Can you please give me any siggestions and advices about backpacking in Europe?

Question

Me and my best friend are planning a trip to Europe this coming winter or next summer 2009.

We want to visit Paris, London, Rome and possibly some other cities such as Amsterdam, Nice, Brussels..

we want to spend 1 week-12 days in europe.

how much money will we need? we are planning to stay in hostels to save a lot. where should we try eating? fast foods?

is there a way to buy museum tickets online? what about transportation? what train could take us from london- paris-rome?

thank you :)

oh and i would really like it to be less than $1800. please serious answers only. i will really appreciate it :)

Answer 1

In one or two weeks in Europe you can not see more than a very small part.

You can, of course, stay on the train each and every night and just walk around a different town each day. But you will be like a zombie.

You will not remember anything after returning home.

Better make a plan to see just a part of Europe and spend a few days in each town.

That means that in one week you can see two towns, or one town and a bit of the countryside.

How much it is going to cost you depends on how much you need for your flights.

That is going to be the biggest part of your expenses, certainly if you are coming for such a short time.

By your use of $ for your money I assume you are from the USA, but that is all I have to go by to try to work out how much tickets would cost.

Staying in hostels is perfectly alright. (But some people have seen one movie and since then do not trust the truth anymore.)

Eating fast food is one way to spend little on food, but go for the local style fast food rather than the big American chains.

In a 'snackbar' the local kind of fast food in the Netherlands you can fill your belly for half it costs at the McDonalds next door.

The same goes for almost all places in Europe.

Self catering, doing your own cooking while staying in hostels is a bit cheaper, can be a lot cheaper if you buy smart.

For traveling like that you'll need at least $US 100 per person per day, at the current exchange rate, on top of your round trip tickets.

You might as well walk into your nearest travel agency and see what a trip to Europe will cost with them, mostly the organized tours are about as expensive as doing it yourself, but on the tours you will need pocket money on top of that. Specially drinking can cost you a lot while traveling.

If you intend to get drunk more nights than not, bring $200 a day for independend travel at least.

After you have made your mind up about where you want to go, you can get timetable info on this site:

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/... The German rail planner in English, good for most travel all over Europe.

To get reliable info about what a train ticket is going to cost you is much harder.

An other good source of info about train travel in Europe is this site:

http://www.seat61.com/

Answer 2

Don't stay in any hostels.