Western Europe in the Fall

I'm sorry but I can't help you with your itinerary/budget question. As you aren't getting any answers on this branch, I recommend you to post your question in the Europe-Western Europe branch (for the Netherlands and Germany) and on the Europe-UK&Ireland branch (for Ireland and the UK).

Yes, cross-post on the W. Europe branch for more answers.

Most agree that the minimum budget for a backpacker in W. Europe is around 50E per day. That is staying in hostels, food from supermarket, one entrance fee a couple of times a week and transportation. Drinking more than a beer every couple of days is not included. So it really is a minimum.

At current exchange rates your $5000 is worth 87.8E per day so you have no major worries there.

A good rule of thumb you can use in planning your time is the 'Rule of 3s'. That says you should never stay less than 3 full days/4 nights in a place unless it is just an overnight stop between A and B. With that in mind, your 41 days minus arrival and departure days would allow you to visit a maximum of 10 places. Bear in mind some places should really get more than 3 full days. The 4 nights allows for the travel day lost between places even when the actual travel time may only be a few hours. It invariably ends up eating up most of a day to move.

In travel, less is more. People commonly write, 'I want to see as much as possible', without giving thought to what that actually means to them. They use the word 'much' and then go on to try and see as 'many' as possible. Much and many are not synonomous. To see 'as much as possible' requires you to spend time IN places, not travelling between places.

You can see very little of a lot or a lot of a little, you cannot do both. So 'wiggling in' another country may not be to your benefit at all.

Cheapest flights I know of from Canada to Europe are with Canadian Affair. I would plan a trip using them to fly in to Scotland and out of London.

Your budget is around 85euros a day.....a reasonable amount..though not lavish for Ireland,the UK or Amsterdam.

If you are happy staying in dorms,eating local food including supermarket (not always restaurants) and not drinking too many beers (difficult in Ireland;-) you should be able to get by on that no problem.

As for destinations and timeframe..8 or 9 sleeping stops looks fast but certainly possible.....cities like London,Amsterdam or Berlin have easily enough things to do to spend a week or more in each.

Joe it is considered polite to at least acknowledge you have at least read the responses you get.

Sorry Travelin, I didn't mean to be rude and I hope you don't take that way. I appreciate the advice I've gotten so far and did relocate the question in the other branch and have gotten some useful information thus far.

I'm still revising my itinerary and I think I'm going to bypass London and get a reasonable flight from Glasgow to Paris and make my way East through Belgium, Netherlands and ending in Germany. I'm doing my best to follow the rule of 3's into my itinerary as I'm there for the experience not just the sights.

I greatly appreciate everyone's responses thus far and look forward to the experience.

We live and learn (hopefully) Joe, no problem.