Tour in Europe. Help Please.?

Question

We are planning for a tour around Europe during end March / early April 2008. We are planning to visit Germany, France, UK and if possible to Netherlands. This is a prelim plan only.

Cool. My questions:
What visa can help me to enter all these places? Do we separate visas for each country? What if we wish to have multiple entry to some country?
Is it possible to drive between countries? How does the Rent a car feasible to drive? Or is there a road / rail transport available to move between countries? Please guide me with some websites if possible.
To drive in the UK, do we need any special Licence? It's right hand drive there.

Thanks in advance. Your answers will help us a lot in planning for the trip.

Answer 1

You do not write where you are from, and that does make a difference in required visa (if any.)
(If you are not from the USA, please check whether you need a visa, you can do that on this site: http://skyteam.com/EN/travelPlanner/timatic/index.jsp )

As said, for most of Europe you need only one visa, for all the Schengen countries. But for the UK you will need a separate visa.
It is common to ask for a multiple entry visa, but often you do not need it, as it is free to travel between the Schengen countries. (Most of continental Europe.)

Traveling by train is the best option for most people, there are trains all over, almost all towns are connected by railroads and the trains run often, the shorter runs often hourly, between the capital cities of Europe at least several times per day.
But the rail pass mentioned in one of the replies is only for European people, visitors from outside the area can buy a different pass:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/passes/eurail_index.htm
But as this pass allows you a lot of travel, it also costs a lot.
Often people do better with just buying single tickets.
The Eurail site has a rail planner:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm
Maybe not the best, but useful to see how easy travel will be.
A very good site for train planning in Europe is:
http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml the site for the German railways.

Renting a car can be cheaper when you travel with 3 or 4 people, specially if you want to roam the countryside. In bigger towns cars are not useful, costly to park and run.
You can combine train travel with renting a car for a few days, so you have the best of both.
(Indeed, no special license needed for the UK, but they also have a good system of trains and buses.)
The costs of running a car are high in Europe, as petrol is very expensive and even in most of the small towns you have to pay for parking.

Answer 2

Visa: Germany, France and Netherlands are part of the Schengen Agreement. This means you need only one visa for all of these countries. Citizens from developed countries (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ and large parts of South America) do not need a Schengen visa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

If you need a visa (bc you are from India, China, Thailand, etc) best plan your trip so that you need only a single-entry Schengen visa. It is easier to get. An example would be to fly into London, see the UK, cross into France, tour France, Netherland and Germany and leave then from Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris.

For the UK you might need a seperate visa. See http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/

It is possible to drive between all these countries. You can take a car on a ferry or on the Chunnel train from the UK to France or vice versa. A ferry also goes from Amsterdam to the UK. Driving is no problem at all, there are many roads. Take a look at google maps. For 3-4 people renting a car is the cheapest option. Be aware that it will be best if you can return it to your point of departure. So if you fly into London and depart from Paris do it the following way: Rent a car in the UK, drive around and drop it off again in the UK, fly to Paris or take the Eurostar train, pick up another car in Paris and drive around all over Europe, drop it off in Paris.

Eurail pass is also a good idea, but generally a mix of flight, bus and train works out best if you do not rent a car.

http://www.skyscanner.net
http://www.eurolines.com
http://www.seat61.com

You'll need a good guidebook to plan your trip. Good series are Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Let's Go, Rick Steves, etc.

http://www.ricksteves.com/
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

Answer 3

Alright, one by one:

Visa:
You only need one tourist visa for the whole of the EU. So there is no "multiple entry", as you never leave the EU.

Drive:
I'd not recommend it. Car rental is very expensive here. You may want to rent one for a day or two, to drive around in one country. But usually you're better off taking the train. Look at www.eurail.com for European railway passes.

UK driving:
No special license required, but being used to left-hand drive myself, I found right-hand drive quite difficult to handle. Takes some time to get used to.

You didn't ask, but:
France is a HUGE country with a lot to see. More than your time will probably allow. But you should have seen Paris. So my itinerary would be: UK, Netherlands, Paris/France, Germany. So you can land in London, and fly back from Berlin. That an idea?

btw, what about Ireland? Beautiful country, too, and most close to the UK.

Answer 4

As pointed out it depends on where you come from....coming form Nz I didn't need any visas at all ( except the one for the Uk where I was working at the time).

you can get an international drivers licence....I didn't need a licence to drive in the Uk as my NZ one was good for a year!
For driving in Europe an international licence was fine.

renting a car is good for some more isolated areas.....you would have to work out if hiring a car for that time or taking a train may be better....if you want to go to more isolated areas, then a car is good...we had for one when we stayed in central France for a couple of weeks, which was really handy.
The train network is pretty extensive over Europe and is efficient...if you are really only planning to fo to main cities etc then trains and buses may be the way to go.

I would also point out that France is a large country and as I said we had over 2 weeks in Central France alone!!!! There is so much to see and do, so maybe having a bit of a plan may help you to plan out your trip...travel takes time and when you are constantly moving from A to B to C etc you get tired and it ususually takes longer than you think...it sounds like you are there for a few weeks, but this can really fly....I would suggest cutting down on a couple of areas....I personally don;t thik the Netherlands is that great and when I think of places I vistied its probably at the bottom of my list to be honest......
I never even got to Germany too..so I cna't comment there....The UK and France are loaded with things to see and you could easily spend all your time in these places.....

Answer 5

Visa depends wich country you come from except UK which is not part of the schengenzone within the EU for the Netherlands Germany and France one Visa is for all of them.
You can move between these countries by car or by rail as you like to do.
Feel free to contact me through my profile for further questions and information.As 2 of the countries you want to travel are my home Germany and France

Answer 6

VISA, I don't think you need any Visa for those countrys and if you need one than is one for all.
You can travel in all EC memeber country as much as you like, no borders no checks no nothing. 23 Country in the middle of Europe have sign the Schengen treaty and you are free to travel in those countrys.
You can drive anywhere you want, with a rented car or by train whatever suits you best.
Train tickets to cross country are easy to buy at any station.
You don't need a special drivers license to drive in the UK only its advised to do a little exercise on some small roads before drive the whole coutry, special roundabouts are difficult.
You can also buy a train ticket that lasts for 4 weeks and is valid in all european coutry (inter rail).
below 1 car rental and inter rail link.
have fun and merry x-mas!

Answer 7

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