The most fun you're going to have before actually going on your trip is planning your itinerary. That's when you get to dream of the places you'll go, plan all the little extras and just generally build excitement for your trip.

You also want to take some care when planning your itinerary. You want to see it all, but unless you're backpacking for a whole year, that's not going to happen. You need to pick and choose.

When planning your itinerary, keep the following in mind:

• You lose at least half a site-seeing day when traveling from one destination to another.
• You may lose money in conversion if you're traveling between countries that don't use the same currency.
• You need at least half a day to get a city figured out -- more like one or two if it's a big city.
• Everything will seem like a blur if you visit several locales over a short stretch of time.

For your first time in a city, anything less than two days is too little time. Ideally you should spend three to five days in the big-attraction cities like Rome, Paris and Prague to get a real feel for the city in addition to viewing the important sites.