If you decide to go to Europe by yourself as an older woman, you will receive many recommendations about places to go and not go. Crafting an itinerary based on other people’s preferences and prejudices has not proven to be a good experience for me.
For purposes of this article, I will disregard those who say you should not go anywhere in Europe at your age, and certainly not by yourself. You already are considering the trip, no doubt.
Also if you are reading elsewhere on this website, you know that for economy reasons, I prefer long trips to spread my airfare costs across many days. I write this in light of that decision.
Before my first trip, which I assumed at the time would be my only trip to Europe, I made a list of the places that I had heard were the most important in Europe. I heard Paris, London, and Rome were on that short list, so I added them in.
Then because I had studied Spanish in high school and college, Madrid was a natural option. I was interested in the role of Germany in World Wars I and II, as well as the Cold War and eventual reunification, so I added Berlin to the list in my head.
Since I am a city planner, scenery was not going to be important for this trip, given limited time and budget. The one exception I wanted to make was seeing some of the Swiss Alps, which I had daydreamed about since I was a child.
At roughly this point, I began looking at transportation practicalities and soliciting advice from friends and strangers. I followed the important premise of traveling from south to north if you start in the spring, as I did.
This meant that it was smart to put Madrid at the top of the itinerary, despite the advice of many to begin with an English-speaking country. Remember that I know some Spanish, so I wasn’t especially daunted by the language issue. Then the other place I thought would be hot in the middle of the summer was Rome, so I penciled in a flight from Madrid to Rome after discovering that this is too long of a train journey, even for me.
I predicted six to seven hours would be about my maximum on a train, and that proved to be right.
ASKING OTHERS FOR ADVICE
About this time I sought opinions on the Rick Steves Europe travel forum, which I highly recommend. The forum is a little smaller and I find it definitely friendlier than Trip Advisor, Fodors, or others.
I asked if I should choose Amsterdam, Vienna, or Venice as what I thought would be my final destination choice.
Nobody said choose Vienna, so I eliminated it. (As a sidebar, that proved to be so wrong for me, because of those three cities, each of which I have now visited, I strongly prefer Vienna and long to return. Venice came in third of the three.)
Of the forum responders, more said Venice than Amsterdam, arguing strongly for both the charm and uniqueness of Venice. The proprietor of a lovely shop I liked to frequent said “Venice is magical,” adding I had to go there.
So I chose Venice. Then I saw that on the route between Rome and Venice, I could stop at Florence. After reading about Firenza, the Italian name for that beauty of a city, I decided to devote a few days to it.
Reviewing, at this point I have Madrid-fly to Rome-Florence-Venice. Since I wanted to train up to see the Swiss Alps, I started to entertain another option briefly considered, Milan. I wanted to see the Last Supper, and as a city planner I was interested in the origins of the shopping center and thus in seeing the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.
From Milan, I learned I could ride the slow train up through Switzerland to Zurich, but heeded the words of experienced travelers that I wanted to stay in Lucerne (Luzern), not Zurich.
Lucerne to Berlin proved a relatively easy train ride. From there I needed to head to Paris, but how?
Again, advice from others played a role. I had started to attend a monthly meeting of a group that was convened through the Rick Steves website. (Yes, I still go.) Several people there are proponents of Bavaria and southern Germany, so I decided that a one-day stopover in Munich would be a good choice for breaking up the trip to Paris. Also a former employee grew up there, heightening the interest in that destination.
Now since I was in the expansive mode, I decided that a one-day stop in Strasbourg to observe the European Parliament, indulging my interest in international cooperation, would be a great option. From there it’s an easy train ride into Paris, and from Paris to London via the Eurostar train that briefly travels under the English Channel is a fast and painless trip.
On this first itinerary, I started the practice that has persisted through now, when I am on the third long trip in 2026. Rather than arbitrarily assigning a number of days/nights I would stay in a city, I started identify what I wanted to see and do, then estimating how long each would take and what I could comfortably fit into a day.
In sum, my first itinerary included these overnight stays, with the number of nights after the city name.
Madrid, 4
Rome, 7
Florence, 4
Venice, 2
Milan, 2
Lucerne, 2
Munich, 1
Berlin, 5
Strasbourg, 1
Paris, 13
London, 13
Positive and Negative Evaluations of This Itinerary
I loved Madrid and was sorry to leave. On the other hand, I actively disliked Roma, and my son says I told him when I called after arrival that “it’s so loud here.” No doubt it was. However, I liked walkable, art-focused Firenza so much. I found Venezia quite frustrating, although as more experienced travelers have said, that could be because I had such a short stay and was not charmed whatsoever by struggling to find my way to the Accademia in the rain.
Incidentally, this was my first lesson in the profound influence that weather has on my impression of a place. You might be the same, or not. I had stormy weather in Venice, and many of my photos from there feature either storm clouds or the environmental pollution in the canals.
Milan, not a tourist favorite, was much to my liking, and I can’t wait to go back. The long, 11-hour train ride up through Switzerland on the slower route was idyllic and memorable, probably my best single day on the whole trip. I didn’t mind the fact that this involved seven separate legs. Getting off and finding the next platform (often right behind my arrival platform) in just a few minutes was part of the fun.
I have no idea why I chose to go to Munich from Luzern/Zurich, but my notes say that’s what I did. By Munich, I was quite sick, so that was a somewhat disappointing stop because I did not feel like walking to the two big art museums as planned. But I will return to do more of Munich. Just this year I have learned that I missed so many museums and experiences in Munich by concentrating on making that just a one-night stop.
Berlin was a “must” for me, as they say in the travel vernacular. I don’t necessarily believe in “musts” but if you have them, add this one if you like young, driving, history-minded, and achievement-oriented places. I loved it, marred as it was by illness, which was pretty severe by then.
I accomplished the goal of watching the European Parliament in action in Strasbourg. (As a side note, I walked up to the building from the side, and when I asked the guard there how to enter the building, he said he didn’t know! Undeterred, I kept walking clockwise till I found the front door.)
As for Paris, this lived up to expectations, after the inauspicious beginning of not being able to keep my Eiffel Tower reservation on the first day. I was too tired and too ill to find my way somehow; I had overshot the appropriate Metro stations and somehow ended up on the west side of the Seine in the Trocadero, and exhausted myself walking before I could figure out how to correct the error.
The rest of Paris was just wonderful, and London lived up to expectations as well.
FINAL LESSONS ABOUT PERSONALIZING AN ITINERARY
- One-night stands are probably never a good idea, at least if they are in a city where there are several good things to see. While I stayed in hostels and thus didn’t face a time sink from unpacking, checking in, packing, and checking out, still if a place is worth stopping, in hindsight, I realize I may not travel to Strasbourg and Munich again, even though Munich is penciled in for a future trip.
- I was glad I had factored in my own tolerance for long train (or bus or plane) trips. It helped that I had made some lengthy train and bus journeys within the U.S. to rehearse how that feels to me.
- Weather plays a real role in my experience. It would be wrong to say that I didn’t like the places that rained (e.g., Venice) because I loved Milan, which was equally rainy. Paris was too hot one day, and when I went to Stonehenge on a day trip from London on June 6, I can’t remember when I’ve been so cold. Yet Paris and London both received rave reviews here. Yet, weather changes what I do and how much I like it.
- I need to build in time to maintain health. I learned that at the first sign of trouble, I should seek medical attention, but even before that, I should be very careful about nutrition and eating patterns.