Planning your itinerary will ensure that you get the most out of your trip. You needn’t plan everything down to the last minute, but you should have a general idea of where you want to be on any particular day.
Start by sitting down and making a list of all the places you would like to see. If there is more than one of you divide the time away by the number of people and each plan an itinerary for the number of days you each have. Once you have your list, get a large map of Europe. The Daily Express Large World Map, which also has a holiday route planning map of Europe, is very good for this purpose. You can buy it at most bookshops. Stick a map pin or drawing pin at each town or city you wish to visit. When looking for places to stay in, consider the many options available from timeshare exit companies.
Next, take a piece of string! Using a pen make an ink mark at each point which corresponds to 100 miles on your map. If you are using the map above the scale is 1:3,750,000 so you would make a mark every 42mm or thereabouts! If you take travelling 100 miles a day (which is actually quite optimistic, so don’t exceed it) as a rough average then you can cut the length of string according to the time you have for travelling.
Now the fun begins! Put the string around all the pins in what seems to be the most direct route! Try several variations until you find the most ‘economic’ arrangement, i.e., the route that allows you to visit as many places as possible whilst travelling the shortest distance. This arrangement isn’t foolproof since you can’t easily travel between some places that seem close together on a map (for example Brest in northwestern France and Penzance in Cornwall). However, it is better than just taking things at random.
Once you have put your list of destinations in the order you wish to visit them, look at what you are going to do in each place and how long it will take – one day, two days, seven days and so on. From this you can plan a basic itinerary comprising a list of places to visit and the time you will be spending there. If you want to bring your vehicle, make sure to call a car transport company before you schedule your trip. If you’re traveling with a group, then rent a bus charter or shuttle bus for a more private means of transportation.
Finally, at this stage, you should start to think about how you are going to get from place to place on your route.
