My first ever overseas trip was to Europe in September 2013. There are so many interesting cities to see on that side of the world, it was really hard to decide what to do in the short time we could be there.
We had almost four weeks of annual leave to work with, and if you consider that the flights from Perth take pretty much a whole day that only left us with 25 days of sightseeing time.
Our original plans included an overnight train to Copenhagen as well as a few nights in Italy, however once we started planning it out we realised we would lose too much time in travel and would not be able to see half the things we wanted. I mean, Italy requires a whole month by itself!
We decided to stick to a smaller number of cities that were closer together, but have a good amount of time in each one. This meant we could do some of the less-touristy things like watching a movie in the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam, and had more free time to stroll through streets and parklands. You wouldn’t really get to this if you are rushing from place to place trying to jam everything in.
We also experienced some train delays, a bit of rainy weather and got ourselves lost a couple of times. I think if you only had a one night stop over you could get really stressed but we had plenty of time so these delays didn’t impact us much and we had a really fun time away.
So if you are planning your first trip here is an example of the cities we visited and the time spent in each one.
Days 1 – 5: London, England including a day trip to Brighton
Days 6 & 7: Bruges, Belgium
Days 8 – 12: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Days 13 – 15: Berlin, Germany
Days 16 – 18: Zurich, Switzerland
Days 19 – 23: Paris, France including one full day at Disneyland Paris
Days 24 & 25: Return to London to fly home!
In future posts I will go into more detail about what we did in each city. Let me know if you have any specific questions you want covered.
Where was your first overseas visit?
Categories: Amsterdam, Belgium, Berlin, Brighton & Hove, Bruges, England, Europe, featured, France, Germany, London, Netherlands, Paris, Switzerland, Zurich
Your Travel Handbook 
That’s quite a whirlwind tour! Awesome. I’d definitely love to know which were your favorites overall and why.
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I would probably say my favourite was Amsterdam it feels so laid back with the most friendly people. I am keen to go back there. Bruges was so awesome to see, it is like a little fairy-tale town but now I have been there I don’t feel a need to go back if that makes sense 🙂
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That does make sense. I’ve had some experiences like that too. I’ve never been to Amsterdam, but I’ve always been curious to go.
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Great sampler itinerary! Loved that you included Disneyland Paris – def a must see if you’re going to be in Paris!
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I can’t wait to see more detail on what you did! I agree that there are so many great cities, I live in Europe and still haven’t seen so much of it! I have a long list though haha.
Soph – https://sophhearts.com x
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Oh, you had such an amazing trip! I’ve never been overseas yet (I live in Poland and visited every single country in Europe except the islands, so technically I never crossed the seas. Hope you had a lot of fun on that trip. I cannot wait to see what you’ve seen here in Europe.
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You had a wonderful trip to many beautiful places! A few years ago I also had a mini Europe trip, where I traveled on a car from Latvia to Germany (Berlin), then we had a few nights in Austria’s mountains, then Italy and at the end, we stayed in Croatia! It’s a wonderful experience!
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Wow sounds like a great adventure
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