Making A Plan

Staring to plan an 8 week backpacking trip is a pretty daunting task..... We realized this when we first sat down earlier this summer to begin the process. It's hard to figure out where to start! There are soooo many things to consider: Budget (How much can we spend and how do we know how far that is going to take us?), Timing (when to go and how long to stay in each location), Accommodations (Do we book hostels before we go or wait until we get there?) and my favorite part of the planning process.... developing an itinerary! We started out sprawled out in the corner of Barnes and Noble with probably 10 guide books. While these will be helpful when planning what to do in each place and where to stay, we found the internet to be most helpful starting off. During a Google Search I found a webpage (First Time Europe by Rick Steves) that mapped out an itinerary containing many of the places we wanted to go and for the right amount of time! Even the description fit us perfectly, "two months, plenty of energy and a desire to see as much of Europe as possible!" Using Rick Steve's itinerary as our foundation, we made some slight modifications (8 days in Scandinavia wasn't going to work) and developed our own perfect itinerary! Here is what we came up with:

London (U.K.)
Loire Valley or Bordeaux (France)
Lisbon (Portugal)
Valencia (Spain)
Barcelona (Spain)
South of France
Cinque Terre (Italy)
Rome (Italy)
Naples/Capri (Italy)
Florence, Venice, Verona (Italy)
Switzerland
Munich (Germany)
Salzburg (Austria)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Berlin (Germany)
Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Pretty extensive list, huh? It was actually longer at first and we had trouble trimming it down. Once we reached this list though, we just couldn't eliminate anymore places. Each of these stops is a "must-see" for at least one of us! Are there any other "must-sees" we overlooked? Are there any of these places that don't live up to the hype? I'm sure some of you will notice one big city missing from the list.....Paris! We all agreed to skip it. Each of us had the chance to visit Paris on our study abroad trips and felt that is wasn't somewhere we had to visit again. I know it sounds crazy, but I didn't love Paris as much as I thought I would! Should we give it another chance?

Please let me know your thoughts/advice on our tentative plan!