How We Book Our Travel to Europe in 7 Easy Steps
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The official vacation planning season is when the Christmas tree is dismantled, and folks consider Dry January. The spreadsheets are open for spring break and summer trips. That is smart as we find the best deals are available six to nine months before our trips.
If you’re a month away from take-off, don’t stress. I don’t think you were, anyways. I will do my best to minimize your weekend spent finding flights, booking a hotel, and making a rough itinerary. This is your weekend to play, not work on trip planning.
We are far from saints when it comes to planning our vacations. We forget to recheck rates before we leave. We overfill our itinerary days. We may forget to make a restaurant booking.
But, with our seven steps for booking travel, you can confidently cross off that to-do list item to book your trip. Maybe save some Euros or Pounds.
In the spirit of helpful planning resources, these will get the ball rolling:
1. Grab our free cheat sheets for an overview of London, Paris, Lisbon, & Rome.
2. Head over to our travel guides: London, Paris, Lisbon, & Edinburgh.
3. Explore some of the best tours in Europe in our Activities Directory.
4. Skip the bulk of the leg work by grabbing an Itinerary.
Yes, We Have a YouTube Channel
Once you finish your seven steps to success below, jump into our YouTube channel on traveling Europe for things to do, itinerary days, and just plain fun. Our goal is to make confident travelers. Therefore, we provide helpful tips on the what, why, and how of taking a European vacation.
Watch our 58 Practical London Tips in 14 Minutes, Your 2025 London Travel Guide below, to get you going.
Our Paris Trip Planning video is more popular than London. Watch that one if you’re heading to Paris this year or any year.
Step 1: Look at a Map
Before doing anything else, we look at a map to understand the geography. Understanding the lay of the land gives me a calming sensation.
- Where is the airport?
- What are the areas people have been telling us to stay in?
- Where are the big, main sites that we might want to see?
I open up Google Maps to start this process. I usually start saving items on Google Maps—historical sites, museums, places to stay, and restaurants people have recommended. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’s nice to start saving things in one place so I can get organized.
The main point of this step is to understand the geography and how far things are from each other.
It also helps me determine what neighborhood we want to stay in.
We love maps. Hence, we fill our YouTube videos with maps of neighborhoods and popular attractions in our bag. When I backpacked through Europe after college, I didn’t bring maps. As this was before internet-in-your-pocket days, I would search out a good map in every city. Today, my first step is getting a feel of the town with a map.
Step 2: Check Flight Options
Prices for flights to Europe can vary significantly, so this is my next step in the trip research stage. We like to use points when possible, usually on Virgin Atlantic or United, but we don’t always plan far enough in advance to make that happen.
If I cannot use points, I head straight to Google Flights to start comparing options for dates and different airlines. I love looking at their calendar view with prices to help me pick the best-priced dates.
If we are heading to a city with endless hotel options (for example, London), I’ll book my flight now. If we’re headed to a place with more limited hotel options (for example, the Dolomites), I hold off booking flights until I’ve found a place to stay (step 3).
Step 3: Pick a Place to Stay
Next, we start thinking about where we want to stay. I have a pretty lengthy list of things I consider:
- What neighborhoods have the sites we want to see?
- What are the costs and reviews for hotels in that area?
- Do we need to do laundry? Or can we stick to a standard hotel?
Finally, because we are a family of four, do we need to get two hotel rooms? Are there hotels with family rooms, or must we find an aparthotel?
Families of four or more can be tricky in Europe. Hence, we have The Best Paris Hotels for Families of Four. Erica is planning to write more on this topic in 2025.
The free city travel guides on our website will get you started with a list of places to stay! Check out the sections on where to stay in Paris, London, Edinburgh, and Lisbon.
If you need apartment amenities and hotel vibes, we recently stayed at the Citadines South Kensington and the Citadines St. Germain. Neither was luxurious, but they are both a great option for that apartment/hotel combination.
Where to Book the Hotel
When traveling in America, we recommend booking directly with the hotel. If you can get a good deal through Costco or Expedia, then take it, but booking directly gives you the best flexibility and rate.
Europe is a tad bit different. Family-operated hotels, boutique hotels, and funky websites tend to make us prefer more reliable booking websites.
We use Booking.com, especially when booking last minute (no plans to change dates) and want to find a hotel with a reasonable rate.
Step 4: Plan Our Days
I love this part. This is where we plan our days to ensure we’re hitting optimal routes and not wasting our precious vacation time. And because I like to make every meal count, I ensure we have some great restaurant options.
This is Erica and my superpower; hence, our Wayfinder Itineraries are beloved by all. Our planned-out routes (aka, Excursion Days) make having a great trip easy and shortcut your planning process.
I plan on a bit of jetlag, so our first day is always light and very fun. We try to stay close to our hotel that day and do things that will keep us awake. Erica is a drill sergeant, in a good way, keeping us awake till after 8:30 PM. That will be a big help in the future of the trip.
After that, I usually try to balance big days out with more leisurely sitting in a park or aimlessly strolling the neighborhood days. We are all about having sit-and-savor moments!
Step 5: Book Tours
If we plan to do any tours, we book them in advance. Usually, a month or two before we go, we book tours and finalize our trip plan.
My much younger self was not into tours. Now, I absolutely love them. Doing one or two tours during a trip adds a lot to our experience. Whether we’re doing a croissant-making class in Paris or a London Black Cab tour, we’ve enjoyed so many wonderful tours, and I’m so glad we’ve done them.
We list some of our favorite tours in our tour database, and you can sort them by city and filter by price.
Step 6: Make Restaurant Reservations
A few weeks before coming, we nail down any restaurant reservations we need. We don’t plan every meal, but ensuring we have some good dinners booked is nice.
Restaurant ideas! See our London Pub Guide for gastropubs or our Favorite Latin Quarter, Paris Restaurants.
Step 7: Save Money
Before we leave, we re-check prices. If we’ve booked flights using points, we see if the points needed per flight have dropped and rebook the flight. On our last trip home from London, we were able to switch from economy to Premium on Virgin Atlantic and use the same number of points. It was a real treat!
We also check to see if hotels are offering a better deal now. If they are and we can cancel and rebook, we do!
This has saved us a lot of money over the years, and it’s also saved thousands of dollars for our newsletter readers.
We travel a lot and we know that not everyone loves planning a trip as much as we do. We put a lot of care into crafting itineraries that everyone can customize to their liking for a dream vacation. We do all the scouting and heavy lifting so all you have to do is pick your itinerary, make the bookings that matter to you, and you’re off!
If you’re on the fence about grabbing an itinerary, download our Free Edinburgh Sample Itinerary to see what they’re all about.
