A multi-city trip is educational, it is exciting, it is rejuvenating, but it is also daunting to plan. You dedicate your time and money to explore multiple destinations, hoping to live a life-changing experience. And if anything goes wrong, the regret of putting everything to waste becomes incredibly overpowering. However, this is avoidable. Whether you are planning a multi-city trip to Europe or other destinations around the world, we got you covered!

With five practical tips below, not only they would make your trip feel complete and fulfilling but these will also help you get the best out of your multi-city trip.

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Tip 1: Do Your Research!

You must understand that no traveling is successfully done without a little bit of necessary planning beforehand, especially if you are on a budget. No matter how exciting it may sound, an unplanned trip has the potential to go wrong in many ways, including running out of money, getting stranded in one city for many hours, etc. So, have the following things done a priori:

• Think of the destinations you want to visit during your multi-city trip. Now, open Google maps, see where they lie on the map, and then plan your itinerary accordingly. For example, if you have shortlisted cities A, B, and C, and B falls between A and C, the wiser (and economical) choice would be to plan the route A->B->C. Opting for a combination that takes you from A to C (or vice versa) directly would increase your commuting costs. If you are on a budget, this reduces the amount you can spend while exploring cities.
• Now that you have decided on the route and the cities, see if you would want to visit some other destinations that fall along your selected path. If some city D fits your liking and is between locations A and B, you might want to include that in your itinerary too.

Tip 2: Book Your Flights

As mentioned above, if you spend too much on commuting between cities, you will reduce the amount of money you can spend while exploring your travel destinations. And it is not exactly the most pleasant thing. To get the best out of your multi-city travel, make sure that you keep your travel costs to a minimum; and you can do that in the following ways:

• Try booking for flights in advance. The closer you book your flights to the departure date, the higher the fares get. Plus, the flexibility of choice is also severely reduced- you might not land flights you want and are forced to make peace with what you get.
• Arrange for a multi-city flight. This is an advanced ticketing system that allows you to book multiple destinations in a single reservation. Such booking is advantageous due to many reasons. Firstly, these flights turn out to be cheaper than conventional roundtrips, which helps you save money. Secondly, it often happens that if your A->B flight gets delayed, you miss your B->C flight as well, which adds to inconvenience and takes away from the traveling experience. This is not a problem you face with multi-city airfare.
• Always try to look for flights that have stopovers. Stopovers are an excellent way of exploring a city, not on your itinerary, by paying minimal to none extra charges. Usually, stopovers last up to 12 hours. However, you can also look for flights that have even longer stopover durations. During this time, you are free to step out of the airport and explore the city! So, make sure you take advantage of this opportunity.

Tip 3: Do Not Rush Through Activities & Cities

We get it. When one plans a multi-city trip to escape one’s mundane, grey life, one wants to try and do everything. The high chances are that you would over-book your schedule and pack it so tightly that there is no room for flexibility. However, with such a trip planned, you will not have the chance to enjoy something that you are doing. The worry of getting to the other planned task would occupy your mind and take away from the pleasure of experiencing activities to their fullest. Therefore, you should keep a reasonably comfortable schedule. Have enough room to enjoy everything you do without fretting. This would help make the trip more memorable.

Related: Need to add some amazing activities to your multi-city trip itinerary to Europe? Check our list of things to do in each city here.

Tip 4: Enjoy the Cuisines

Perhaps one of the best things about multi-destination trips across Europe is that you get the chance to enjoy a variety of cuisines in different cities and countries. You can be enjoying authentic Coq Au Vin one day and Maultaschen the other. However, many people forget about this delicious aspect of traveling through multiple cities. Instead of diving into the local specialties, they stick to the things easily found even in their hometowns, just for the sake of convenience. However, this is one of the most inconsiderate things you could do to yourself. Why deprive your tastebuds of the pleasures of traveling? Isn’t that unfair? Nothing remembers the goodness of travels as your mouth does, so make sure you treat your tastebuds properly!

Related: Find food and culinary experience in any destinations in Europe here.

Tip 5: Consider Mailing Items Back Home Instead of Carrying Them

If you are going to be traveling between multiple cities, you will be commuting a lot, via trains or buses or airplanes. And with each destination you visit, the number of belongings you must carry increases as well, for one is bound to go for shopping trips. However, carrying increasingly larger bags of luggage is not the most convenient thing to do. The luggage is difficult to carry, to move about, and the chances of it getting lost also increase. So, it is advisable that you mail your belongings, especially dirty laundry, souvenirs, and collectibles, back home. Multiple mailing services responsibly perform this duty, so you should look into them.

So, there you have it- a list of practical tips to help you plan your multi-destination trip in a fulfilling and manageable manner. Remember to follow these suggestions closely and make uncountable memories!

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Bonus Tip: Take Advantage of Available Travel Resources.

To make planning your multi-city trip to Europe easier, we listed some of our recommended travel resources below. You can search and find the best flights, transportation options, hotels to stay in, tours/activities, and things you can do in each destination during your multi-city trip to Europe.

Flights: 

Agoda: Search thousands of destinations around the world & quickly compare prices to find amazing deals on the best flights.

CheapOAir: You can find airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages all on one site!

Kiwi.com: What we like about Kiwi is the fact that they are able to create combinations of flight, train, and bus tickets and offer them in a single itinerary. Also, Kiwi has what they called “Nomad” which helps you find the best way of visiting multiple destinations, saving you time and money.

JetRadar: You can search and compare airfares from 726 airlines and dozens of travel agencies and systems.

Hotels: 

Agoda: Agoda is one of the world’s largest online travel accommodation platforms with a network of over 2,000,000 vacation rentals and hotels worldwide.

Hotellook: They have more than 250,000 hotels in 205 countries, working with data from more than 10 online booking systems, such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, Hotels.com, Expedia, and others.

Transportations: 

Airport Transfers: KiwiTaxi, Viator

Train: EuroRail, Trainline or RailEurope 

Bus: Flixbus: Very affordable (as low as $6) and convenient way to transfer between cities in Europe.

Car Rentals: AutoEurope, EconomyBookings, or  GetTransfer (transfers & car rentals with a personal driver)

Bike Rental: BikesBooking (Bikes & scooter rentals) 

Transportation Comparison: Omio (search, compare, and book tickets for buses, trains, and flights all in one site)

Tours & Activities:

TakeWalks (WalkofItaly): This is our favorite site for walking tours & day trips.

Tiqets: Great site for entrance tickets. It offers directly bookable, instantly available, and completely mobile tickets for museums, shows, and attractions all over the world.

Musement: They have good activities and tours in Italy and Spain, also many great day trips you can choose from.

GetYourGuide: A large number of tours, excursions, and other travel activities

Viator: The largest one. It has everything from tours, attractions, shore excursions, and private guides in over 2,700 destinations worldwide. It also has many transportations and transfers options and some unique experiences we didn’t find anywhere else.

Ready for a Multi-City Trip to Europe but need help planning?

Want to plan a multi-city trip to Europe but don’t know where to begin? If you find this type of trip planning to be too complicated to plan on your own, we’re here to help!

At MultiCityTrips, multi-destination travel and complicated itineraries such as multi-city, multi-country trips to Europe our specialties. Contact us today to learn more about how one of our experienced travel experts/destination specialists can personalize your multi-city vacations and help you save money on European travel.

Don’t want to start from scratch and need some trip inspiration? Check out our marketplace for customizable pre-designed packages available right now for many amazing destinations.

To learn more about how our process of trip planning works in detail, please see our “How It Works” page or check out our video on “How to Plan a Multi-City Trip to Europe in  5 Easy Steps”  here.

Have questions for us? Schedule a FREE Call with us here or contact one of the travel experts/destination specialists at [email protected], call/text us at (888)223-2316 today.