You usually can book airfares 330 days ahead. What I would do is look at typical fares to Europe from your departure airport and get a feel for what would be a good price. Then sign up for fare alerts from travel websites so you know when fares in your desired range pop up, and be ready to buy when a good fare comes along. Since you have some time, I would definitely explore your options and consider things like open-jaw fares (ex. fly into London, come home from Amsterdam) to save you the hassle/cost of backtracking.

Yup, that’s EXACTLY what we plan on doing.
We plan on flying into Krakow
and when we fly home we plan on flying out of Amsterdam.
Our other issue is getting from Krakow to Kiev, Ukraine.
Then from Kiev to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Then finally from Split Croatia to London.

The Split to London shouldn’t be hard since all European flights seem to lead to London or Paris but the Krakow to Kiev and the Kiev to Dubrovnik one’s…well…the most I’ve found is that getting a flight will be much better than a train because a train would take far too long. The rest of my trip will be done by train or bus though.

Also, Obviously I can take the Chunnel from London to Paris and then to Brussels, but I take it that does not also run to Amsterdam? How does one get to Amsterdam from Brussels? Which train line should I look into???

Most hotels will also accept bookings nearly a year in advance. I’m pretty anal about travel arrangements, but I don’t usually book hotels until a month or two in advance. I try to have everything pretty well nailed down about three weeks in advance, but you don’t need to be booked out that far. Just be sure to have your first night (no fun to hunt for a place when you’re jet-lagged, sleep-deprived and culture-shocked) booked and clearly know how to get there from the airport. I also like to work out the last night and any stay that involves an early morning flight a week or more in advance. It sometimes takes some planning to work out plans A & B for getting to the airport two hours before an early flight.

These flights may be fairly expensive and there won’t be a lot of options to choose from. Use www.whichbudget.com to see which budget airlines fly which routes. Try www.mobissimo.com if you don’t find anything on which budget, as it also searches airline booking agencies and regular fare airlines. There are lots of good tips and you’ll find help with your specific questions on our “cheap flights” forum.

Wow… It doesn’t seem that you can get a flight from Krakow to Kiev? How the heck am I gonna get there? I might just have to take a 19hr train ride

Poland and Ukraine are huge countries and it’s a long ways from Kiev or Dubrovnik to just about anywhere. You could probably fly in and out of Kiev with a connection in Vienna — but you have a fair chance of it involving an overnight in Vienna. The hotel at the Vienna airport is handy for such itineraries…..