annhig

hi mf,

two things i would suggest - don't forget about buses [most of europe uses them to get about] - and don't book accommodation ahead, apart fromm your first few nights in your first destination. having a fixed itinerary will seriously cramp your style and in June will be really unnecessary.

have a great trip,

regards, ann

Christina

Prague is not expensive, reltaive to all the other places mentioned. I've been there three times for about a week each period (including recently), and it's a lot cheaper than most of Europe where I've been, and not even close to London. Now I haven't been to Italy but have heard it can be very expensive, I know Rome and Venice are.

Palenque

London, even with the Pound in the tank, is about one zillion times as expensive IME as Prague.

annhig

I haven't been to Italy but have heard it can be very expensive, I know Rome and Venice are.>>

definitely Venice is - it's to do with the cost of getting everything in there plus all those cruising tourists.

Rome, IMHO, can be surprisingly cheap - food and drink is reasonable, so long as you stay away from the tourist hot spots, the attractions aren't ruinous, and transport is quite cheap. [compare that to London, where the cheapest underground ticket is a wapping £4.50] the rest of Italy can be a lot cheaper, especially in the country.

i agree that Prague is ok too.

it all depends of course - if you stay in 4 or 5 star hotels and eat in their restaurants, then you will pay those sort of prices.

thursdaysd

You'll find more posters in your age group on Lonely Planet's thorntree. You might also find Lonely Planet's "Read This First Europe" and Rough Guide's "First-Time Europe" useful.

For cheap airlines see whichbudget.com, for train timetables see bahn.de, for cheap places to sleep (in addition to those already mentioned) try eurocheapo.com, venere.com, and hostels.com.

MellowFellow07

thanks for all the advice!

After talking with a friend who has been to Europe a few times, she said that once I'm over in Europe I can travel quite cheaply. Factoring in rail fees, some intra-Europe flights like RyanAir of EasyJet, and hostel stays , what would a rough budget figure be for a 4 week trip? 6 weeks?

I was considering a Eurail Global pass, perhaps 15 days within 2 months?

thursdaysd

You need to go camp out in your local bookstore (or visit a library) and spend some quality time with the Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Let's Go guides. They'll have suggested budgets.

Palenque

don't forget about buses [most of europe uses them to get about] >

annhig! of all your many posts i can never dispute anything until now - no all of Europe does not use buses but mainly use them only where trains don't go.

There are i would say no regularly scheduled buses going say between Paris and Frankfurt - now there is a patchwork system of Eurolines type buses that circulate between main cities a few times a day (and at night) and though these appeal to backpacking youth on a budget, most Europeans definitely do not use the bus to get about - only if there are not trains IME

annhig is British and Britain is the exception - there is a vast network of buses there duplicating the train system.

In Switzerland for instance buses only go where trains do not go - fanning out from train stations to remote places off the rail system. Ditto in France and Germany.

Spain and Portugal do have elaborate bus systems where buses can be more convenient in many places than trains.

Cowboy1968

My oh my.. college must have changed since I was there.
A typical trip through Europe back in my stone ages of Uni would have been:

London (it's just too cool to miss)
Amsterdam (if I have to tell you why, you don't need to go)
Berlin (cheap fun, and I vaguely remember one British broadsheet labeling Berlin as Europe's sin city, which is not a total lie)
Barcelona (Clubs that start to get busy when decent people get up)
Ibiza (Paaaaaarty)
Prague (before it became a stag & hen party destination, maybe Budapest today, but many capitals in the former "East" would qualify)
maybe Stockholm (yes, expensive, but definetely 'young' - and the white nights in June are awesome)
Paris (helps to understand the necessity to learn a foreign language)

The Louvre and the Colosseum will still be around when you'll be rattling with your jewels and looking for "fine dining" in your 50s or 60s.

twk

A few thoughts:

I do think that checking out Rick Steeve's whirlwind 3 week tour of Europe itinerary would give you some kind of starting point, and an idea of how many days traveling, and how many different locations, you might be able to see. Having said that, at your age, that's the perfect time to get some kind of railpass and just play it by ear.

You'll have to decide where to start and where to finish, and if you want to go to Britain, you probably need to decide how long you've got for that portion of the trip in advance so that you can purchase some Eurostar tickets from London, or plane tickets from Edinburgh to Paris or wherever you want to start on the continent. You don't want to wait to purchase either of those at the last minute as you'll pay a lot more.

I've never been to Greece, but the folks who have seem to think that Athens is only worth a short time, and the best part to see are the islands. Just my personal opinion, but unless you're going to committ some significant time to island hopping, it might be best to leave Greece for another time, and finish some place like Rome. You'll want to sort of rank the places you want to see in priority, then kind of develop a general plan based upon logistics (you don't want to do a lot of backtracking), but with a rail pass, you can change your plans on the fly. I'd plan to finish up in Rome and fly back from there.

If you book your open jaw flight to and from Europe, buy a rail pass for the continent, a plane ticket from Edinburgh to the continent, and maybe some advance rail tickets for Britain, then you can have a good chunk of your travel budget accounted for. You'll still need to factor something in for getting around the various cities and some local excursions, but at that point, you can start figuring an average rate for hostels, food, attractions, etc. This is the kind of stuff that the Rick Steeves guides do quite well, and I would definitely do a lot of number crunching based upon hypothetical scenarios in order to know that you've got the funds to make it work. It's great to be flexible, but if you find you've exhausted your budget, you can feel stuck in a straightjacket.

thursdaysd

"you can start figuring an average rate for hostels, food, attractions, etc. This is the kind of stuff that the Rick Steeves guides do quite well,"

RS used to do this quite well, but he's been moving more and more upmarket (as he gets older,lol) and is NOT a good source of budget accoms any more. These guys need LP, RG, and Let's Go.

Palenque

Yup rick Steves is following the bucks - where the travel bucks are and has eschewed the downscale market - Let's Go Europe remains the only guide IMO that is written for backpackers on a budget - even Lonely Planet does not cover hostels at all and just mentions IME mainly upscale hotels.

TCC

cowboy1968 wrote
"yes, expensive, but definetely 'young'"

You are DEFINITELY a better speller than me.

kwcm

It's very tempting to get the travel books - and I still use them, but I'd say for your trip don't bother. Unless you're buying city guides, you'll end up with a pretty think book (think of having to carry it around) and find you'll use only about 10% of it in the end and also find that there's not a great deal of information on any particular place. The internet has pretty much all you need. So once you've got an itinerary, spend a few hours on the internet and collect/print what you need. Google's your friend here.

Then, I'm also going to assume that as college guys, the number one priority is fun and party. Yes there's a lot of culture and things to see in Europe - you will definitely see them. But you'll be back in Europe again one day (and on many occasions no doubt) when you're older (and no doubt with more money since you'll be working) - so you can leave all the "serious" stuff to then. I don't think you should do the Contiki style - since that IS really all about 60% bus time since you go through far too many places and all you do is drink, which, let's face it, you can do at home. So don't do that.

Instead, look to coincide as much as possible with events or festivals - eg La Tomatina, Running of the Bulls, Glastonbury anything. The whole of Europe feels like it's in party mode in summer, so there's plenty of stuff going on etc. These events are not for everybody, but you are guaranteed to have fun. It also makes your European trip far more memorable than just "Was in Paris, saw the Lourve, was in Rome, saw the Pantheon etc". And these events are the kind of things you do when you're with a group of buddies all around the same age.

You'll probably stay at hostels - perfect. They're the cheapest form of accommodation, but also much better than hotels at meeting like minded travellers. You'll hear about parties, things going on, travel tips, ideas etc. At your age, I cannot recommend staying at hostels enough.

Tip - make an attempt to speak the language and you'll find the Europeans are friendlier towards you. Rightly or wrongly, continental europeans are not fans of the stereotypical loud americans expecting the whole world to speak english. I'm not casting judgment, just merely stating what I've observed in my travels - Americans travellers are VERY obvious in Europe.

No offence to the Greek, but in your first time short trip, I'd leave out Athens. It has its positives, but compared with the rest of Europe, there's plenty of other places which would rank above it if this is the first time you're in Europe.

some thoughts on the main cities - in no particular order
- London - I'm a londoner - I find the sites boring, but it has a certain vibe and I do believe it is by far and away the THE most cosmopolitan city in the world. There's something for everyone.
- Berlin - cool and hip. spend most of your time in East berlin.
- Paris - a bit hard to say you've been on a European trip without saying you've been to Paris. Not perfect but a beautiful city.
- Rome - stunning city - you'll be in awe at the history of place. Hang out in the main squares in the evenings.
- Scandinavia - Olso/Copenhagen/Stockholm. If you can find a festival or party - go. Cities themselves probably not as unique as other European cities given your timeframe. Scandinavians are gorgeous.
- Amsterdam - despite reputation - is not really sleazy. The red light district feels more like a tourist attraction than a seedy place. You'll remember Amsterdam as a pretty city with the canals and the cyclists. Definitely a must do.

cwra

I tend to agree with cowboy1968. London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Barcelona would work well for college age travellers. You could easily spend a week in each city and not get bored.

Although I'd recommend spending the whole time in Greece travelling the islands. In the summer you'll end up meeting students from all over Europe. Language wouldn't be a problem as most of the students you'd meet would speak English.

thursdaysd

I'm not suggesting they necessarily BUY the guide books, but they can read them without buying them... And these days you can download just chapters from Lonely Planet for not mush money. Of course, for accoms. they may just need couchsurfing.

Adoc86

I would narrow it down a lot. I've been to Europe several times, the last time I went was about 4 years ago when my sister and I were in college (we were 21 & 22). We were there for a month and we went to England, France, Belgium and Italy - stopping in about 2 cities in each country. I think you have some amazing possibilities listed, but I remember that even with our 8 cities we felt really rushed sometimes. True you'll likely go back again, but I feel like I would have enjoyed some areas more if I had had more time to really explore them. Also, moving around so much gets really exhausting, even for people in their early 20s! Some of our favorite days were the ones where we just relaxed at cafes and at the beach, mainly because we were so tired from running around during the rest of the trip and staying out all night.

We took trains everywhere and it worked out pretty well. I think at the time we used the Eurail pass, which wasn't the cheapest, but it was really easy to use if you're visiting a bunch of different countries - plus neither of us were thrilled at the aspect of getting in little tiny planes to travel around. Not including hotels/hostels, train tickets & flights we each brought around $1,200 spending money (plus credit cards for emergencies) and the exchange rates at the time were around 1.30 for the euro and I think around 1.80ish for the pound in the UK. Since you're guys you'll probably need less spending money than we did though ;-)

Have fun, it'll be hard not to!

thursdaysd

"neither of us were thrilled at the aspect of getting in little tiny planes to travel around" - ??? Easyjet, and I'm sure lots of its competitors, flies normal jets, just like Southwest, etc. What airline are you talking about?

Adoc86

On one trip I flew Lufthansa for a couple of the flights and they were pretty small planes, actually in my opinion a few of them were REALLY small. I don't like flying in "smaller" planes, just personal preference. I just don't feel all that safe in them, lol - though I'm sure a lot of people don't mind it. I think this was on routes within Italy & Germany, though I can't exactly recall. I have flown other Lufthansa flights that were "normal size" jets though, so its not necessarily an entire airline itself. Last month I was on a flight from Dallas to Cedar Rapids, Iowa that was extremely small (American Airline), so I didn't mean to generalize that all European flights are like that, just that I felt that a lot of the flights I've taken within European countries have happened to be on really little, rickety planes - either because it is a route that may be in less demand or because it is departing/arriving to a smaller airport.

Adoc86

American Airlines*