HELLO TO ALL!
I posted a day or so ago about planning a 14 day trip to and needed some help.... Well, I've decided to totally scratch that idea and just backpack through Europe the summer of 2011. After reading and doing some research if i budget right it seems like I could backpack all around and see more places for just a little bit more, compared to what I was about to drop on a 14 day vacation. I have a few questions/concerns --- When I go I will be 25 years old -- is this to old?? I mentioned it to a friend and they just laughed at me telling me I would be to old and could not keep up with the youngsters. Also, I am trying to possible find some other people who might be or planning a backpacking trip that summer and start networking and making friends and possibly meeting up once I get over there...? I have tried find sites or groups and have not been very successful in that aspect. I know 2011 is very far away -- but i plan on staying 3 months in Europe and so I'm saving everything penny from here on out! In 3 months. This will be my first trip to Europe and I'm extremely excited!!! These are the countries I plan on visiting or I should would like to visit while I'm there --- Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Croatia, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland, Switzlerland, and UK ...... Is that to much? Any suggestions? Advice? To many counties? Thanks to all!!!

destination interests
::::::historical, adventure, scenery, and art history::::::::

If anybody would like to e-mail me about possibly backpacking together or meeting up in Summer 2011 please feel free to do so!!! [email protected]

Your 25 and your worried about being too old to keep up with the "youngsters"....Really? Is 25 old now? Your aging me here.

Don't worry about it - hostels have people of all ages. 3 months in Europe is a great opportunity - I don't blame you for being excited! I suggest picking up some guide books and start researching what you'd like to do and where - you can begin to craft an itinerary that works for your interests. You can do a lot of stuff in 3 months but you still want to enjoy each destination. I found on my fist backpacking excursion I really had no idea what any given country had to offer (aside from their most famous monuments etc), until I sat down and looked at guidebooks page by page - then I just highlighted the things that sounded really great and started building a route.

What I will recommend is that you try to visit countries that neighbour each other in a logical fashion to aviod too much flying and backtracking - that gets expensive and time consuming.

Keep us posted on your plans - look forward to hearing more

Naxos

Don;t know why 25 would be too old. Many people are still "students" at that age.

And if y ou have the time and the money more power to you.

But, I don;t see how you can do 3 months for the same cost as 14 days - unless the latter was planned at deluxe hotels. You can live cheaply if you try but there is a limit (you sill need to allow at least $30 per night for a bed in a dorm room at a hostel, plus food, local transit and sights - some are free, but many are $25 plus), Plus - moving from one city to another - even if by bargain bus or slow train still costs something - and if you move 30 times that will really add up.

You're in the wrong place....

Most people on here are middle aged or older (inc me).

I've done what you are proposing but it was 25 years ago...And I'm one of the younger posters here.

Seriously you need to go to Lonely Planet and look at their equivelent of this (i Think it's called Thorntee - but you'll find it easily).

That's full of kids planning trips like yours.

I hope you have a ball....

I wish I was your age again....

David

I can't believe your friends think that 25 is too old to backpack. I did it when I was 29. There's someone who posts trip reports here where she and her husband walk with packs for 2 weeks at a time. They're in their 50s.

I do think 13 countries in 13 weeks is a bit ambitious. Do you think you'll save enough money to stay 3 months and travel as much as you plan to; it's very expensive to keep moving from country to country. Keep in mind that things will be more expensive in 2 years.

If you're planning to stay in hostels you'll meet others in your age group and will possibly make friends to travel around with. Other than that the Thorn Tree site (mentioned above) is more for backpackers.

For scenery, art history and history I would recommend focusing on Italy, Spain, and France. A month in each country would be a great introduction. All three have diverse landscapes, major cities with lots of art and they definitely all have history.

While hostels are fine for the backpacking crowd, there are nice small hotels, b&b's etc. that are just as cheap that make a welcome break from hostels.

Hi chantelclaus,
How very exciting for you!!! Two years planning is not too much at all for this length of a trip. We leave in one month for a three month trip to Europe and I started planning it five years ago. That is part of the fun: finding out about all the exciting places there are to visit that you didn't know were even there.

If you want to go to Thorntree for information that is great but please don't discount all of the knowledge that the people on this site have to offer. Absolutely nvaluable in my opinion.

Just start gathering guidebooks. See what interests you. Get a big map of Europe and put it up on a bulletin board. This gives you a much more realistic insight to distances. Start putting pushpins where you want to go. I know it sounds very primitive but it really helped me gain perspective. You will naturally see a pattern and from there you can form a potential itinerary.

Keep in mind the weather and temperatures. We are starting in the UK in August and ending in Rome on Nov 2. Trying to avoid the worst of the heat as we go along.

I wish you a great time. I can hardly contain myself at this point. Just finished my trial run packing my suitcase yesterday. Good luck to you!

Take care,
Michele

There's plenty of people on this forum who travel to Europe and are in their 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, etc. so NO we don't think 25 is too old. That's funny!


Sure I guess 12 countries in 3 months is OK, that's a week each country. But it's not going to be cheap when you move around so much, even if you stay at hostels and follow the backpackers trail. So it's good you have a couple years to save money and plan.

What a fun trip! I also have trouble seeing how it could be "just a little more" than a two-week trip, but I find that it's amazing how much I can save when I have something I'm really excited about. As suze pointed out, though, remember that it costs you time and money (if you aren't using a rail pass) every time you change locations.

As others have suggested, get a map and look at where everything is in relation to each other. Start at the top and work your way south (or vice versa). Think about what CITIES you want to visit, not just countries. It takes six hours or so to get between Berlin and Munich via train, for example. Prioritize - since the UK/Ireland and Spain/Portugal are both "out of the way," is there one of those two chunks you'd be willing to leave out? Do your research on airlines and rail passes. You probably don't know the answers to those questions yet, but you have plenty of time to plan.

As far as being "too old," well, you may be older than the teenagers on their gap year or something, but you're certainly not too old to do a trip like this! Don't worry about that at all. I do second bigtyke, though - three months in hostel dorm rooms will get pretty old. There are some nice places to be found for not much more (especially outside the big cities) that will give you a good break from "dorm life."

I stayed in hostels a bit when I was 25 and found I'd completely grown out of them - even though there were lots of people staying in them who were a great deal older than I was then (not to mention a few who were a fair bit older than I am now).

It wasn't to do with all-night clubbing or endless carousing: most of them could just about keep up with me on that, though lots of the teenagers just couldn't cope. There were a whole pile of attitudes in hostels I felt I'd had too much of by then: you can escape your fellow-guests, even if they're all in one big convention, at a Hilton, but not in a 20-to-a-room dormitory. And after a few years in middle management you start thinking Hiltons (or at any rate Holiday Inn Expresses) are the norm

There's absolutely no point in getting other people's views on this, because everyone's different. But an 80 year old telling you how great she finds the new generation of youth hostels to stay in is telling you a lot about her, but nothing about how you'll find them.

If what your friends are saying strikes a cord, you ought to budget on the assumption they're right. Don't book too much ahead, stay in a couple of hostels to start and see how it goes.

If they don't work for you, other alternatives include ultra-cheap plastic hotels (like Formule 1), B&Bs and Priceline. Most are more expensive than hostels, but if you've got to a stage where the smell of 20 pairs of feet is a bit much, you don't want to have your holiday undermined by being able to asffords an alternative.

A caveat - Formule 1 and it's ilk are often placed for business travellers (the shiny suited people Flanneur clearly once was).

That means they tend to be placed in places that are handy for the road network - ie the arse end of town miles from anywhere you might want to be.

I'd suggest that you stay away from hotels and explore all the other options such as hostels or even Camping Grounds that have fixed tents and cabins.
If you go to your own homegrown US site Bootsnall you'll likely get a lot of info and http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/09...ers-guide.html is an article there to start with.

Also check out the HI site and you'll get all their hostel listings
A friend stayed at a huge provided tent hostel kind of place in Italy, there being a chain through out either just Italy or other countries too - I'll see if I still have a reference and post again.

One of the problems any traveller faces is getting travel buddies or planning for it as along the way, someone else is likely to change their mind for whatever reason or could have different ideas to yourself - thus it is often best to just plan for yourself and in staying at hostels you'll likely find other travellers even if just for a few days at a time.

The Boots people do organise group trips to different continents and sign up, ask a few questions, become familiar with what they do and perhaps even suggest a group budget trip to Europe and they might be interested in arranging something.

But if it's 13 countries in 13 weeks, that as a plan sounds a bit much and I'd reckon 6 or 7 would be plenty to stop it being too much a blur.
A cheap form of transport for a bit could be cycling, organise to travel light, buy a secondhand bike for $100, maybe less and plenty of bicycle paths about Europe and not too much to put them on a train with you either

As well as tent camps and hostels there's in Switzerland www.schlaf-im-stroh.com for cheap accommodation too.

But I'd get some planning going and in being on a site like Boots, mention it from time to time and someone may get interested that suits, but if not then just still go.

You should look into www.couchsurfing.com as a way to save money on your trip, as well as meet the locals, which will make your trip much more enjoyable. It may even eliminate the need to find travel companions.

Check out some of the trip reports on Bavaria Ben's site www.bensbauernhof.com for examples of lower cost places to stay.

If you're going to be in a city for a week, I'd look into renting an apartment (instead of a hostel or a hotel).

Hay i am planning on going all around europe for 3-6 months in Summer of 2011. I would be keen to meet up as i am going by myself (at the moment - i was going with mates but they cant afford)and i am a little bit scared!
i want to go pretty much all the same places as you as well, however i would like to go to Amderstdam and Weert as well as i am actually half dutch although i have never been there before.
Let me know if you are interested in meeting up.

I know the OP is now a year old, but seeing as you've topped it, you might find this website interesting...

http://www.tylernofziger.com/101Europe.html

These two young guys spent 3 months travelling around Europe and posted all their adventures on the above website. It made really good reading at the time, and a lot of the info is still relavant now.

Hey there,

Is 25 too old? I'm 40 and will be backpacking through Europe with my fiance this summer. This will be my 5th backpacking trip through Europe, and 3rd in the past 7 years. Depending on where you are planning to start and end your trip, I would look at getting a Eurail pass http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes/ and booking as many of your hotels in advance (look at 2star) if you know when you will be arriving in certain cities. A few years back we found a 2 star hotel in Nice (10 minute walk from the Med.) for 35 euro's a night, and a great place in Austria ( a Quad) for 60 euro's. Hostels sound like a deal, but many have curfews (as early as 9p.m for some) and some have pretty large common areas or bathrooms that are shared amongst 10 or more guests. 25 is a great age to travel - you should meet a lot of other travels in your age group.