What Does a Custom European Trip Actually Mean?

What is custom travel?
That is a valid and important question. It's a question I hear from time to time when telling people I specialize in custom travel to Europe.

We live in a world where it is easy to go online and book your own flights. There are countless of websites and apps you can use to book your hotel or rental car. Even train tickets and city tours are not hard to find and reserve online.

But custom doesn't just mean you book everything individually. It doesn't mean you simply travel without a tour group. Custom travel means itineraries aren't one-size-fits-all. Custom travel means you and your personal needs and preferences are at the center of every trip planning decision made. And that looks different for every traveler and every trip.

One of the seemingly easiest ways to plan a trip to Europe is to think of it as individual pieces:

• Book flights
• Book accommodation
• Then think about things to do
• Then think about how to get around

Each is important and makes sense on its own, but if you're not careful the trip you end up with looks great on paper, but ends up being exhausting and just isn't all you hoped it would be. 

 Custom travel planning starts with you - not with the destination

To me planning a trip doesn't start with the destination or the sights. It starts with the travelers - all of them.

The questions I try to answer before ever looking at a single flight or a hotel include:

• Who is traveling? A solo traveler? A newly married couple? A family with children?
• What are everyone's interests? Art and culture? Food? Nature? Relaxation?
• Are there any special needs and restrictions?
• What are you hoping to see and experience?
• How experienced are you when it comes to Europe and international travel?

It's not until I have those answers and have gotten to know you a little better that I actually start working on a proposal. There are lots of other questions and factors that play into travel planning but knowing the travelers and their needs is fundamental to the process.

Sometimes, travel is deeply personal

We travel for a number of reasons. Sometimes we are curious and want to discover another place on this earth. Sometimes we want to see where our favorite book or movie takes place. Sometimes we simply want to relax somewhere beautiful other than home. And sometimes we travel for a deeply personal reason - checking off a long held bucket list item or retracing our own or our family's history.

Like one of my clients. For decades, he had wanted to travel to Europe and visit the places where his father had been stationed as a U.S. soldier toward the end of World War II. He also wanted to see a few bucket-list items connected to the same war. When he was finally able to take the trip, it was clear that it needed to be everything he had hoped for—and more. So we started by making a list of all the places and sights, and ranked them according to their importance to him. Then we started to plan, change and update until the trip met his budget, priorities and available time.

It started in Belgium with a visit to Bastogne and continued to Normandy, France for a few days of exploring the locations of D-Day. Here we very purposefully didn't arrange any guided tours or prearranged visits to give him time to soak it all in at his pace. Then the trip continued to Munich, Germany, which was also the last stop on the trip. The stay there included a visit to the concentration camp in Dachau and a day trip to Eagle's Nest.

Multiple flights, trains, rental cars and hotels were needed to make this trip happen and a preorganized small-group trip wouldn't have given him the flexibility he needed. In the end he checked off all his must-see items, only had to leave of one "would like to see" item and got to do all he set out to do - see the locations of his father's World War II tour, and visit the locations on old photographs to see what they look like today.

While not every trip has a deep personal meaning like the one above, every trip has its own reason for being special and its own beauty when planned with love and care.

Sometimes a "cookie-cutter" itinerary just doesn't cut it

There is absolutely nothing wrong with traveling with a preplanned group, large or small. Sometimes that is absolutely the way to go. There is a great variety of wonderfully arranged trips with very knowledgeable tour guides, transportation and most meals included, and for some travelers those are the perfect fit for their needs and interests. 

But, as the example above shows, not all trips fit into that cookie-cutter shape, and sometimes even a preplanned tour needs a personalized start or end.

But what makes a trip uniquely yours? A lot of things could be named here. For example:

• special accommodations needed
• how much structure you want or need in your trip
• finding the right balance to meet the interests of everyone in your travel party
• your budget
• the destinations you want to visit

The destinations especially can be a reason your trip wouldn't fit a cookie-cutter itinerary. Your dream destinations don't have to be the first combination someone thinks of when thinking about traveling Europe to be worth combining.

A great example of this is a client who wanted to visit both Portugal and Sweden.

They had traveled to Europe before and couldn't decide which destination they wanted to visit next. They also didn't know a lot about either destination but that didn't matter. We started by looking at both countries and how best to get from one to the other, while also considering the available flights to and from home. I gave some recommendations on what to see and do, they did some research and we started piecing it together and revising it a few times. In the end, we had a trip planned that included three countries—Denmark made its way into the itinerary because of flight connections—along with flights, hotels, vacation rentals, train tickets and a cooking class. The clients visited Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto in Portugal, Copenhagen in Denmark and Stockholm in Sweden.

It was a trip that combined two very different regions in Europe—a destination mix that isn't the first combination that comes to mind when thinking about exploring Europe. Nonetheless, it was a trip that was uniquely theirs - and a trip they loved.

So what does custom travel mean?

When I talk about custom travel, I mean looking at every part of travel planning through the lens of the client's needs and wants. It means not simply booking an airline or a hotel because they worked for other clients or for me, but making sure they work for this particular client.

Custom travel means there isn't one right way to experience Europe—but there is a right way for each client. And sometimes, that right way may be a less customized option, such as a preorganized group trip or a river cruise.