My Europe Travel Tips

If you’ve been following along on Instagram you may know that I just got back from a 15-day trip to Europe including Amsterdam (3 days), Brussels (1 day), Luxembourg (2 days), Paris (4 days), and Barcelona (5 days). It was incredible to check so many more countries off my list, eat so much delicious food, and get the chance to travel with the boy.

Here’s my overview of what I learned (and what you should try!) in each City:

Travel Tips for Madrid

My layover city

Agenda: Puerta del Sol, Royal Palace of Madrid, Plaza Mayor

1. Do not show up at 8:00am on a Saturday and expect anybody to be awake.

2. Check your bag if you plan on roaming around during your layover.

3. Make sure your bag is zipped shut when you’re walking around

Travel Tips for Amsterdam

The cleanest city

Agenda: Keukenhof, Leiden, Albert Cupymarket, Heineken Brewery, Red Light District, The Jordaan

What to eat: Everything, this city has the most international food selection

1. If you didn’t know, there are lots of beautiful canals in Amsterdam. (I didn’t know…)

2. Know where the Red Light District is so when you walk into it you’re not surprised.

3. Stroopwafels are the most delicious thing ever.

4. I couldn’t have imagined how many bicycles are in this city. All the bicycles.

5. In the summer the sun rises at 5:30am and sets at 10:00pm. Enjoy the day!

6. The Keukenhof, the tulip festival, occurs from the end of March to mid-May.

Travel Tips for Brussels

The snackiest city

Agenda: Grand-Place, Manneken Pis, Royal Palace, Brussels Park, Delirium

What to eat: Waffles, Fries, Chocolate, Beer

1. The stuff on the fries is mayonnaise, not cheese.

2. The little boy peeing statue is only like a foot tall (and there’s no good way to take a picture of him – that sounded creepy).

3. If you want a nice, healthy, easy lunch, visit Exki.

4. All city parks look the same. A park is a park is a park.

Travel Tips for Luxembourg

The greenest city

Agenda: Notre Dame Cathedral, Palace of the Grand Dukes, Grund

1. You must go visit the thai food restaurant called Ukulele.

2. Spend a leisurely afternoon having hot chocolate at the Chocolate House, the light is beautiful.

3. Make sure to look at the Grund from both the top and the bottom, it’s beautiful.

4. There’s a fort that goes through the entire city, it’s pretty cool.

5. It costs €1.10 to use the bathroom in this train station, but it only costs €1 to buy a croissant at the bakery next door. Go to the bakery

Travel Tips for Paris

The citiest city

Agenda: Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, Arc de Triomphe, Montmarte, Sacre Coeur, Versailles

What to eat: Baguettes, Crepes, Macarons

1. Don’t bother paying a lot of money for macarons, find an awesome small to-go bakery.

2. Pictures from the top of the Eiffel tower are silly because they don’t have the Eiffel tower in them, go to the top of Sacre Coeur instead.

3. That said, only climb up to the top of Sacre Coeur if you are in good shape.

4. There is a free tourist help center (and luggage storage) right near Les Halles.

5. Don’t bother trying to find cheap shoes to buy, they don’t exist.

Travel Tips for Barcelona

The shopping-iest city

Agenda: Sagrada Familia, Raval, El Born, Santa Maria del Mar, Boqueria Market, Sitges, Gaudi’s architecture

What to eat: Iberian ham, tapas

1. Visit El Born for clothing shopping, I spent more money than I thought I would here and visit Boqueria Market for an awesome assortment of food, €1 coconut juice was pretty delicious.

2. They do a really awesome job of incorporating all of the old architecture into the new city streets, absolutely worth checking out on a walking adventure.

3. Take a train outside of the city to go to the beach, the beaches are far less touristy.

4. Buy a snack to get you through the afternoon Siesta time, because restaurants don’t open until a million o’clock (and tapas aren’t as filling as I thought they would be).

5. Iberian ham is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

Total Cost

Our total cost for the two weeks came to about $4,000. This total does not include flights, 2 days of hotels, or gifts that we bought for others (or ourselves). We spent $1400 on AirBnBs, $700 on Rail Tickets, and $1900 on Food/Entrance Fees/Public Transit/Etc.

General Europe Travle Tips

And then there were some things that I learned that were the same for every country.

• There is no chai. And there is only bubble tea in Paris.

• Buy water at the grocery store instead of bottle by bottle at restaurants.

• They do tea right. It always comes with a cookie and sometimes comes with a chocolate.

• Have someone else take your picture, the angle is better.

• The Ascension is a holiday in Europe.

• You need to own it when you walk across a crosswalk. Otherwise bicycles, mopeds, and cars will completely destroy you.

• Selfie sticks haven’t made it big in the US, but holy heck, they absolutely made it big in Europe.

• Public transit is a wonderful, wonderful, thing. but actually think about whether or not you need a day pass. If you plan on doing a lot of walking, it probably won’t be worth it.

• Don’t take an 8pm redeye because there’s not enough sleep time, take a 10pm redeye.

• Yelp isn’t super reliable, try using Google Maps instead.

• It was absolutely cheaper to buy the train tickets between cities than the Eurorail pass.

• We stayed in AirBnB’s for 90% of the trip, which was a great choice for us because we got to feel like we were living in the city as opposed to visiting the city. The only problem with this was the potential for uncomfortable beds, which at least only happened once.

And that’s it for this big European adventure. Next up? Maybe Milan (hello, World’s Fair!), maybe Thailand (somewhere around our third city we kept seeking out thai food to eat and we realized we should probably just head to Thailand on our next adventure. We’ll see if that happens.).

What’s on your list of cities to visit next?

PS. If you’re looking to plan a trip of your own, check out my checklist of 15 things to do before you travel internationally.