Must See Places in Europe (Traveling Alone)
 

I am a 21 year old female currently living in Austria working for a family as an au pair. I have most weekends completely off and every now and then I will have about a week off. I am wanting to see a lot of Europe while I am here (until July 2012). I haven't ever really traveled alone other than my trip to Austria, but I was immediately met by the family once I arrived. I am a little nervous about travelling alone, but am more than willing to do it so I can see Europe. What places are must sees? I can assume Paris, London, etc. but other than that, are there places in Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, etc. that anyone would recommend I visit?

Weekend trips are more so what I am interested in, and if anyone could recommend something where I wouldn't need to stay over night, that would be even better! I also am very lost when it comes to the train/bus situation here. Any information would be helpful, thanks in advance!

Since you will be there until next July, I suggest you start slowly with daytrips to close areas until you are more confident and experienced about traveling alone. Then, you might go to English-speaking areas first (if that is your native language), or Germany if you are fluent in German, which I assume you are if you are working in Austria.

Because if you have never traveled alone before at all, I don't think you should start out going to Paris, for example.

You don't even say where you are in Austria, which would help someone give you advice on travel and transportation issues. If you are totally lost when trying to figure out trains and buses, you really need to start slowly. First, if you are in a city, get used to taking the public transportation system there. If Vienna, the tram and buses, etc.

I don't know where you are, but if you were in Vienna, you could start with a day trip to Salzbourg. You could try Prague as you can get to Prague by train in a half day or less, as I recall and not a lot of people speak Czech anyway (I don't, and I've been there 3 times), and they speak English a lot in the main tourist areas, anyway.

YOu could try Dresden in Germany, it's not too far north of Prague. Of course, Bratislava is close, as well as Budapest. These could all be weekend trips.

I don't know what your problems are with the train, but this is the Austrian railways website http://www.oebb.at

Start with day trips or weekends close by. The Wachau valley would be a good start.

Can't the family explain the train/bus system to you?

We just got back from a trip to Bavaria and Prague - both areas are really easy to travel in. A good number of people speak English and in Germany even with my rudimentary German, I get by when I find people who don't speak English. In Prague, I was amazed at the language fluency of average people in hotels, restaurants, and shops. Not just English, but Spanish, German, and other languages. Another benefit of Prague is that there were a lot of students travelling there, so you would probably be able to find plenty of people to hang out with if you stayed in a hostel there.

But agree about taking it slow at first - day trip on public transportation to local cities and then venture out farther for overnight and weekend trips once you have gotten some experience. The public transportation systems are really easy once you get the hang of it - you'll wonder why you were ever confused.

Hi

You have many wonderful places to look forward too...Paris, Rome, Berlin, London, Venize, Florence etc etc :-) If you get on communities like couchsurfing.com you can get in touch with people in the various places and get help and recommendations and it is a great way to meet up with locals. I have posted some trip reports from my travels on my homepage http://gardkarlsen.com - maybe you can find some useful info there. And I would of course recommend Norway in the spring time...the western fjords are beautiful at that time as you can see here: http://gardkarlsen.com/preikestolen/...eikestolen.jpg . Get in touch if you have any questions.

Regards
Gard

Hi, where are you based? If you could give us the name of the city, we could suggest short day trips for starters.

Train system in Austria and Germany are excellent and very safe. I would not suggest going to any other countries until you get your feet wet with the train system, etc.

Thanks for all of the replies, they have been helpful! I would have most likely never thought to travel to Bavaria or the Wachau Valley, and they both look like beautiful places.

Staying in a hostel sounds like a great idea and very cheap. I am located in Baden bei Wien, so if it would be easier for me to travel out of Vienna (which I would assume so), it would be no problem for me to go there and have my departure location be Vienna.

You are very close to Vienna. Have you been to visit Vienna at all? There is much to do and see in Vienna alone and you could make the first few day trips to Vienna without having to spend the night.

Vienna is the city of music. If you like music, there are several places that you could go and attend concerts, operas, recitals, etc. I would recommend that you try the Volksoper first for any one of the light operas, like The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).

http://www.volksoper.at/Content.Node2/home/index.en.php

There are beautiful palaces, great museums, and a wonderful old town to walk through.

When you are ready to stay overnight, try the Wombat Hostels. They are very clean and very safe and there are two or three of them in Vienna.

http://www.wombats-hostels.com/vienna/vienna/

If you haven't done so already, get a history of Europe and read up on the history of your area. You are close to Mayerling, a place I've always wanted to visit. If you know the history and the culture of the area, it will add immeasurably to your enjoyment.

Good luck! Envious of your ability to go to so many wonderful places!

Obviously the first thing would be to do day trips to Vienna. For one thing it's a great city, but also it will get you used to traveling around alone - but with the ability to go 'home' at night. But after you have done that a few times you should venture out. I know several people who have been au pairs in Europe and the ones that took every opportunity to travel around came back saying they had a wonderful experience, while the ones who just stuck close to their home base were kind of disappointed in their year abroad.

Train, and even plane, travel in Europe is very easy even if you only speak English. And Vienna is a pretty good base for both. Go to raileurope.com for ideas on how long a train trip it is to various cities. Once you decide on a trip, there are other train sites that will have tickets for less money than raileurope.com but that site is easy to use and covers all of Europe. But once you get an idea of a trip, there are probably more trains and cheaper ones at other sites. Also go to whichbudget.com and easyjet.com to look at flights.

For most places though you will need more than a weekend, but not necessarily a whole week. If you could take long weekends (say four days) that would be perfect for trips to places like London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam.