What I Wish I Knew Before My First Trip to Europe
There's a particular kind of overwhelm that hits the first time you plan a trip to Europe. So many countries, so close together, each with its own language, currency quirks, train system, and unspoken rules. You want to see everything, you've heard a hundred conflicting tips, and you're quietly terrified of doing something embarrassing in a country where you don't speak the language.
The good news: most of the things first-timers stress about turn out not to matter, and most of the things that do matter, nobody warns you about. This is the guide I wish someone had handed me before my first trip — the practical, slightly unglamorous stuff that makes the difference between a smooth trip and a frustrating one.
1. Trains usually beat flights for short hops
The instinct, coming from somewhere like Australia or the US, is to fly between cities. Europe trained me out of that fast. For journeys under about four or five hours, the train almost always wins once you count the real time cost of flying: getting to an out-of-town airport, arriving two hours early, security, waiting, baggage, then getting from the arrival airport into the city.
A train, by contrast, leaves from the city centre and drops you in the city centre. Paris to London, Amsterdam to Brussels, Rome to Florence, Vienna to Salzburg — these are all faster and far less stressful by rail. You keep your bags with you, there's no liquids rule, the legroom is better, and the views are part of the trip rather than a sea of clouds.
A few things that took me a while to learn:
The scenic routes usually cost the same as the boring ones. If two trains run a similar route for a similar price, the slightly longer scenic line is often worth it — the journey becomes part of the holiday rather than dead time.
On high-speed and long-distance trains, a seat reservation is often separate from your ticket or rail pass. A rail pass gets you on the train, but on many high-speed services you still need to reserve a seat (sometimes for a small fee) or risk standing. Check this before you board, especially in France, Italy, and Spain.
Book popular high-speed routes in advance for the cheap fares. Like flights, train prices on the fast lines climb as the date approaches. Regional and slower trains are usually fixed-price, so you can be spontaneous with those.
And if you're covering long distances overnight, night trains can save you a hotel night — you go to sleep in one city and wake up in another. Book the sleeper compartments early; they sell out.
2. Carry some cash — not everywhere taps
You'll read that Europe is all contactless now, and in big cities that's mostly true. But "mostly" is the trap. The places that still want cash are exactly the places you'll want to spend at: the tiny family trattoria, the market stall, the rural guesthouse, the public toilet that charges fifty cents, the bus in a smaller town, the church donation box, the busker who just made your evening.
You don't need wads of it. A modest amount of local currency in your pocket, topped up from an ATM as you go, covers the gaps. A few specifics worth knowing:
Withdraw from bank-operated ATMs rather than the standalone "Euronet"-style machines you see in tourist areas — the independent ones tend to offer terrible exchange rates and push high fees.
When a card machine or ATM asks whether you want to be charged in your home currency or the local one, always choose the local currency. The "convenience" of being charged in your own currency comes with a marked-up exchange rate. Local currency, every time.
Keep your cash and cards split between two places. A small amount accessible, the rest stashed separately. Pickpocketing in crowded tourist spots is the most common thing that goes wrong on a European trip, and it's almost always opportunistic — a bag left open, a wallet in a back pocket. A little awareness handles it.
3. Sort out how you'll stay connected before you fly
This is the one nobody mentions until they're standing in an airport arrivals hall with no signal, trying to find their hotel, and realising their phone is about to cost them a fortune.
You have three options for data in Europe, and only one of them is good:
Roaming on your home plan is the easy-but-expensive default. Some plans include international roaming, but many charge eye-watering per-megabyte rates, and "I'll just be careful with data" never survives contact with Google Maps, translation apps, and uploading photos. Bill shock when you get home is a real and common souvenir.
Buying a local SIM at the destination is cheaper but a hassle — finding a shop, queuing, registering with your passport, swapping out your home SIM (and trying not to lose it), and then needing a new SIM every time you cross a border. On a multi-country Europe trip, that gets old fast.
A travel eSIM is the option that actually fits how people travel Europe now. An eSIM is a digital SIM — there's no physical card to swap. You buy it before you leave, install it over Wi-Fi at home, and it activates when you land. The big advantage for Europe specifically is coverage: a single regional eSIM works across the whole continent, so you're not hunting for a new plan at every border.
This is the part of the trip I'd genuinely sort before you fly, on your own Wi-Fi, while you've got time to read the instructions. Our Europe eSIM covers 41 countries on one plan — so whether your trip is Paris-only or a five-country rail adventure, the same eSIM follows you across every border with no roaming fees, no SIM swapping, and no app to download. It arrives by email as a QR code; you scan it, and you're set. The one tip people forget: once you land, turn data roaming on for the eSIM line (counterintuitive, but the eSIM needs it to connect to local networks) and you're online in seconds.
Whatever you choose, the principle holds: decide your connectivity before you board, not after you land.
4. Book the big sights ahead — and leave room for the small ones
The famous attractions — the ones at the top of every list — increasingly require timed-entry tickets booked in advance. Turning up on the day and queuing is, for many of them, no longer an option, or means hours in line in the heat. Check each major sight a few weeks out and book your slot. It's the difference between walking straight in and writing off half a day.
But here's the counterintuitive part: don't book your whole trip solid. First-timers tend to over-schedule, cramming every day with reservations, then spend the trip rushing between timed slots and never actually being anywhere. The best parts of a European trip are usually the unplanned ones — the square you wander into, the café you sit at for two hours, the street you follow just to see where it goes.
A good rhythm: lock in the handful of big-ticket, must-book sights, and leave the rest of each day open. You'll see less, but you'll experience more.
5. A few practical things that smooth everything out
Pack lighter than you think. Cobblestones, stairs in old buildings without lifts, and train platforms are not friends of the giant suitcase. A bag you can carry up two flights of stairs yourself is worth more than a wardrobe of options.
Bring the right adapter — and check your devices. Most of continental Europe uses the Type C/F plug; the UK and Ireland use a different one (Type G). Your phone and laptop chargers almost certainly handle the voltage difference automatically, but check before you plug in a hairdryer or anything with a heating element.
Learn five words of the local language. "Hello," "please," "thank you," "sorry," and "do you speak English?" in the local tongue go a remarkably long way. You're not expected to be fluent; the effort itself is what's appreciated, and it changes how people respond to you.
Validate your ticket where required. In some countries — Italy is the classic example — you have to validate (stamp) your train or bus ticket in a machine on the platform before boarding. Skip it and you can be fined even with a valid ticket. When in doubt, look for the little validation machines and stamp it.
Eat where it's a little inconvenient. The restaurants with menus in six languages and a host waving you in from the main square are rarely the good ones. Walk a few streets back from the tourist centre and you'll eat better for less.
Check what's closed. Many shops, and some restaurants, close on Sundays or take a long midday break, particularly outside big cities. A little planning saves a hungry afternoon.
6. On budgeting (and not blowing it in week one)
Europe can be done on almost any budget, but the costs sneak up in small ways: the €4 coffee, the €2 to use a bathroom, the "service" and "cover" charges added to restaurant bills, the city tourist tax added per night at your accommodation. None of these are large on their own; together they add up faster than first-timers expect.
A couple of money-savers that genuinely work: water is often free and safe from the tap (and many cities have public fountains you can refill at — Rome is famous for them), so a refillable bottle pays for itself quickly. And lunch menus at restaurants are frequently far cheaper than the same food at dinner, so make lunch your big meal where you can.
The short version
If you remember nothing else from your first European trip: take the train for short hops, carry a little cash, sort your phone data before you fly, book the big sights but not every hour, and leave room to wander. The trip will largely take care of itself from there.
Europe rewards the traveller who plans the essentials and stays loose on the rest. Get the boring logistics right — including how you'll stay connected — and you free yourself up for the part that actually matters: being there.
Heading to Europe soon? Skip the roaming bills and the SIM-swapping. Our Europe eSIM covers 41 countries on a single plan — install it before you fly and you'll land already connected.
