Backpacking Europe: How I Planned It Out

In my post ‘Backpacking Europe: The Start Of It All’, I explain that the main reason for my trip was to visit old friends from a summer camp I worked at. This is the reasoning behind a lot of interesting planning and traveling that I had done.

So I needed to figure out where I would fly into.

I knew that I wanted to spend at least my first night with a friend. This was the farthest and longest journey away from home in my life. So I needed to make kiddie steps before I hit the ground running.

This led me to make the biggest decision of this whole trip: flying in and out of Dublin, Ireland.

I chose Dublin, Ireland, because it was the cheapest two-way ticket I could find. My friend Tom lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but all the flight options from Philadelphia to Belfast had a layover in Dublin anyway. So through some planning, I figured out it was cheaper just to buy the ticket to Dublin and then take a bus up to Belfast.

I chose to buy a two-way ticket in and out of Dublin because I didn’t know what kind of journey was ahead of me and where I would find myself. Having my flight back to the US pre-determined allowed me to organize my trip within those dates/locations.

The “when” was the easiest part: whenever Tom had an open day for me to arrive and the flights were at their cheapest.

Other than the areas that my friends already lived in, I only had a couple of cities that I was also interested in seeing. Not to mention I couldn’t travel too far East or South due to time constraints.

I liked the idea of Amsterdam and Barcelona. Maybe Paris. Then somewhere in Switzerland, Italy, and/or Germany.

As I said before, I was only interested in planning the parts of the trip where I would meet up with old friends.

I left gaps in my itinerary to fill as I went along. Though this was stressful at times, it was the best decision I could have made.

I knew for a fact I didn’t want to deal with checked luggage. It was not only expensive but also extra time and headache when dealing with airports. Because of this, I decided I would fly as little as possible within Europe. Carry-on sizes vary from airline to airline, and I didn’t want to be blindsided if my backpack was too big.

I ended up going on three flights within the trip. For one flight I did have to throw out a lot of my bath and beauty products. And for another, I had to send a package back home full of clothes I didn’t end up needing, as well as souvenirs, because my backpack would have been too large to be considered a carry-on. Though, it was much needed for my back anyway at that point. The package full of items was without a doubt cheaper than if I had to check my bag. And as I said, the price was worth having the free space again.

In research for the trip, I had read a lot of positives things about Eurail. It’s essentially a pass that gives you a number of train rides over a course of time. Yes, it is an expensive up-front cost, but it ended up paying for itself and more.

If you’re doing small-distance city-hopping, it would be worth researching if it’s beneficial to you or not. Since most of my traveling was over long distances, it was worth it for me. The kicker is when you need to “reserve a seat” for trains that are in high demand. This is an extra cost that isn’t included in the pass. It can be as small as €8 or as expensive as €48. By checking the routes on Eurail.com, you can see if you’re going to need to reserve a seat or not.

I went with the Eurail Global 10 Days within 2 Months Flexi pass.

But travel within Europe is more than just hopping on a train and ending up at your desired location.

I had to think about buses, metros, ferries, even taxis, not to mention how long and far I was willing to walk with my luggage on my back.

Rome2Rio is and always will be my number one app when it comes to traveling. You can put in the exact address points of where you are and where you want to go and it will tell you a variety of ways you can travel to it. It also will give you the specific bus numbers, ferry ports, walking distance, and websites to buy tickets.

When visiting my friends, this wasn’t something I was worried about. When it came to the dates where I was on my own, however, it was important for me to know at least a day in advance where I would be sleeping that following night.

Other than that, I figured out my accommodation as I went.

After I had a general idea of where I was going to head next, I would look up hostels in the area and compare ratings with pricing. Not to mention how far away it was from the station I was arriving in and far away it was from the sites I wanted to see within the city.

I used HostelWorld to find all of my accommodations.

I took into great consideration the prices of each hostel, but I also really cared about high ratings and overall location.

If a hostel was a little more expensive, but it had great reviews and was close to my arrival station, as well as the attractions I wanted to see, then it was worth it to me. I’d rather pay more for the hostel than the bus/metro ticket to and from the hostel.

Here’s the link to my post on how I found hostels: https://agirlwithoutaclue.com/?p=110

Essentially I had only the amount of money in which I saved over the course of the summer working. And with that being over a year ago, I can’t remember how much it was exactly. I only know how much I ended up spending on the trip as a whole, which I will cover in another post.

Budgeting will look different for every person.

Budgeting how you’ll travel within Europe will be challenging. The biggest payments are in the train and flight travel, but other than that I had no idea how much each bus/metro/ferry ticket would cost, nor how much I would be using those services.

Not to mention that trains sometimes run late, which can affect all your other travel arrangements. This happened to me and I ended up having to spend an extra €60 on new seat reservations.

So with that being said, set aside an amount of money and then double it for any unexpected twists and turns.

How much are you willing to spend on hostels? How often do you think you’ll eat out? Are you planning on buying food and cooking in the hostel’s kitchens? At some point, you’re going to need to do laundry (even I did laundry in between the times I wasn’t staying with a friend). How much do you enjoy seeing museums or special attractions? How much do you plan on going out and partying?

As I said, every person will answer these questions differently.

Since I was traveling alone, I had the freedom to do what I what, when I wanted. I could eat as often or as little, whenever, and wherever.

Honestly, most of the time I ate a croissant for breakfast and then fasted until dinner. I would splurge here and there, but for the most part, even dinner was something cheap and fast that I picked up. As much as I wanted to enjoy the food that each country could provide, I had to remember that I was a newly graduated college student with loans to pay back and only a serving job back at home.

Instead, I emphasized the importance of seeing and just being in the country.

I also knew ahead of time I wouldn’t spend much money on museums and attractions. I don’t care for museums.

Instead, I ended up spending my days simply just walking, observing the city, people, and culture around me. I always ended up at a park or beach. Honestly just enjoying being outside, surrounded by beautiful and new scenery.

Here’s the link to my post on the cost breakdown of my trip: https://agirlwithoutaclue.com/?p=110

So in these early phases of planning my trip; I had my flights in and out of Europe booked, I knew which friends I would be visiting and when, I had a general idea of what other destinations I wanted to go to, and I knew how I did and didn’t want to spend my money.

Looking back, not planning every single location, transportation, activity, and daily itinerary was the best choice I ever made.

I hope this post gave you insight into how I made a general plan for my backpacking trip around Western Europe. Everything is based on my own research from blog posts, my experiences, and tips I picked up while on the road.