Scott Barronton (00:00)
Planning a trip to Europe sounds exciting, and honestly it is. But after years of traveling across Europe and now planning on a long multi-country stretch ourselves, we've realized something. Even experienced travelers make mistakes, and they're usually not the big obvious ones. They're the small planning decisions that seem harmless at first until you're standing in a long line.
rushing to catch a train or realizing you've built an itinerary that feels more exhausting than enjoyable. So today we're sharing 10 of the most common travel mistakes people make in Europe and more importantly how to avoid them. Not from theory, from real experience.
Speaker 2 (00:48)
We're Scott and Melissa, The Sunshine Travelers.
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Scott Barronton (01:18)
So let's start with the one we see over and over again, Melissa. Trying to do too much. Exactly. Europe looks really small on the map, but it still takes time to get from one place to another. And whether you're doing that by train or plane, or even just thinking since we're going to be there, we ought to do X, Y, Z.
Yeah, so overloading an itinerary, I think is one of the biggest things and we are 100 % guilty of this. I would say even as we're currently planning our trip for this year and looking at our itinerary, there may be parts where we are definitely being guilty of this. I mean, we're trying to be very intentional for working in downtime.
like in certain locations, like whole days or even just, taking our own advice and not over scheduling days. Yeah. As I was researching itineraries for each of the cities that we'd be visiting, I started thinking, we haven't scheduled any downtime. And for an almost three month long trip, we only had at that time, a couple of times where we said we need to intentionally schedule some downtime.
That's a lot. Yeah. And you mentioned this and I did point out. So I will say that we did schedule the relaxed trails of Tuscany with Macs Adventure. So you guys get to hear it first. That is the one that we are going to do the relaxed trails of Tuscany. And so this really is something that we've wanted to do for a while. It gives us the beauty of Tuscany, the ability to pop into wineries for tastings and really some shorter duration walks.
What I love about this one is that we will not move hotels every night. And some of the walks are short to where we literally, we won't have a tour plan. We won't have a cooking class plan. We won't have a dinner plan. We won't have dining reservations or any of those things. So I think that's, that's important part of it. So if we find the piazza and they have a little
Bar that is selling Aperol Spritz and there's a wedding going on We can just park ourselves down in the chair and watch that wedding unfold Yeah, and so I know that even if you are doing like a one-week trip and that is your whole trip or 12 days or something like that just keep that in mind try to think of intentionally
not overloading the itinerary so that you do leave room for just walking, just like Scott said, popping in somewhere and just and seeing whatever you can see. Yeah, that I'm always reminded back to that little piazza in Bevagna where we saw this really neat old car sitting out in front of the church and it was decorated like they were
getting married And you could see all the people walking around and they were in suits and tuxes. And so you knew that a wedding was going to be happening here. And then, you found a little table outside of cafe. You ordered a couple of Aperol Spritz And we just sat there and enjoyed them while watching them come out and then take the pictures. And then the photographer, he wanted to jump up and go take pictures too. And.
I had to try to keep myself out of their wedding. But I remember those three ladies. They looked like they were probably in the wedding, like some type of bridesmaid because they were all dressed the same. And they were sitting on the wall and smoking. And, I came back and said, wish I could have gotten that picture, but I couldn't do it without being really obvious and just intrusive to their day. And so I avoided doing that.
You know, it's just one of those experiences that I couldn't plan for. just happened. And you have to have time inside your schedule to allow that to just unfold and happen. Yeah. And real quickly, mean, another one that I think back is, a few years ago, we were in London and We were headed to a Chelsea game. our daughter and her family were with us and the kids and we intentionally.
didn't plan anything that morning besides we're going to grab coffee here so that we could walk and then take the train and just kind of see what happened. We stopped at the playground near Kensington for the kids to play. There was a pizza stand and we got the kids pizza and they sat on the grass and ate pizza. If we had said, ⁓ but this morning we're going to go to, Westminster Abbey or we're going to go to this other museum, we're going to try to do the tower or something like that.
it would have felt rushed and then none of those things would have ever happened. So instead of trying to over schedule, just letting those things happen. And I think that really just builds these travel memories. Well, the second mistake that people make is not booking key attractions ahead of time. And this has really changed a lot in recent years.
Yeah, timed entry, I think is everywhere now. Cathedrals, museums, even free things we've noticed. And even smaller attractions. And I really think that's a combination of being able to buy tickets online, things being on social media and becoming popular. And then of course the pandemic. And then a lot of places just kind of kept that system so that when it's the busier season or...
or that kind of thing, or just out of necessity. mean, for example, we have said to people for the longest time, if you go to Barcelona and you want to go to the Segrada Familia, like you need to buy those tickets. And then especially now as they're just like finishing, finally those pieces of it, just making sure that you did that. And I think the first time that we noticed this has been years ago before the pandemic, visiting Milan, and it was really a last minute thing that was going to happen.
plan last minute, I think probably two weeks before we left. And I knew that we wanted to go see the Last Supper. We were gonna have some time. We were gonna spend one night in Milan. I looked into getting tickets, but that's one of those things where I don't know if they sell them like 30 days in advance and they're all released. And of course they were sold out. So the only way that I could get them was then to book a tour where that tour company had already bought up, their slot of tickets. So there's always a possibility.
but then just looking into those different options and making sure that you are booking those. So to avoid disappointment, because that's the, I mean, that's the worst thing. You go to Barcelona, you want to go in the La Sagrada Familia, it's sold out. You want to go see The Last Supper, it's sold out. I've heard people say, oh, well, then we tried to go to the Coliseum. Well, then our internet wouldn't work and you can't buy them in person and we missed it. that's a kind of a disappointment. I think that would be sad.
So if it's really something that you want to see, book it early and build around that. The next one that I think I'm probably most guilty of is underestimating the transit days. People think, well, it's just a two hour train ride, right? And that's not true. so Melissa, let's talk a little bit about why that two hour train ride isn't just those two hours.
Well, because you're going to have to pack, you're going to maybe have to check out, you need to get to the station early or the airport early. If you're flying, I know you said train, but waiting. And then once you get to the next place, you need to, make your transit, get your stuff, get checked in. And all of that can eat up a lot of time. And then you may have delays, train or plane, but you may have
delays and so like then you have something booked you're literally rushing or you're late Yeah we try to tell people don't schedule anything on your transit days because if you have a impact in your transit some type of delay and you miss that that's often not covered under their cancellation policy so you'll lose you'll lose that space.
before you know it on, these transportation days or transit days, half your day just gets gone and people underestimate how much energy those travel days take as well. And so every time you have to change hotels, for example, is think about it. you have to normally be out by let's say 11 AM that's
That's kind of the latest time. Usually in Europe, I've seen 10 to 11 is the range and you can't check into the next place before 4 PM. So now you've got your luggage from the first place. You either need to go and store that. Maybe if you're going to hotel, you can check your luggage in early, even if your room's not ready. But if you've rented an Airbnb or.
some apartment, there may be no place for you to, leave that luggage. And so now you got to figure out what you're going to do with your luggage during that time as well. So just keep that in mind as transit days can put a lot of wrenches into your schedule. so be flexible around that and don't make, reservations, on those transit days.
Yeah, our rule now is trying to stay at a hotel for at least two nights. I would say probably at least 90 % of the times. I mean, sometimes it doesn't make sense. You need to transit close to an airport to like fly out the next day. Or you just don't need to be in a place two nights. but it definitely can be exhausting.
let's take, for example, even our recent trip to Tasmania, we flew in in Brisbane and then we had to change planes and then it felt like we were going to get there at, I don't know, 2 30. But then by the time we actually got our stuff and then got to the hotel, like it's like 4 30 by then,
and then our room's not ready and you just have to work all that stuff out. So you really, we didn't end up as much time in Tasmania, I guess, than we really thought. And so on those arrival days, for example, okay, we probably could have used another whole day, if we really wanted to, see that place. And so, if you're doing a cruise, that could definitely be, the case.
Okay. So the next mistake we see people make is staying too far outside a city in order to save money. And so we've actually done this a couple of times. we didn't really realize how far away it would be. One of the times we did in Rome, we did it in order to use points and stay at, it was then a Starwood, now a Marriott hotel.
It said there was a great view of the Vatican, which there was. We could walk to a train station, but then we basically had to commute into central Rome. And so that meant spent time getting our bearings about how to get to and from the train station. And so if you wanted to then go back to the hotel, it was actually quite a journey in order to do that. It wasn't just like a go back and rest and
there's all that transit time. Also during that time, several of the central metro stations were closed for construction And we ended up having to get a taxi back to the hotel at least two times that I can remember. And so did what we ended up saving in points or, if it looked like a cheaper hotel, did we end up saving that in both time, and transit?
So our tip is to always, save all the attractions that you want to do and then save some of the hotels that you're looking at in Google Maps and then looking to see not only how far away they are, because that can also be deceiving, Lisbon, for example, because it's so hilly, but seeing like actually saying from here to here. And then how long does that take walking or transit
Yeah, you might save on the hotel, but then you end up losing time, convenience, and sometimes money on the transportation. And I would say that the atmosphere matters too. Staying central or staying in a certain neighborhood, even if it costs a little bit more, can definitely change how that city feels and how that trip feels. Now, in this particular case, we stayed, it was more of like a neighborhood feel, but it was a big almost conference hotel.
And there wasn't even like a pastry shop or a coffee shop like close by. think one time we didn't want the hotel breakfast or something. And it was like even far away to go and do that. So also researching like where those things are, but we've had great experiences. For example, in London, we stayed near Russell square one time, also in a neighborhood, more of like an Airbnb apartment.
but there was a coffee shop nearby. was almost like being in a local neighborhood. Now that I will say is actually really convenient. and speaking of London, London is one where you have to actually be very, very careful. London is an hour away from London. We always joke about that. Okay, and so even in central London. So you could be staying near,
Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Kensington, that kind of area on one side of town. And you're a good hour away from the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, et cetera. And so in that case, we would even say, like, if you have a whole week in London, you may want to split your time so that you're not, crisscrossing the city to kind of get to some of those things as well.
So really understanding where do I want to go? What I want to see? How much is this going to cost me in both time and transportation cost?
The next mistake is one that as content creators, we sometimes struggle with. And it's a big one for first time travelers to Europe. And you don't really need to try to see major attraction or site at a destination. You don't really have to do everything to have a meaningful trip. And we've been to London a dozen times.
And there's still things that we've never done, new things that we're going to do on this trip that we haven't ever done before. Rick Steves has some great advice, actually thinks it's in like the forward part of every single Rick Steves guidebook. And I've tried to always think about this. it basically says experience a place, experience a city as if you will return again.
So obviously you may not, but if your trip ends up being, saw this, we did this, yes, we went there, but you really didn't have any meaningful experiences or it's just we checked these boxes. I don't really think that you can make the most of that. So make sure that you kind of have a list of here's my top things. Here's the ones that are important to me. My top thing to see, but I would also say
top things to experience, right? So that might be a cooking class or it might be, and I know London's like on our brain, but high tea or fish and chips, or if you go to a place where it could be going to a show, like those things are very, very important. And also making sure that everyone in your group or your family has input into that. Because if you're taking this group trip or this family trip,
and it's all about what you wanted to do. I don't think that like that's going to be make the most of it for everybody. And it also doesn't let you have time to just let things unfold and for you be able to just browse, take a break, go to a coffee shop, sit on a terrace or stop in a piazza and have a drink or have a coffee.
I think this actually leads us to the next one then. And the sixth biggest mistake that people make is not leaving flex time.
So weather changes and energy levels change. And as we're talking about this, also think sometimes it might be, think about some of those things that are like weather dependent or something like that and make sure that you schedule those earlier in trip so that then if they get disrupted by that, you could have another opportunity.
I've been seeing this week, as I was looking at ferries for, the Amalfi coast, ⁓ notices that the ferries were canceled that day. So if you had a day where you're going to go to the Isle of Capri, for example, and the ferries are closed that day. Well, if you booked that on your last day, it's now off your schedule.
because there's no other opportunity. So put those kind of things towards the beginning. And that's a great point just to think through that. And I would say another example of that is we were in the Masai Mara. They intentionally scheduled the Hot Air balloon ride, like one of the first days. So that if there was something, I think there rarely is, but that you do have that time worked in just in case a change into the guard in London would be another example.
It could be canceled last minute because of weather at any time. So just keeping those things in mind and having some flexibility in your schedule, I think to pivot as and just knowing that that can happen. And sometimes you find a neighborhood you just want to stay in longer. But if you've got too many things booked into a rigid schedule, it doesn't leave room for that.
And we don't recommend booking more than, one tour experience a day and then maybe a dining reservation.
This gives you a rough enough outline about what you want to do, but not a tight timeline in which you have to get it done.
Well, mistake seven is assuming that every city operates the same way. Europe is not one thing. As a matter of fact, we often get pushback when we share things about Europe simply because of this. a lot of people are like, oh, doesn't apply in Germany or this doesn't apply in Portugal I think we do have the mentality, right? We're going to Europe, that kind of thing. So
Keep in mind that especially things like operating hours, dining culture, transportation, it varies by country and even by city versus if you're gonna be out in a rural area.
And we've talked about this a bunch, but we also know that more rural areas the UK for example, they won't serve lunch past a certain time, and then the kitchens will close in the evening. Whereas you might go to Spain and the kitchens aren't gonna open.
You know, until really, really late. And so just doing your research and being prepared for those things and the differences. remember one of our trips to Madrid. I had been there before and everything started late. Like you didn't even start to go to dinner till after 8 PM. And you would go to like to a tapas bar or something like that. And you could do this till
late into the evening and hang out and go from one place to the other. And you and I were there and it was on a Sunday. we had fed the kids, made sure that they had dinner, and then we were going to take them back up to their room. They were old enough then, or at least our daughter was, that she could watch after our son and stay in the room. But we were going to go out and go to the Havtapus.
And when we got there, everything was closing down because it was a Sunday. And so things closed earlier. Yeah. So it's definitely important to research this. You'll also find in Germany, even in the large cities, that shops are not going to be open on Sunday. And you'll need to, like I mentioned, just understand when can I have lunch? You when can I have dinner and don't be like us and get caught with, the kitchen's closing or the kitchen's closed. You can have a beer.
The next mistake is ignoring shoulder season realities. We absolutely love traveling during shoulder season, but it's not identical to summer. Some attractions are going to have reduced hours. Ferries may run less frequently. When we were in Crete, we went to a couple of beaches where like you could go to the beach, but all of the restaurants and bars that are normally open there at those beaches.
during the summer had not opened yet. Yeah, very limited, no beach chairs for rental. Like, so if you hadn't brought your towel to like sit on, I think we actually ended up buying one at one beach. You were definitely going to be out of luck. So really just trying to do some research and double checking those ferry schedules for sure. And if there's not going to be things running and it's places that you want to go, then like research that before you book as well.
And so then mistake number nine, I think probably one of the biggest ones that we see people make and we try to be very intentional and sometimes are very guilty of this also, but over packing. All across Europe, there's cobblestone streets. You may have to walk from the train station or even from the closest place that even a taxi can drop you off. Those streets and stairs will humble you very quickly.
Yeah, I think back to that place. think it was last year at Easter time. We were in Cologne. And we were staying in this apartment, but I don't think there was any way for us to know that the apartment was on a fourth story. With no elevator. With no elevator. so, you you had to carry all that luggage up there. Not a big deal for us. got it done. But I would say for some people that would be a challenge.
we talked about that with Andrew when we were talking about the good life abroad is that's one of the things that they actually look for is to make sure that those apartments are in buildings with elevators. But it's just, it's not an absolute common thing that they would have elevators. Some of them are really, really old buildings. And so don't, don't make any assumptions about that. I've even stayed in one in Greece where
There was an elevator, but it didn't go all the way to the top floor. And we were on the top floor. So we could take it up and then we had to go the like the last flight of stairs. think we had that in Germany one time too. Yeah. So if you cannot comfortably move your luggage yourself, then it's going to be too much. thinking about
trains and yeah, and thinking about trains and ferries and planes and, think about packing lighter. And if you get in a situation where you don't have it, like figuring out how to buy it. want to make that point. This isn't about don't go to these places because of this reason. It's about changing the mindset. as you go there is it will be more difficult and maybe I don't need to have three outfits for every day.
Maybe I don't even need to have a new outfit for every day. Right. you're not going to run into anybody that you know, chances are. And so if you're wearing the same outfit twice, who cares? Yeah. How do you build in a capsule wardrobe that can mix and match and, change your accessories and things like that, because this is a real, real issue. Yeah. I would say think about the experience more than how you're going to dress for it.
Yeah. And Scott, I would even say that apartment in Cologne. So was interesting because we arrived on the train. We had to walk from the train, but then we were leaving in the car and you and Brady went to the airport to rent the van that we were going to have, but you couldn't park. wasn't like you could drive to where this was. It was on like a very, it was on a, it was on a pedestrian street. And so either way, right. Even if you had to meet the taxi.
So just being prepared for those things or researching to where you don't stay in those types of places. But we would say err on the side of less. Well then finally, and maybe this is the biggest one, is trying to chase the perfect trip.
So something is gonna go differently than planned and that's okay. The goal of travel is not perfection. It's about connection, it's about experience. And sometimes those things that you didn't plan for that happened end up being your very best and most valuable memories.
So if you're planning Europe right now, hopefully this helps you avoid some of the mistakes that we see all the time and honestly some of the mistakes that we have made ourselves. So we will be sharing obviously a lot more.
about, this trip will definitely bring you more insight from the things that we've learned. But I also wanted to mention that if you would like to have a copy of our packing guide that we have edited and changed and put in, new things as we kind of like discover new things as well, then I will put the link to that in the show notes. You can also find it at sunshuntravelers.com and then
in one of the like in the resources menu. It's right there at the very top our packing guide.
Well, if this episode helped you make sure you're following the podcast. And if you missed our last episode, we broke down whether city passes in Europe are actually worth the money. And that's a great companion to today's conversation. Thanks for traveling with us. And remember the world is full of sunshine and surprises. So get out there and travel beyond the familiar.
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