Do you have to begin and end at Paris? (i.e. flights already booked?) Because it would make more sense to arrive to, say, Dublin, and return from Berlin — sort of on the two “ends” of your trip. This is called a “multi-city” flight, and many offer it — Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, etc. It can save you backtrack time and expenses.

Dub>London with Ryanair or Aer Lingus
Lon>Par with Eurostar
Par>Ams with train — Thalys, but shop both Dutch and French rail site to compare price—unless you’ll have a rail pass?
Ams>Ber train or fly. It’s a pretty long train ride, but do-able; consider breaking it up somewhere along the way. Looks like 6hrs 15mins for the fastest connection.

An overnight train is another option for Amsterdam-Berlin. Check both the Netherlands and German national rail company websites for advance purchase special fares. The links to the individual national rail company websites are in a sticky at the top of this forum and under “transportation” on the “travel tips” tab.

Advance purchase of the train tickets from the national rail company websites is cheapest option if you’re willing (and able — it isn’t always possible from outside Europe) to buy non-refundable tickets on the national rail company websites 60 to 90 days in advance for an August trip. If you don’t want to do this, a 3 country select pass will probably save money over buying regular fare refundable tickets on-line or buying tickets at the train station.

Even with an open jaw flight as Don recommends, you probably have one more big city than you can reasonably visit in 11 days. Once you figure travel time (even flying takes 5 hours with getting to/from airports and check-in/security time) 2 days per city is uncomfortably rushed. You could spend the better part of every other day “in transit” —packing up and checking out of hostel, getting to train station, on train, locating and getting to new hostel and getting checked in and oriented to a new city, leaving only 1 day to see/experience the city. Choosing 3 of these big cities with a day trip from one to a smaller city or village would be an even better 11 day trip.

Hi! Thanks for your answer!
The flights from and to Paris are already booked. I live there, and I have 3 friends coming from America to join me on the eurotrip so Paris has to be the first and last stop.. which makes it more complicated of course.
What would be your cheapest recommandations for:
Paris > London
London > Dublin
Dublin > Amsterdam
Amsterdam > Berlin
Berlin > Paris?

See our “cheap flights” forum for info on finding the best deals on low fare airlines. Pay particular attention to the new users thread. I like to use www.whichbudget.com as a starting point for low fare airline search, but others have different tactics.

Paris-London. 1st choice is definitely Eurostar, by far the fastest, most convenient and most comfortable. Look for Leisure fares and other cheap specials at www.euorstar.com as soon as you know dates. If you can’t find a cheap fare, 2nd choice would be to fly. You can probably find a flight that’s as cheap as any of the ferry options if you’re traveling light enough to avoid checked baggage. Bus or train/ferry/bus or train kills a whole day.

London-Dublin. Follow Don’s suggestions for flights. Train/ferry/DART will take all day and probably be more expensive.

Dublin-Berlin. Only option that won’t take days is to fly.

Amsterdam-Berlin. My choice would be day or overnight train, but flying may be cheaper.
Check the Netherlands and German national rail company websites for special fares.

Berlin-Paris. Fly or overnight train. This is too long a trip, IMO, for a day train.