Venice
Ancona
Split
Zagreb
Vienna
Prague
Amsterdam
Hamburg
Copenhagen
Malmö
Stockholm
Oslo
Bergen
What Everybody Does Tell You About Backpacking:
- It’s a super rewarding experience, something unlike anything you will probably ever do again unless you love it and keep on doing it.
- Couchsurfing is an awesome and cheap/free way to stay places when you are traveling.
- Pack light because you have to carry everything you bring all the time.
- It’s the best experience EVER!!
It’s not that much, I know. Once people get past how awesome it is, they lose their steam and forget to mention some important details.
What Everybody Doesn’t Tell You About Backpacking:
- It is actually hard work. You have to always be thinking about where you are going to sleep and how you will get there.
- Couchsurfing is great, but it’s also not so super simple. It’s better to request a couch pretty far in advance than to leave it up to chance. Also, it’s better to contact everybody in the area and then just cancel with some if you get multiple responses. You probably won’t get multiple anything.
- Reserve your train seats as far in advance as you can. Especially in tourist spots. We couldn’t get on the trains we wanted to or from Amsterdam because they were too full.
- Don’t just go to big cities and capitals. After a while every big city starts to look pretty much the same. They even have many of the same stores and most of the people walking around are tourists speaking English. Yay culture!
- Always have a backup plan. We were going to do mostly couchsurfing, but when much of it fell through, we bought a cheap tent! Voila, plan B :)
- If you’re going to pack too much of something, stock up on socks. When you spend most of the hours of the day on your feet, it shouldn’t be surprising that your socks will smell worse than rotting squirrel carcass after wearing them for just one day, nevermind two days or three days. I planned on wearing flip-flops a lot but then got big blisters after just a couple days and had to use the shoes.
- You really don’t need to take pictures of everything. It is insane how many tourists take the same pictures of the same ugly stupid things that they will probably never ever ever ever look at again. Just take pictures of what you really think you’ll actually want to see again. Then it makes it easier to go through them later too. I’d even go so far as to suggest shooting film, but that’s really my personal preference.
- Use the luggage boxes in the train stations. You know when you see those backpackers with their HUGE backpacks and their tents and their sleeping mats going all throughout the cities? Don’t be like them! Luggage boxes are pretty cheap and far cheaper than paying to get your back fixed a few years down the line.
Seriously though, the trip was a fantastic experience. It was really great to see so much in such a short time, but it was also great to come back home and sleep in a real bed. Now I am really enjoying getting the pictures back one roll at at time.
My last bit of advise for anyone who is considering an interrail or eurrail trip like this: at least once, take a bus or train outside any city to a place where no tourist dares to go. Get out into the country, as lost as you dare, and then take a moment to just take it all in. You will really be glad you did.
