No kidding! First snow pour happened a couple of days ago in UK. Winter is coming earlier this year. Another 6 months we would have our Summer again in Europe. Time flies. If you are thinking of visiting Europe next Summer, start planning it now! Or if you have just bought your superbly cheap air tickets during Air Asia low fares promotion recently, start planning your Europe travel itinerary now! If you haven’t got a clue on where to go in Europe, check out my rushing sightseeing Europe tour itinerary and all those stories of my previous Western Europe travel, and you are about half done.

Traveling Europe is like everyone’s dream come true, a dream of affordability to spend so much time and money for a vacation. Apart from needing to fly long hours to get there, visiting European countries is also an costly experience. Partly because of its high demand and partly because of its high living standard, Europe’s accommodation, transportation, food and beverage costs as well as entrance fees are relatively higher than most other parts of the world. If money is not an issue to you and spending unnecessarily is your hobby, you may stop reading now and continue your sleep…

However, if money is not your issue but time is, and you love to save some money for your shopping in Europe, read on for some important information. Rather than wasting precious traveling time in Europe for searching accommodations and transportation, spend some times now at home to study, compare, plan and decide your Europe travel in this coming Summer.

Why now? Why not a month before my actual flight departure? Because,

1. Most of the Europe accommodations and transportation prices escalate according to demand!
2. Normally the local budget airlines start accepting booking as early as 6 months ahead of actual departure dates! and
3. Train tickets are open for sale online 3 months ahead of departure dates.

So, you can start planning and deciding which countries or cities to visit in Europe now, fix the date for your domestic flights between countries, and then book your train tickets for traveling neighboring countries in the next 3 months. Finally, book your accommodation for each destination. I leave accommodation last as there are more hostel options than trains or airlines.

I’m one of them that had bought cheap tickets to London recently and I’m now starting to plan my Eastern Europe travel! How am I going to plan? Here are what I’m going to do next:

1. Get an Europe map or search for Europe map in Google Map;
2. Mark down which Europe cities you are dreaming to go;
3. Check on the map and draw an invisible line to connect all these cities;
4. Assess the traveling route from one city to another to find the best starting and ending point;
5. Decide how many days you wish to stay in each city;
6. If you were too ambitious to have selected too many cities, tick off those cities you could afford not to go this time round;
7. Tick off also those cities that are detouring too far away from you overall traveling route;
8. Check out the transportation cost from one city to another. I would use Rail Europe for trains and Ryanair Air for budget domestic flights. Sometimes, they do offer extraordinary low fares for certain itinerary;
9. Counter check to include those cities with promotional transport tickets and exclude those without;
10. Review your final selection of cities to visit on your Europe travel;
11. Review your transportation budget. Try to limit it to 30% of your total travel cost;
12. Book your flight and train tickets;
13. Now, you can search for suitable accommodations in each city. I used Hostel World to book my accommodation in Europe last May;
14. Based on your budget, try to stay near to your exit station to avoid rushing for your next train.
15. If the station is very far away from the city centre (though it would not be normally), stay closer to the city centre. At least you save some traveling time when exploring the city;
16. Book your accommodation. If you have ample of time and wish to be adventurous, book your first night stay and look elsewhere for the following nights when you are actually there!
17. Done. You can now start reading more information on what you can do in each city.

For more tips on booking accommodations and transportation, check out also the following before booking:

• Top 5 Tips to book cheap accommodations in Europe
• Top 5 Tips to get cheap transportation in Europe
• Another 5 tips for booking accommodations

If you haven’t decided which season in a year you should go to Europe, read my article on How to plan for your perfect traveling period of the year. Let’s plan for a memorable Europe trip now! Enjoy reading! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog