<p>We are thinking of London, Ireland and perhaps Paris for a total of 10 days.</p>
<p>Any tips, advice as to how to get the most out of our vacation dollar?</p>
<p>A few suggestions. If you’re into credit card churning, you could monitor pointsguy.com, and watch for deals for you and your spouse to get huge signup bonuses on mileage cards. My favorites are the Amex cards, which have offered 50K, 75K, and 100K mileage or points bonuses, just for a signup. Last summer we got one ticket on Delta to Europe for 60K miles, the other for 80K miles. From bonuses off of free credit cards. That’s the major way to save money, get free tickets.</p>
<p>Otherwise, my only suggestions are obvious, like going to Hotwire for hotels, perhaps renting a condo/apt (though probably not if you’re going 3 different places), and since most hotels include breakfast, getting cheap lunches from markets (bread and cheese, meat, so tasty) and just eating out one meal.</p>
<p>I’m looking forward to hearing suggestions, I’d love a cheap vacation to Europe too!</p>
<p>Sounds like a fun time. </p>
<p>If you are able to share a bit about the number, ages and interests of those traveling, you are likely to get lots of ideas. What do you want to get out of the experience? Also, reasonably priced means different things to different people. Do you want hostel pricing, apartment rentals or as good a deal as possible at 4/5 star hotels in high season? There are lots of travelers here who can help if the question becomes a bit more specific.</p>
<p>We are 3 travelers, myself, husband, 21 year old daughter. It will be our last big trip before D heads off the dental school.</p>
<p>We’ve traveled a lot, so are open to lots of different experiences. We prefer touring on our own, rather than as part of a tour group.</p>
<p>Looking for 4 star accommodations. Not interested in hostels.</p>
<p>Suggest renting an apt rather than hotels if you will be in a city for more than a couple of days. If you’re willing to be out of center a bit (but usually still within an easy public transportation ride), you can find places pretty cheap on vrbo.com etc. If you have more than 2 people, it’s often extra charge for a hotel room. Also, you can cook some meals which makes it much more budget friendly.</p>
<p>If you buy it early, you can get Eurostar tickets for a good price between Paris and London. Flights can be cheap on budget lines but transportation from Paris airports into town can get pricy. Heathrow is accessible on the Tube.</p>
<p>Don’t know where you are flying out of but often flights from JFK are cheapest. It was cheaper for us to fly to JFK then to Europe than to fly from home to Europe. Also, Brussels often has cheap tickets in the summer (we paid <$700 JFK-BRU couple of summers ago). Only short train ride to Paris. Can go to London also, although after a transatlantic flight, you may not want to sit on a train. Suggest you do an open jaw flights. They often cost same or only slightly more but you save money returning to the original city as well as time (a big consideration on a 10 day trip.) Check out various combinations on Kayak or similar. </p>
<p>Get a Chase Sapphire preferred card. I think you can get it for first year free and they have no fees for using in Europe. The exchange rate was also always reasonable.</p>
<p>Do not get more than a few Pounds/Euros in the States. Get cash out of ATMs once there.</p>
<p>Paris Museum Pass is a great deal if you will be doing museums and other sites. Not only can you visit the attractions several times (we like to do the Louvre in multiple smaller morsels), you can cut the line at most places which is wonderful in the summer. Louvre, especially, has a side entrance with no lines that you can use with the Pass. </p>
<p>That’s off the top of my head.</p>
<p>In Ireland, do you want to stay in the larger cities? Or do you want to see the countryside? Are you willing to rent a car there?</p>
<p>Those are expensive destinations. If you have interest in spending less, get out of the cities. Many smaller cities and other parts of France are wonderful. Rural Britain has great sites. Pick things you care about seeing, and enjoy the local food and culture. </p>
<p>Personally, I’d figure out ferry connections between Ireland, France and Britain, and enjoy the journey to the ferry ports. </p>
<p>Here is a map. [Ferry</a> Holyhead To Dublin | Cheap Ferry To Ireland | Irish Ferries | Irish Ferries](<a href=“http://www.irishferries.com/ie-en/routes/dublin-holyhead/]Ferry”>Ferry Holyhead to Dublin | Routes & Times | Irish Ferries)</p>
<p>We got a great package through Air Lingus last June. 10 days with air and a car for $2800 for the 4 of us. I then reserved B&B in the countryside and an apt in Galway right on the harbor. I found both B&B and the apt on trip advisor. We hire private tour guides 2X from toursbylocals and it was wonderful. They catered to our desires and we had a great time.</p>
<p>You could try this site. If you scroll down to the bottom, there’s a search bar for only the frugal travel columns. It will still be lots of sifting.</p>
<p><a href=“Times Topics - The New York Times”>Times Topics - The New York Times;
<p>I’ve been to all three of the places you’re contemplating, and if I had ten days to do it all again, I’d do three days each in London and Paris, and four days in Ireland - and rent a car and get out into the countryside. Even better, I’d skip Paris, because it will add more travel time, and would just do London and Ireland. I’d spend four days in London, and six days driving throughout Ireland/Northern Ireland. But driving in Ireland is not for the faint of heart - we did it, and it was TOTALLY worth it, but a bit scary at first. We did Ireland in March (in fact were there on St. Patrick’s Day, which happens to be our anniversary), and even though the temps were cool, it was an incredible journey.</p>
<p>^^^Thanks for this thread! We are looking to do this this summer as well. Son will graduate college in May and wants to go to Europe before he heads off to grad school. He definitely wants to go to London and Paris. Son is interested in seeing Scotland ,so would probably do that instead of Ireland. Would probably be a maximum of ten days, can’t see us leaving the cats any longer than that. We would also be staying in good hotels, not hostels or condos. We’ve been saving hotel points and airline points to help pay for some of the trip. Not interested in the discount travel sites. But happy to hear recommendations for tour companies that would help us make most use of our time. A stop at the Louvre is a definite, as well as seeing Eiffel Tower. I would love to see Stonehenge, but this is really son’s trip, so want him to see his top picks first! Thanks for this post and I’ve got it subscribed to keep notes on it!</p>
<p>Subscribing here, as well! This year, we are setting a modest budget and seeing where it will take us. We know we have enough saved for a 14 day tour of South American cities but my first choice is Europe.
When is the best time to shop around for airfare?</p>
<p>I’m eyeing something like this as well - rural Ireland and Scotland, maybe Wales as well. I’m nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road but it seems like a car rental is the best option for getting off the beaten track. If we miss London entirely, that’s ok with me.</p>
<p>stradmom, I was about to say that I would not recommend a car rental for someone who has never driven on the left side. I have lived in left side driving countries and even crossing the street is dangerous. The problem is all of your instincts/reflexes are wrong, so if you encounter a dangerous situation your automatic response (jerking the wheel to one side, looking to one side) will be in the wrong direction. </p>
<p>The one funny experience I had was renting a jeep type vehicle in Macau (a “Moke”) with a manual transmission. I ran it up through first gear, engaged the clutch and found my right arm waving outside the vehicle… instinctively searching for the gear shift… which was on my left side. :D</p>
<p>I have driven on the left, and of course you need to drive standard transmission, making things even more difficult. At that time, years ago, I did ok when on the rural roads in Scotland. Cities, I’d not recommend it. Even driving in France last year on the right, traffic signals and such were sufficiently different, that I need my French resident D telling me where to stop and when to go in her city. Motorways and rural roads, no big deal. Many small cities have car rentals, so staying rural with driving is possible.</p>
<p>If you are going to rent a car, spend the money and get an automatic. Hard enough to worry about driving on “wrong” side of the road without having to shift.</p>
<p>Trains are really quite convenient and I would highly recommend them. If you take cabs to/from stations, it works out well. </p>
<p>In London, staying in Kensington area was quite convenient for us. DD and I walked to Harrods while DH was taking a nap. </p>
<p>If you go to Stonehenge, make sure to make reservations ahead to tour amongst the stones. They have it roped off and you can only go in with a guide. We did not do that so can’t recommend one. Salisbury is nearby and a cool town. We stayed there and took a cab to/from stonehenge. Bath is also nearby and definitely worth a visit. There’s a wonderful bike path along the Avon that we were going to do until DD strained her ankle. </p>
<p>Scotland: been a while since I was there but Edinburgh to Inverness to Portree on the Isle of Skye back to Inverness makes a lovely loop. Of course, if you don’t want to be moving everyday, that doesn’t work. The train trip across the Highland bogs is really really cool. Scotland is really all about the countryside (other than Edinburgh, of course). </p>
<p>If you go to Paris and visit Versailles, make sure to rent the golf carts for seeing the grounds.</p>
<p>If you are the type who wants to see as much as possible and have everything taken care of for you,especially the logistics, then I suggest a guided tour group. Choose one that has hotels close to the center of the city (not Rick Steves)and you can do a lot of exploring on your own when you have free time. We like it because we can just hop on the bus to see museums without waiting in line to buy tickets or wait in line for entry and when we are finished, the bus is there waiting for you to take you to another point of interest. The pace is fast and it is not for everybody. One tour guide sums it up, " You are here to see things and if you want to relax, you can do that at home."
For the normal escorted tours in Europe, we’ve done a few trips with Insight Vacations on their gold and premium tours and have been happy with them.</p>
<p>This past summer DH and I went to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels with our S and D and SIL. Since we’ve been to all those places multiple times and the kids wanted a relaxing getaway from their work, we planned and did everything on our own and had a great time. The key is to book hotels close to city center and near public transit.</p>
<p>Personally I wouldn’t go to three places in 10 days. You can easily spend 10 days based in London alone and do day trip to places like Greenwich, Stonehenge and Bath or you can spend 10 days in London along with other destinations in the U.K. Similarly you can easily spend 10 days in Paris and do day trips to places like Chartre. As we also did not want to drive in the U.K. we did a one-day tour to Bath and Stonehenge, as you no longer can approach the stones on your own and you are kept on a pathway unless apparently touring with a private guide. When I was there (within the past 7 years or so) the visitors center had not yet been updated and so it wasn’t the most interesting visitor center I have been to… so essentially you are out in a field and beyond seeing Stonehenge which is an impressive site, it doesn’t require a huge amount of time there. If travelling on public buses to do so, it can take some time to get there. We saw Bath in an afternoon but it is a lovely town and you could easily spend more time there.</p>
<p>I agree with bookmama. You’ll get more out of your vacation if you pick a spot to “live” for 10 days, and then do satellite trips from there. We rented a 2 bedroom apartment in Paris for a week (from Parisaddress.com) and then did day trips to Chartres, Versailles, etc. It was definitely a good value, because we had every breakfast and one or two dinners at home, and had room to spread out when we came back every evening. We also did not need a car until we left Paris for Brittany, where we spent another week.</p>