Planning my first trip WITHOUT parents.

Parent Cafe
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<p>surfette –
It will be hard to say what will be a good deal for a flight next June, but good for you for starting early! Our flight this June London - Boston round trip was about $650 per person, which was a pretty good deal, I thought. Except – here’s the kicker. The flight stop-over was at JFK, where we had to go through customs and passport control. This summer there have been huge delays at JFK. Our flight NY - London was supposed to lift off at 7:30 pm. They finally boarded us after midnight, and then the pilot announced that we were number 35 in the queue for liftoff!</p>

<p>When you make your flight arrangements, try to avoid JFK and Heathrow at all costs. You will waste tremendous amounts of your vacation time on delays.</p>

<p>Oh – and if you do not have a passport, get one now! If you have one, check the expiration date, make sure it’s not within 6 months of your trip. Read the ‘Passports!’ thread on CC, it’s been a nightmare for many people.</p>

<p>I’m not sure about the cost of flying out from different cities, but I would suggest that you check out inter-Europe flights, it may be more cost-effective to take a round trip to Paris or London (or Dublin or another city), and then fly easyjet.com ryanair.com or flybe.com to other destinations.</p>

<p>Anyway, smart you, you have time to research this and plan wisely!</p>

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<p>My D (now 22) likes the smaller cities in Italy, because they are cheaper and easier to get around without paying for transport. She loved Verona. She has traveled alone through a lot of Europe and doesn’t seem to run into difficulties. She packs very light (one pair of jeans, one skirt, a few shirts, a bottle of detergent…) and carries only a fairly well-stuffed backpack (but I’ve hefted it, and I’d say it’s about 20 pounds).</p>