I’m planning a trip to Europe with a couple of friends this summer and am looking at airfares. Since we don’t really care when we leave, I’m going mainly off of price. Talking to my mom about this, I mentioned that we were looking at August 7-28 and she said, “You do know that Europe pretty much closes down in August, right? Everyone goes on vacation.”
I’ve never heard this before, and based off of Munich last August, I don’t really believe it. Is there something I’m missing out on here, or is my mom crazy?
Also, if anyone has suggestions as to the best way to find hostels and transportation (I’m thinking Eurail, but if there are alternatives…), feel free to share them.
It’s probably based off the fact that Europeans tend to get much more vacation time than we Americans, and August is usually a nice time to go on holiday.
It is basically true believe it or not but it depends on the country. I know that France and Italy just seem to throw a lock on all the doors and then all head out of vacation at the same time. It really would tend to impact a vacation negatively both in terms of cultural experiences and convenience (many businesses and restaurants will be closed).
Plus it’s sort of institutionalized. At least in France, there’s pretty much an understanding that August is not the time to conduct serious business. A lot of stuff closes down as people head for the beaches. For that reason, August is, in my opinion, a suboptimal time to go – either you’re going to the big city and you find restaurants and the like closed, or you go to a resort area and find yourself fighting massive crowds. Also, the seasonal prices for summery places are highest in August.
That’s France, though, and other European countries may be somewhat different.
She’s right, it’s a bad time to go to Europe. I think France has something like a month of federally mandated vacation in August (on top of normal vacation/sick days).
I’ve had very good experiences booking hostels with hostelworld.com and using guidebooks like the Lonely Planet series. Where exactly are you going? We may be able to give you some more specific recommendations.
Rick Steves has said in his book Europe Through the Back Door that France closing for August isn’t too much of a problem. While many businesses will be closed, it won’t be enough to really hurt your trip. Being in a place such as Paris in August may actually have some benefits, as some places may be swarmed with fewer tourists. Steves did note, however, that places that the French go as tourists (like the Riveria) are going to be flooded with French people on vacation.
I would offer a more exact quote, but my dad has my copy of the book.
I remember my college French teacher talking about a certain day each year as having a name like “Day of death” or “day of accidents,” or something like that, because thousands of people start their vacations on the same day, so the roads are dangerously crowded. That may just be an urban legend, though, like sewer systems breaking during Super Bowl commercial breaks.
I don’t know about Europe, but it’s true to some extent in France. Less and less so, because more and more, people tend to spread their vacation time instead of taking a full month.
Attractions won’t be closed, but as a previous poster said, prices will be higher, beaches and sites crowded, etc… On the other hand, it’s considered as an heavenly month for parisians who don’t leave.
I would personnally not travel in august anyway due to the factors mentionned above. I’d rather pick June or September.
Concerning your travel related questions, I would advise once again to check out a travel message board :
and the very active “europe” message board on www.fodors.com for general information : sites to visit, transportation, etc… But not for cheap accomodations or such things.
I’m not sure what you mean by “Eurail”. Do you mean “by train” or do you refer specifically to the company “Eurail” that sell products on behalf of european railway companies?
In any case, the best transportation to use depends a lot on your exact itinerary (or lack thereof), your way of travelling (like moving every other day to a different city or visiting a limited number of places), your expectations (wanting to meet plenty of people or being left alone), etc… Once again I would advise to ask on a travel board.
I’m not aware of a “day of death”, but indeed, there’s a particularily high death toll on the roads during some weekends, like the first week-end of August.
There’s nothing federally mandated, but many people want to leave in August because of the weather, since kids aren’t at school, July or August are almost mandatory choices for long family vacations,some companies shut down completely during a full month, and traditionnally pick August, the activity generally slows down, so some other companies like part of their staff to take its vacations at this moment, etc…
Actually, the government would rather ten to encourage people to take more vacation time outside summer months.
When I worked in a pan-European localisation company from 1998-2000, we couldn’t schedule any translation work whatsoever from Italy for the entire month of August. All the factories close there during August, apparently, as well as most other commercial business. However, while still clearly true - at least 6 years ago - for Italy, it seems not to be so prevalent any more for other European countries, and indeed has never been the case for the UK or Ireland.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I’ll be sure to check the websites people mentioned.
In response to tiltypig’s question about where I’m going, the plan (for the time being, and this is a very, very tenuous itenerary) is to fly into either a) Dublin and stay at a family friend’s house for a little while or, b) London and stay in a hostel for a little while, then on to Amsterdam where I know someone who has offered to show us around, from there on to Prague (possibly with a stop in Germany) and then to wherever we are flying out of (I’m lobbying for Munich or Berlin, rather than going to Germany before Prague, but it may be somewhere else).
As you may have guessed, we aren’t particularly set on anything in particular. We figure that if we meet someone who tells us that Such-and-such place is cool, we’ll try to go (and yes, I realize this sounds stunningly similar to the plot of Hostel, but we’ll try not to get killed).
We’re both 22, on solid financial ground, have jobs that will let us take a month or more off and are both single so there aren’t really any strong physical, financial or external pressures to do this super-quick or cut-rate. Let the suggestions fly!
Mods, this looks like it may get into IMHO territory pretty quickly; feel free to move as necessary.
I generally find Eurail not worth it unless you’re going to a lot of places in a short period of time. If you’re only exploring a couple of cities, it’s significantly cheaper to buy tickets between your points rather than a pass.
With the routes you describe, flying between cities can be as cheap, and more convenient, than going by train. http://www.whichbudget.com/ is a good site for finding the cheap airlines for any particular route.
This is the case in my experience as well-- all of Austria leaves for Italy, all Belgians go to Spain and southern France, etc. Many business and resturaunts will be closed (or at least the ones locals frequent) and some smaller museums. Don’t plan to get any research done (probably not part of your plans) as archives and such close, too. It’s not entirely dead, but it is very different from the rest of the year-- some places will be a bit ghost-town.
I second the suggestion of taking some cheap flights instead of the train for the distances you mention.
My specific lodging recommendations:
In London, I would stay away from the Astor Museum Inn. It was filthy and the rooms were huge–something like 12 people in a big dark coed dorm room.
In Amsterdam, I liked the Vondelpark hostel–it’s sort of impersonal and not super charming, but it’s very clean, nice, and well-located, with bathrooms in every room (there were 6 beds in my room).
The Student Rail Pass (and I do not know that they even have it, still, or whether you qualify), was great. I got back-to-back 60 day passes. The travel was all second class, but that did not bother me as a student (and would not bother me, now). I would use it to hop on an overnight train to save the cost of a night’s lodging while getting me from one place to another. (I’m not sure that I would do that very often in my advanced age, but it was fine in my youth.) Since I was living in Belgium, it made day trips to Belgium, the Netherlands, Northern France and Northwest Germany pretty easy and cheap.
If you have limited time and are looking to set a genuine itenerary, pulykamell might be completely correct. You do need to use it a lot to make back the expense of buying unlimited rail passage for a specific period of time.