The Europe Itinerary Part 6

This post will be the last part of my Europe Itinerary blog series. A quick recap on my previous post, if you have noticed the way I planned the time in Paris, it’s different than in Switzerland. It was planned to be more flexible, allowing each planned item to move earlier or later, depending on the actual day itself. In fact, the frequency of metro service is quite high, I do not need to specifically plan the departure/arrival time of each metro service.

Proceeding from my arrival to London St. Pancras, I have arranged with my friend to pick me up from the train station. That should be the end of my Day 6 plan. Next morning (Day 7) I’ve planned to revisit a few usual attractions in Central London. I listed down where I want to go, then I plotted the route to these destinations.

First of all, you need a London Underground Map or a London Tourist Map. Alternately, you can try Google Map online. A sample of my plotted map below.

Click to Enlarge

On Day 8 (last day) early morning, I will be heading to Waterloo Station, crossing over to visit London Eye. I’ve also arranged to meet up with some of my friends in London for lunch. After lunch, I should be heading to London Stansted Airport for check in. Tips: Allow at least 2 hours check in time for international flight. If at London Heathrow Airport, allow at least 3 hours instead!

That’s basically my whole Europe itinerary. However, when there’s vacation plan, there’s budget! Budget is about money. We need to estimate how much money we need to bring along for spending. Of course you can use credit card, but it’s always safer to keep some cash in hand. Below is my Europe Trip budget for 2 persons, excluding return airfares and travel insurance.

The above budget was planned based on exchange rate in 2009. You may want to reference the latest exchange rate if you are reading this in the future.

Travel to Europe via AirAsia

This post is meant to provide a guide to Malaysian travelers to Europe via AirAsia. Take note that at the time of this writing, AirAsia do not have direct flights to other European countries yet. You have to transit via London. Let’s take a look on the flight schedules* to London Stansted (STN) from Kuala Lumpur (KUL).

Outgoing Flights Schedule *As of 1st Feb 2010
D7 2008 1230 (KUL) – 1930 (STN)
  1510 (KUL) – 2210 (STN)
  0900 (KUL) – 1600 (STN)
D7 2006 2200 (KUL) – 0500 (STN)

At a glance, we knew that all 3 flights on D7 2008 will arrive at London in the evening, and it would be too late to transit to another European countries. Even if you can make it, your arrival to your destination will be midnight already. Trust me, you don’t want to ruin your holiday catching a late night train or knocking at a guest house/hostel.

On the other hand, I will recommend you to take the D7 2006 flight, which will arrive at London in the morning (next day). At this time, you would have plenty of options to transit to your destination (earlier too). Need help finding transit flights? I used eBookers to search, book and pay for my transit Europe airfares, particularly for London outbound.

When searching for transit flight, take note that London outbound flights will have several options, it might either from London Stansted, London Luton, London Gatwick, London City Airport, or London Heathrow. You must allocate time for your travel between airports, check-in, immigration and custom, etc.

Approximate Distance of London Airports to London City Center

My advise for airfare, book earlier to get cheaper price and avoid disappointment. If you can’t find any available, probably the fare has not been publish yet. This is common to budget airlines in Europe. I usually booked mine 1-2 months ahead of schedule. For non-budget airlines like British Airways, you can usually book and pay for the airfare 2-3 months ahead, if you have confirmed your itinerary.