Planning to go to every European country. Where to start? Where to go next? What is even the list of European countries? Here are the answers to these questions.
The List
As stated elsewhere in these pages, I’m the kind of person who simply cannot make choices. If you offer me six months of travel and ask me where I want to go, I might just enter in a cheesy-sci-fi-TV-movie-computer-going-in-an-unsolvable-loop kind of breakdown. Sure there are places I’d like to go, but I know I’ll just feel bad to leave out other places. I’ve always been a kind of all-or-nothing person.
However, I cannot resist a good list. So I simply followed the UN list of European countries. Basically it covers every country that has its capital in what is globally accepted as being geographic continental Europe, plus a few islands. So anything West of Turkey and Russia, plus Russia itself, Iceland, Malta, and Denmark (yes, despite having some continental land, it has its capital on an island! Fun fact, it’s the only country in the World to do so, along Equatorial Guinea).
Yes, Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino are countries, no England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island aren’t sovereign states. They are administrative subdivisions of the United Kingdom. Cyprus, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are in Asia.
That’s a total of 44 countries to visit.
However, I will, sadly, most likely have to give up one of the top destinations, Iceland. If I have enough TEA by the end of the trip, I’ll consider it, but realistically, I don’t think I’ll have enough time and money (and energy) left for that. It’s a few days by boat both ways, need a good week to be worth the trip, and the boat costs at least 400 € when bought well in advance. There’s no train, so it’s the bus to cross the country, which add about 100 €… As much as it saddens me, Iceland will have to wait for another time.
On a much grimmer note, February 2022 saw the foolish Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of writing this, it has been a year and a half of needless human suffering and countless loss of life. The amount of damage inflicted to Ukraine will take years to heal. My thoughts go to the people of Ukraine, but also Russia and Belarus, who are victime of these atrocities. It has become way too dangerous to visit these three countries now, and I hope to one day be able to get there in peaceful circumstances.
Where do we start?
Starting from France, there were only two main choices: going in a circle clockwise, or counterclockwise.
As the trip starts in February, the first option means spending the cold months in Northern Europe, and the hot months on the Mediteranean coast. This is kinda extreme temperature-wise and doesn’t seem like a clever choice.
The other way around would ensure acceptable temperatures pretty much during all the trip.
But I still opted for the first opotion. Why?
First, I thought that cold countries have to be experienced when they are freezing, and hot countries when they are burning. hopefully I’ll survive.
Second, end of Winter/very early Spring would probably be quite a morn sight in the Southern countries, which have more deciduous trees, while the North has more coniferous and will undoubtedly offer amazing Santa-esque views.
Third, I’d like to witness the Northern lights. And also swim in the Mediterranean maybe.
Fourth, price-wise, the further you are from Summer, the cheaper the accomodation (I hope). So doing the North and Western Europe in Summer would probably be very expensive.
Show me the way
Finally, here is the plan:
Leaving France for a a first mad dash across the British Isles, before a lightning-fast tour of the Benelux. Crossing a bit of Germany to Denmark, and reaching Northern Europe. This first month will be a bit of a rush, because I really hope to reach Northern Sweden by mid-March at the latest, for said Northern lights.
After that we can slow down a bit, going South through Finland, the Baltic countries, Poland, part of Central Europe, then heading East to Moldova, and the rest of Eastern Europe up to Greece, back North through the Balkans, finishing Central Europe East to West, until crossing Italy in its entirety to reach Malta, then back through Southern France and finally closing it all in the Iberic peninsula.
That is very approximate, and will likely be subject to changes and improvisations during the trip.
For a more detailed insight of what I’d like to see in each country, and a more precise planned order, please check the Country specificities page.