This was our third visit to Europe and in our previous visits we had covered parts of Austria and Germany and most of Switzerland, Italy and Spain. We had visited Spain the previous year, during the holy week of Santa Semana and had covered Madrid and Andalusia (Absolutely loved it, and it remains one of the best trips we have ever had!). However, given the amount of time we had on that trip, we were unable to squeeze Barcelona into our itinerary. We knew we would be back in western Europe soon again, so we had decided to save Barcelona for this trip. Also, London was a must visit this time, as we had to meet close family.

So, when I started planning this trip, I decided to make London and Barcelona as our entry and exit points. We had a total of 18 days (including the travel days for flying from and to Los Angeles), and decided to cover these cities in the following order: London – Amsterdam – Brussels (with a day trip to Bruges) – Paris – Nice (with a day trip to Monaco) – Barcelona. My priority for almost any trip is to maximize what we can see and do, and this trip was no different. We planned to cover 8 cities in different 6 countries over the 18 days.

Our high-level itinerary was as follows:

Day 1: Fly from Los Angeles to London
Day 2: Reach London late in the afternoon
Day 3-5: Spend in London
Day 6: Take the train from London to Amsterdam (4.5 hours) and spend remaining day in Amsterdam
Day 7: Spend in Amsterdam
Day 8: Morning in Amsterdam and take the train to Brussels (2.0 hours) and spend remaining day in Brussels
Day 9: Day trip to Bruges; evening in Brussels
Day 10: Take the morning train from Brussels to Paris (1.5 hours) and spend all day in Paris
Day 11-12: Spend in Paris (with a trip to Versailles)
Day 13: Take the morning train from Paris to Nice (5.5 hours) and spend remaining day in Nice
Day 14: Day trip to Monaco; evening in Nice
Day 15: Take a late morning flight from Nice to Barcelona (1.5 hours) and spend remaining day in Barcelona
Day 16 & 17 – Spend in Barcelona
Day 18: Fly from Barcelona to Los Angeles

Any trip to Europe involves quite a bit of planning, and more so if you are trying to squeeze in multiple cities and countries into your itinerary. Also, travelling with a kid in Europe brings its own set of challenges, and there are a few critical factors that should always be taken into consideration while planning a trip.

For example, taking the train to connect between different cities is an integral part of any European vacation. How do you make that convenient, by travelling light, when you have all the additional kid’s stuff that you may need to carry? How do you balance out museum time with ‘fun’ time for kids? How do you manage to keep the kid(s) motivated to do all the walking that most European cities demand and most importantly, how do you keep it interesting, so that the kids have a good time along with the adults?

This was our son’s (almost 8 at the time of this trip) third trip to the continent, and I like to consider him a seasoned traveler by now ?. Despite that, thinking about all of these during the planning stage itself, helped me to reduce a lot of frustration during the trip. I have tried to highlight what we did to address the questions above in my detailed itineraries covering the different cities. While every kid is different and some of the things I have listed may or may not work, I think it is worth the time to think through these and decide how to make the most of your trip!