Rick Steves' Best of Europe in 21 Days - Spring 2024
Postcards from Mike & Jen
How We Planned
The Spreadsheet:
Jen thinks in spreadsheets for all things from grocery lists to vacation planning. This one served as a brain dump and one-stop shop for visualizing the flow of the trip and planning for extra activities during time on our own.​​
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Abuse your guidebook:
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A new edition of the Best of Europe guidebook was estimated to be published right before our tour. We purchased the older version to deface and hoped the new one would be ready in time to order with our tour kits. The excerpts fit nicely in a large coupon organizer along with the tickets and confirmations for extra activities that we booked in advance.​​
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Booked in Advance:
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The RS Team sent a list of sites and activities that we would not get to as a group to give us time to book them in advance if we were interested. We decided to focus on the things that tended to sell out very early and take our chances with the rest based on how our feet were holding up. These are the tickets we secured before leaving home:
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AMSTERDAM: Dawn volunteered as tribute to book the Anne Frank House in the middle of the night as soon as the tickets became available.​​
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VENICE: Doge's Palace Secret Itineraries Tour; Saint Mark's Basilica & Bell Tower
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ROME: Colosseum interior (included Forum & Palatine Hill with S.U.P.E.R. Sites.) Dawn and Gordy toured the Vatican Museums while Mike and Jen explored the S.U.P.E.R. Sites. ​
Mini Pharmacy:
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Every city we visited had multiple pharmacies, so packing a lot of just-in-case supplies was really not necessary.
That being said, Jen carried a small pouch of assorted items that could save the day or at the least get us by until we took a break for a pharmacy stop.​​
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Laundry Kit:
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Dry bag (great for isolating dirties, as well as filling with water to contain the slosh when bathroom sinks are small.)​​
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Clothes line
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Foldable hangers
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​Sink plug
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Dr. Bronners baby soap (We have tried several laundry sheets and have not been impressed with how they dissolve for sink laundry.)
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Practice Packing:
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We weighed everything and test washed and air dried our clothes. Anything that did not dry overnight or looked like crumpled tissue was rejected.
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Mike favors fishing shirts with Napoleon pockets. We both gravitate toward prints, because apparently we are messy eaters and prints are more forgiving of dribbles. ​​
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We checked a collapsible zipper tote for our trekking poles with a cardboard box for padding on the way there and dirty laundry for padding on the way home.
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Test packing everything, including our travel day clothes, helped ensure enough wiggle room.
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Packing cubes and pouches went a long way for staying organized while living out of our bags.
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We each brought 2 pair of shoes, 1 waterproof and 1 breathable. Next time, we will leave the waterproof ones at home and pack an extra pair of insoles instead.
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Money:
Either by accident or design we have come home from Europe with around 100 Euros in various denominations that we keep in the firesafe bag with our passports. We find it takes the pressure off needing to find a legitimate bank ATM immediately upon landing at our destination. The helpful humans at the hotel front desks are great for recommending the nearest reputable bank ATM. (Avoid airport currency exchanges, they have astronomical fees.)
In our experience most places (except southern Germany) will take a card. We rarely carry more than 100-200 Euros at a time and most of that is tucked safely in our money belts. So if you can afford to, hold on to a stash of Euros for your next trip. Because who are you kidding? Of course you will be coming back!
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Random Trivia Break:
When the EU launched the euro in 2002 the bridges on the back were imaginary featuring abstract European architectural styles: Classical Greek, Ancient Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, 19th-century industrial and 20th-century contemporary. In 2011, Dutch graphic designer Robert Stam came up with an eccentric proposal to build seven full-scale replicas of the euro banknote bridges. The local council saw it as an imaginative way to attract tourists.
The Spijkenisser Eurobruggen, as they are called, are exact copies of the images, painted the same colors. They are even named after the banknotes they appear on, from the €5 Brug to the €500 Brug.
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Mobile Phone Apps:
Rick Steves Audio
Make sure you download the Rick Steves Audio app and all the relevant audio files before you go! You can listen to them on the bus to prepare yourself for your next stop.
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Duo Lingo
​Once the decision was made that the four of us were going to take this trip, we decide we should learn some of the languages. Mike had taken German in High School, and Jennifer had French. We subscribed to a family plan on Duo Lingo which allowed us to have up to five people on the plan. So Dawn and Gordy joined us. Dawn studied Italian and Gordy studied Dutch. While we didn't need to use these skills much, we felt more comfortable knowing we could communicate in a pinch.
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E-SIMS
We wanted to make sure we had connection while we traveled so we could stay in contact if we separated and to keep in touch with our dog sitter at home. We chose to use Holafly. The cost was $66.90 for 24 days of unlimited data. We bought it ahead of time and activated it as soon as we landed. It was very easy to use and worked pretty flawlessly. We now have unlimited international calling and data on our phones through Verizon, but Mike highly recommends Holafly.
GOOGLE MAPS and GOOGLE TRANSLATE
Since we had unlimited data, we used Google Maps to navigate the cities. It really kept us from getting lost! Google Translate also was very handy to have! You can even take pictures of signs and menus and it will translate them.
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GPS Logger
The app we used to create the maps is GPS Logger on our Galaxy phones. We don't know if it's available for Apple devices.
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Weather App
Any weather app will do. It's nice to see the weather for the next day or two to plan what you are taking in your day bag.
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TILE App (or whatever tracker you have)
We have Tiles. It's nice to be able to keep track of your bags. If you are an Apple person, then Air Tags. It's just a peace of mind thing.
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VPN
We used Nord VPN on our phones for privacy if we were on public wifi and if we needed to get on our bank accounts so it looked like we were back in the U.S. Mike has since added a VPN on his home computers so now it will look like we are actually at home.
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We all loaded WhatsApp so we could communicate if we were apart. Most people in Europe use WhatsApp so it's helpful to have it on your phone. Most taxi drivers use it as well as tour guides. It's the most popular messaging app in Europe.
