris was all about museums, fashion and food… fabulous! Except, we weren’t aiming for museums on this trip and she’s not a foodie, so I felt Paris would be wasted on her at this age.

So, I started revisiting all those conversations I’d had with my well-traveled acquaintances and friends. If your circle of people is small and un-traveled, talk to everyone. I got great travel tips from the elderly guy bagging my groceries! I’m a massage therapist, so many of my ideas came from clients that like to share. Most people that have been other places love to tell you about it.

But if that still doesn't’ fit your life, podcasts and Youtube are fantastic! I also downloaded several free travel podcasts (notably Amateur Traveler & EPOP Travel Podcast) to listen to in the car instead of music. I also lazily added to my travel pins on Pinterest using key phrases like “best travel”, “must see Europe” etc instead of Facebook scrolling.

Prague started to jump off the page and wave at me a lot. You’ll probably find the same will happen to you when you ask yourself, “What else do I need to see?” Your brain will start highlighting all kinds of cool stuff for you. I’d also heard several of my well-traveled friends rave about Prague. Pictured right is the bone church (Sedlec Ossuary) outside of Prague. I’d already been told inter-European flights were fairly cheap if you planned correctly, but I checked Google Flights anyway just to see if London to Prague was doable. It was very doable, only $100 a ticket or so.

Being totally geographically challenged, I used the original method of checking travel tour groups to see what is commonly paired with Prague. I found that Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria were popular combinations. Both looked awesome, original and different. I added them to the maybe list.

The very next week a dear friend of mine returned from Croatia talking about how amazing and beautiful the Plitvice National Park was. (pic below) I pulled up my Amateur Travel Podcast that is organized by country or city, found Croatia, and learned so many things including the name of a great travel agency. Again, my brain started seeing Croatia everywhere. I Googled more about Plitvice and was amazed at the beauty. (I also had to Google where the heck Croatia was! Sorry awesome Croatians, but again, I’m sadly geographically challenged.)

Knowing nothing about Central and Eastern Europe, I decided to check out the prices for JayWay Travel, the one recommended by Amateur Traveler, to handle the basics of our trip. Here I remembered a key piece of advice I’ve heard from every traveler. Spend at least 3 days everywhere you go to truly experience it. A fast tour hitting as many places as possible ends up leaving all the cities in one big blur with no real connection to the people and the culture.

Keeping time and budget in mind, I knew I had to eliminate one of the four new ideas. (Prague, Vienna, Budapest and somewhere in Croatia near Plitvice National Park.) After looking into each place, I decided to remove Vienna. It was the most expensive city of the four and the most common theme in articles and photos was romance – again not what I’m going for with my kid.

The next thing I knew…. I had my choices narrowed down! England, Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia!

Working with Raven’s school, I found the best time for her to miss a couple weeks (three total if you count Spring Break) without throwing her whole year off. (I always knew we would travel during either October or April/May. During the summer, this trip would cost double and therefore only allow us to do half.) I gave us 5 days in England and contacted JayWay with the remaining time and the specifics I wanted from our trip to see what they could offer. They sent over a great itinerary.

Now that I had my last city, Dubrovnik Croatia, I was able to book flights.

I played with all kinds of flight options on Google Flights until I found the right combination to get us to London, to Budapest (where JayWay would take over), then back home from our last stop. Once those days were decided based on flight costs, I confirmed the days with Jayway, making them match my flight choices and started booking!

I’ll post everyday we are gone so you can follow our travels. Once we return, I’ll post our complete itinerary.

The list....

1. Decide who you’re going with because they’ll limit your location options by either age, desire, ability or interests.

2. Find the number one location you both have on your must-see list. If you both have completely different top three destinations. Take a moment to share why you want to go to each. Once I was told about the wine and the beautiful natural parks in Croatia, it leaped to the top of my list. Even though this geographically challenged American had to Google where Croatia was, the photos were stunning. I deeply apologize to all Croatians for my ignorance.

3. Take a moment to talk about your interests in general. Are you a museum person or an outdoorsy person? I love it all, but my daughter has been to so many museums through school, she would rather go to local artists’ galleries, shops and have outdoor adventures. She’s also not much of a foody so for that reason, we chose not to go to Paris. We chose to go to weird places like the bone church (Sedlec Ossuary) outside of Prague, and Plitvice National Park in Croatia.

4. Next, check your list to see if there is a city nearby the top destination you’d be able to add if you have enough time and the budget allows. If you are dying to see London and Paris, that’s super easy. Obviously, if its London and Honolulu, that will need to be two trips.

5. Be sure to spend at least 3 days when possible in each location. So many tours bus you from town to town all over Europe so you can check them off your list, but they end up being a tourist trap blur. Try to leave one day to just wander around. And avoid scheduling every second of the day with tons of tours or events. Let yourself BE there.

6. Don’t decide you need to be in driving distance to see more than one city. In Europe a quick plane ride to Central or Eastern Europe may be as little as $50! You may be able to do what we opted to do, see London then hop a plane to spend the rest of your time in Central Europe.

7. Most importantly, talk to as many people as you can that have travelled. I would never have planned the trip I did without the recommendations of others.

8. Lastly, just because it’s famous, doesn’t mean you have to see it. If you go to London and don’t care anything about the royal stuff, skip the palace and go get lost in Camden Market for the day! You paid for this trip so do what YOU want!