Traveled June 16-July 16, 2024. Written August 28, 2024.

During my junior year of college in 2022, I decided I wanted to go on a trip to Europe after my college graduation in May 2024.

The main destination I had in mind was the Amalfi Coast. I really wanted to go there during my semester abroad in Madrid but didn’t have enough time. I just knew from the stunning photos I had seen of the cities there that the Amalfi Coast was my kind of place – beautiful blue water, boat rides under pastel colored cities, and incredible grottos and cliffs.

I started planning my graduation trip around traveling to the Amalfi Coast, but the trip grew to be much bigger when I decided I should use this opportunity to see a bunch of cities in Europe that I had never been to.

I decided that 30 days was long enough for this type of trip but not too long, and I could definitely see most of the places at the top of my “travel bucket list” in that period of time.

I felt like this was my only time to spend 30 days straight on a trip to Europe; I had some free time before starting my job following graduation. After I started work, I wouldn’t be able to take off a month at a time, like, ever.

My friend Olga, who I met at college, also shares my love for travel. She was off from work for the summer, and I was thrilled that she wanted to join me on the trip. We planned the trip during December 2023 and January 2024, booking hotels, hostels, flights, trains, tours and excursions. After many changes to our original plans, here was the final calendar of each city we went to: 

Here is the breakdown of the cities we visited and in order: 

• London

• Edinburgh

• Glasgow 

• Dublin 

• Galway

• Madrid

• Nice

• Monte Carlo 

• Milan 

• Venice 

• Florence 

• Sorrento 

• Positano 

• Krakow 

• Warsaw 

I know – it looks like a lot, but honestly, this trip was absolutely doable. There was even enough time to rest, between sleeping on planes and trains, having a few days that were more laid back, and going to bed on time (I was honestly worried about being burnt out by the end of the month, but that didn’t happen). Here are a few things I would change about the itinerary: 

• I would skip Glasgow entirely unless you’re really dying to see something there. I just didn’t find that there was a lot to do there. I would either spend one more day in Edinburgh or go into the Highlands for a few days instead. Here’s a photo from the University. It was a really beautiful campus. We ended up visiting right after the graduation ceremony, so there were crowds of students with their families celebrating, which definitely added to the liveliness of the campus.

• I would give myself another full day in Florence. It was definitely one of my favorite cities to visit. Here’s the Ponte Vecchio, which I think is just so cool. You can spend days browsing all of the jewelry shops along the bridge.

• Another full day in Sorrento, maybe for another day trip to another part of the Amalfi Coast or just more time to relax at the unbelievable beach. 

• If you’ve never been to London before, you need at least one or two more days there. I visited London in November of 2022 during my semester abroad and I saw all of the main sights when I was there, so I didn’t feel the need to stay in London long this summer. I flew into London for this trip because the flight was affordable from the US compared to most other cities, and I only needed one day there – the only item on my to-do list was to see Phantom of the Opera on the West End, which was beyond incredible.

The logistics of planning: It took a lot to plan this 30 day trip, but I had fun every step of the way. Planning trips is one of my favorite hobbies.

Step one – Organizing transportation

Before everything else, the most important thing to plan is how you’re going to get to each destination. We needed to figure out where we wanted to go, which order of cities made the most sense, and if there were realistic flight/train times and prices available.

Because of this, we made a tentative plan of all of the places we wanted to visit and how long we wanted to stay in each city, but we modified these plans as we looked into flights and trains. I tried to opt for the train as much as possible; you don’t have to get to the train station 2 hours in advance to go through security like at the airport, train stations are normally very centrally located, and the prices are more affordable.

• We took availability, price, and time of day into consideration. Our mentality was to book the transportation first, and then the accommodations would fall into place after. My favorite airlines to fly in Europe are RyanAir and Iberia. They are budget friendly and offer multiple flight options throughout the day, depending on the destination.
  • But just a reminder – don’t forget to check into your flight WELL in advance with RyanAir or AT LEAST one hour before the check in deadline – or you’ll have to wait to get your boarding pass printed at the airport AND pay 50 Euros for a late fee. That was a shock that we unfortunately learned the hard way. 
• For booking trains, I used Omio and TrenItalia and other sites I found while I was searching for trains for specific days in specific cities. Be aware of the train strikes- if you aren’t familiar with the labor unions in Europe, it is good to know that they often go on strikes which are scheduled for certain days and times, especially at train stations and airports. A strike in Italy actually affected us when we were in Venice trying to get to Florence and our train was canceled. We were able to rebook with a different company after we got to the train station, and it didn’t interfere with our plans at all, but it doesn’t always work out so well.

Step two- Finding/Booking accommodations

We figured that between hostels, hotels and Airbnbs, we could find something to fit the schedule we created, and our budget. We were right! There were so many available accommodations, granted, we did book our stays 5 months in advance, so there was a better chance of places having availability.

While looking for places to stay, we prioritized price range (we tried to spend between 45-85 dollars per person per night because we were gone for 30 nights… those add up), location from important places (from the center of the city and from the airport/train station or any noteworthy places we wanted to see) and location in terms of safety. We read reviews and looked at photos online to get the best possible idea of each accommodation that we could.

We used HostelWorld to find some pretty solid hostels. Most noteworthy is: Code Pod – The Court in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was organized as a female only dorm where each person gets their own locker and their own… Pod! What is a pod? It’s your own personalized sleep cell with a shelf, light and outlet. It was weird at first but I’d rate the experience a 9/10 – one point off for communal bathrooms. And the staff there was super friendly – we attended a free city walking tour that they offered through the hostel.

• We stayed in female only dorms when we stayed in hostels. Overall, we had a pretty good experience with the rooms and the people we stayed with. Some hostels were definitely nicer than others, like the Code Pod. See Olga in her pod below.

Step three – Securing reservations

I knew that there were a few tours and outings I wanted to go on during my trip that required reservations, including a tour of the Guinness Storehouse and organized day trip to the Cliffs of Moher from Dublin, visiting the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and seeing Phantom of the Opera on the West End in London. These were all outings that I NEEDED to happen, and the only way to guarantee them was to book in advance.

This would have worked great for restaurants, too, but Olga and I opted to be more relaxed and spontaneous with where we decided to eat. It ended up working out really well for us and we weren’t bound to any schedule when it came time to eat. 

This was everything it took to get my trip planned! I love the planning stage, so this was all a lot of fun for me. I used so many travel blogs and TikToks, and I asked around for recommendations to figure out the “must-dos” in each city. After everything was booked, I just had to wait for the day to come. Oh, and I had to pack. Click here to read about what I packed for one month in Europe. 

A few tips if you’re on a budget, like I was:

• Get a few dinners at a local grocery store instead of going out. In the UK, Tesco was my absolute favorite grocery store. Their meal deals were great for lunch, too.  
• Bring a reusable water bottle so you don’t have to spend so much money on plastic water bottles. 
• Try to book a mix of hostels, hotels, and Airbnbs in a way that fits your budget
• Walk as much as possible instead of paying for a cab, Uber, or other public transportation fees. 

If anything, I learned that you can absolutely customize your own trip to Europe, even if you want to go to 10 different places. This is your sign to start planning your dream trip.