After we finish college, Sean and I plan to spend around a year back-packing through Europe and recently we decided to start planning our trip early. Right now we are working on the logistics. We want to get a general idea about which cities we want to visit, how we will get from place-to-place, how much money we will need, etc... If anyone has backpacked around Europe or lives there and has any advice, feel free to speak up.
We already have a general idea of the main countries and cities we want to see.
* We want to visit the United Kingdom Glasgow, Liverpool and London are on our list.
* I want to spend a pretty decent amount of time in France.
* We want to visit the Netherlands, beginning with Amsterdam. No, we don't want to go there for weed. I want to see the canals, museums and Vondelpark. We also want to stop in Apeldoorn and visit the Monkey sanctuary. Monkeys are free to roam around the park and interact with people so this could be very awesome.
* We want to stop in Germany along the way and Berlin seems like the best place to visit.
* Prague is on the list as well. I want to see the architecture and visit the museums and Prague Castle, among other things.
* We want to visit Hungary (Budapest) briefly.
* I definitely want to see Athens, Greece.
* From there we will fly to Naples, Italy. This is the country where we will be spending a two or three months because there are several cities I want to visit, such as Rome, Manorola, Florence, Venice and Burano.
* Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) is also on the list. The last stop on our trip will be Madrid. I have relatives who live nearby in Toledo so we will stay with them while we're seeing the city.
There is one specific problem we have encountered when researching this trip. The U.K. only seems to allow you to stay for 90 days before you have to wait 180 days to come back. This seems like a ridiculous law because it makes backpacking through Europe extremely difficult if you want to see multiple countries. Unless you only spend like a few days in each city of course. We're looking into ways (legal) around this so if anyone has advice, feel free to let me know. :|
As far as the budget is concerned, my parents are paying for our tickets to Europe and giving us some extra money as a graduation gift so we should have a pretty decent budget. However, we are still going to try to find ways to cut some expenses. A friend recommended Work Away as a option so I was curious to see what people think about something like this. I'm not sure if this is a viable option (depends on a few other factors) yet but I'm looking into it.
http://www.workaway.info/
This seems like a potentially good opportunity for an interesting work experience and to help reduce some of the cost for our trip. A lot of hosts seem to be looking for couples and offer a place to stay. I thought maybe we could do something like this a few times during our trip. I'll admit I am a little wary about this though.
We're also looking for interesting attractions that aren't as well-known as the main tourist spots. We want to see as much as possible while we are there.
We already have a general idea of the main countries and cities we want to see.
* We want to visit the United Kingdom Glasgow, Liverpool and London are on our list.
* I want to spend a pretty decent amount of time in France.
* We want to visit the Netherlands, beginning with Amsterdam. No, we don't want to go there for weed. I want to see the canals, museums and Vondelpark. We also want to stop in Apeldoorn and visit the Monkey sanctuary. Monkeys are free to roam around the park and interact with people so this could be very awesome.
* We want to stop in Germany along the way and Berlin seems like the best place to visit.
* Prague is on the list as well. I want to see the architecture and visit the museums and Prague Castle, among other things.
* We want to visit Hungary (Budapest) briefly.
* I definitely want to see Athens, Greece.
* From there we will fly to Naples, Italy. This is the country where we will be spending a two or three months because there are several cities I want to visit, such as Rome, Manorola, Florence, Venice and Burano.
* Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) is also on the list. The last stop on our trip will be Madrid. I have relatives who live nearby in Toledo so we will stay with them while we're seeing the city.
There is one specific problem we have encountered when researching this trip. The U.K. only seems to allow you to stay for 90 days before you have to wait 180 days to come back. This seems like a ridiculous law because it makes backpacking through Europe extremely difficult if you want to see multiple countries. Unless you only spend like a few days in each city of course. We're looking into ways (legal) around this so if anyone has advice, feel free to let me know. :|
As far as the budget is concerned, my parents are paying for our tickets to Europe and giving us some extra money as a graduation gift so we should have a pretty decent budget. However, we are still going to try to find ways to cut some expenses. A friend recommended Work Away as a option so I was curious to see what people think about something like this. I'm not sure if this is a viable option (depends on a few other factors) yet but I'm looking into it.
http://www.workaway.info/
This seems like a potentially good opportunity for an interesting work experience and to help reduce some of the cost for our trip. A lot of hosts seem to be looking for couples and offer a place to stay. I thought maybe we could do something like this a few times during our trip. I'll admit I am a little wary about this though.
We're also looking for interesting attractions that aren't as well-known as the main tourist spots. We want to see as much as possible while we are there.
