A rich travel experience in affordable comfort

You want a rich European adventure. But you are also a price-conscious traveller. With Raven Travel Guides Europe, you can enjoy travel affordably. It just takes a little planning, and you've come to the right place for advice and support. Raven Travel Guides Europe is your ultimate guide to making the most of your European trip.

Raven Travel Guides Europe is a range of independent travel guides for independent travellers, with emphasis on cultural achievement, practical travel tips, and safety and security. Raven Guides helps you plan your itinerary, seek your European travel experience, and find your way to some of the lesser-known attractions as well as the tourist highlights. Whether you’re sightseeing in big cities or exploring smaller European destinations, Raven Guides offers insights that make your trip memorable.

Raven Travel Guides Europe is inspired by some of Europe’s finest destinations. It's also the place to get important travel tips, find out how to save money in lots of ways, and enjoy a rich travel experience in affordable comfort.

Raven Guides rejoices in the diversity of Europe. Explore the extraordinary variety of European national and regional cultures by visiting the places that matter, beautiful places that express human brilliance, human endeavour and the power of culture. 

Raven Travel Guides Europe is a continuing project.

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Culturally aware European travel guides

Beautiful cities and beautiful places add up to a beautiful European travel experience.

● Raven Travel Guides Europe publishes destination guides with information about cultural institutions including museums, events, orchestras and other musical ensembles, and venues for the visual and performing arts. Whether it's exploring a 12th century church or an art museum in a famous city, Raven Guides has tips to help you decide the best places to visit. Check out and download the travel guides, some of which are free. Walk the streets using the summaries for each attraction, find the best views and sample local tours and affordable accommodation.

● Europe’s towns and small cities are just as important culturally as any metropolis. Often they were among the chief centres of past centuries, places such as Trier, Krems an der Donau, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Visby and Vadstena. Their preservation, without much of the development of recent decades, shows us what their history was like and allows us to build up a picture of European culture.

● Check out the blogs on some of Europe’s most beautiful places, Roman, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque cities.

● For more than 2000 years, the palaces and churches of Europe have been monuments to artistic expression and achievement. 

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Europe’s hotels, hostels & other accommodation

Everyone wants to know how to get the cheapest hotels in Europe. Find out how to secure the right accommodation on a budget. A better question is how to get the hotels you want for cheap rates.

Getting the right hotels, hotels or other accommodation is not simple anymore. But you can keep control of your European travel budget by using money-saving tactics for booking European hotels, hostels and other types of accommodation.

● When you stay matters to how much you pay for a hotel room.

● When you book matters to how cheap you can get a hotel room.

● Where and how you book matters to how cheap you can get a hotel room.

● Remote check-in and no-frills hotel service are big money-savers.

● To understand accommodation pricing and how you can save, sign up for the special report How to get the lowest hotel rate 100% of the time.

● Looking for hotel stars? Eighteen nations west of the Caucasus are members of Europe’s Hotelstars Union, with common criteria for hotel star ratings. Nations such as France, the UK, Italy and Spain have varying systems.

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European transport gives you choices

How you get to beautiful European places matters and a well-planned itinerary is the key. After three decades of growth in budget air travel, environmental concerns have led a pushback against short-haul air routes.

Instead, there has been growth in rail travel, including a resurgence in international night trains and greater exploitation of the Channel Tunnel between the UK and the continent. Sometimes local or regional trains can carry travellers across borders.

For getting around Europe – if we have the environment in mind – rail takes the prize for speed and comfort. It's not necessarily the cheapest mode, but you have better support services. To save money, compare rail pass prices or look at saver fares and deals such as Germany's Deutschland-Ticket at €49 a month. Booking ahead helps meet budget goals.

In urban areas, trams, light rail and metro rail are the winners when available. But local buses do the job adequately.

There has also been a rise in the volume of international bus services over the past 15 years. For travellers up for long rides, buses can be real money-savers, and it’s easy to book online.

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Borders & visas for Europe

● For traveller purposes, Europe is made up of the Schengen Area, including 29 countries, and non-Schengen countries, including the UK and Ireland. The Schengen Area’s Entry/Exit System, which collects travellers’ biometric and passport data, is now expected in 2025 after repeated delays.

● The EES is expected to combine with ETIAS, a travel permit that travellers will have to apply for online before departing for Europe. It will last up to three years and cost €7 per person. Once inside the Schengen Area, travellers can cross most borders without passport checks for 90 days in every 180 days.

● Citizens from about 90 countries, however, need a Schengen visa to travel into the Schengen Area. Non-Schengen countries set their own border rules. Whether they demand a visa, and whether there is a cost, varies. So does the maximum length of stay. Does your nation have a Schengen agreement?

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European time zones

West of the Russian border or the Bosphorus, travellers will find four European time zones. But most visitors will deal with one or more of three.

UTC, Greenwich Mean Time or Western European Time: Iceland, the Faroes, Ireland, the UK and Portugal (blue).

Central European Time (CET, UTC+1): Spain, Andorra, Monaco, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, the Vatican, San Marino, Malta, Slovenia, Austria,

Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia and Albania (maroon).

Eastern European Time (EET, UTC+2): Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland (olive).

Most of Europe still observes summer time, despite long-held intentions to end the system. Iceland and Turkey do not, so Iceland (mauve) is one hour behind the UK during the summer time period. Summer time pushes clocks one hour ahead from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Security & safety in Europe

Europe is one of the world’s safest regions for travellers. The expatriate website Numbeo and the Institute for Economics & Peace's Global Peace Index agree on European safety. Numbeo in 2024 rated 10 European cities among the world's top 20 for crime and safety. Violent crime is generally uncommon. The GPI listed seven European countries among its top 10 for safety, 14 in the top 20 and 29 in the top 40.

Risks vary, however. Terror attacks have occurred in some European cities. Public protests and events that draw large groups of people can turn violent.

Before you depart for Europe, consult your government’s travel advice for cities and countries you would like to visit and subscribe for email updates. When you are in Europe, always follow the advice of local authorities and reliable news sources.

Raven Guides divides security and safety into five areas:

● Crime

● Political unrest and terror

● Weather

● Health

● Cybersecurity

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Language & website translations

Don’t get bewildered by foreign languages online. Websites concerned with travel generally have an English version available somewhere, but there are ways to cope with website text that is not.

In Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, you can often click on a link “Translate this page” beside a foreign-language search result. In Microsoft Edge, select the translation option after clicking on the search result. Google Translate can be selected from the Google

Apps when logged in to the Google account, or added to bookmarks. Highlight sections of online text and click on the Translate icon to get a short translation, drag and drop a document, or browse for a document or web page to translate. Firefox Translations are available in several European languages.

Google Translate and Microsoft Translator are also available as mobile apps, offering text, voice or photo text options. Other options include DeepL, Notta.ai, Talking Translator and Instant Voice Translate.

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Don't miss this chance to travel Europe your way

Raven Travel Guides Europe aims to offer choices so you can enjoy your European experience.

● Find help to solve your travel problems, such as finding accommodation and transport

● Save money on a great travel experience

● No website pop-ups

● No ads

● No pressure

Raven Guides is a work in progress, aiming to extend coverage of European countries. More travel information is coming to this space. In the meantime, check out the growing blog page, or investigate the detailed travel information on Germany or Austria.

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