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Backpacking Europe Travel Tips

by Justin Glow on

The other day, a friend sent me an email asking for tips for his first backpacking trip.

“So I am starting to plan a trip this Summer to backpack in Europe,” he wrote. “But I have not decided where or when.”

Being the good friend that I am, I quickly got to work on a response, which turned into a sprawling, 2,000-word mini-guide filled with basic tips on planning your first European backpacking trip.

After I sent it off, I figured that some other backpacking newbies might find it useful, so I decided to post it here.

This is a hotly debatable topic with many varying opinions and, therefore, should by no means be considered definitive; I just wrote about what I know and thought was important for a first-timer in the early planning stages. If you have tips to add, please do so in the comment section!
Begin email:

There are a ton of resources out on the web for this type of stuff, but I’ll offer up my two cents:

As for when, Summer is going to be the busiest time of the year to be in Europe. This is good and bad. It’s good because you’ll have absolutely no problems finding other like-minded travelers to hang out with no matter where in Europe you are, but bad because prices are generally higher and reservations sometimes need to be made further in advance (as opposed to not at all in the off season). I wouldn’t let this you dissuade you, however, for two reasons: 1) With the dollar the way it is now, prices are going to be high regardless. Better get used to it. 2) Being forced to make reservations in advance means you have to be a bit more organized, which is definitely good for your first real backpacking trip. Regardless, if your time frame is “Summer,” it won’t make too much of a difference whether you choose June or August. They will both be equally busy.

As for where, this is the fun of travel — picking where you want to go. If you’ve already settled on Europe, I’d recommend going to National Geographic’s website and ordering a big, paper map of all of Europe. Hang it on your wall and stare at it for a while — you’ll start to visualize various routes that make sense, and generally start to get an idea of where you want to go.

In the early stages, you’ll need to walk a fine line between planning enough, but not too much. Not planning enough means you’ll waste a lot of time and money. Planning too much means you’ll be far too restricted for the trip to seem like any kind of adventure. Here’s what I recommend:

  • Find out how much money you have to spend. As a general rule of thumb, plan on spending $1,000 for round-trip airfare, and another $2,000 per month for everything else. You’ll also want to set aside about $500 for a Eurrail pass (more on this later). $2,000 per month is also an overestimation; you can most definitely spend less, but if you’re anything like me (and I have a good feeling you are), you actually want to have a good time, drink lots of beer, eat good food, and have a lot of fun while NOT sleeping in a bedbug-infested room. This all takes money. $2,000 per month in Central and Western Europe is a good estimation — it works out to about $66 a day, or €45. You can most definitely spend more, too, so be careful and stick to a budget!
  • Pick a starting point. This will most likely be a major city where flights are cheapest. Paris, London, Amsterdam — the big ones. Use www.kayak.com to track flights from your hometown to all the major European cities during the time frame. This link to Kayak, for instance, shows all the flights from St. Louis to major European cities in June, ranked by price. Ireland and Germany are the cheapest right now at just under $1,000, but this changes often. You can also get what’s called an “open jaw” ticket, meaning you fly into one city, but fly out of another. This works well if you plan on visiting a lot of countries, and makes planning a route easier since you don’t have to double-back around to get home. These are generally more expensive, too. Regardless of what you do, I’d buy your ticket no later than the last day in February, else the prices will skyrocket and you’ll end up paying a lot more than you would now.
  • Figure out your must-see list. Once you have your flights figured out, and know what city you’re flying into and out of, and how much time you have, you can start to figure out what you absolutely want to see. For instance, if you’re flying into Paris and are absolutely positive you want to see Greece, you will have to plan accordingly and head south-east as soon as possible. Once you have your list of must-see sites and cities, you can then….
  • Create your itinerary. I used to be under the impression that itineraries were generally lame, but I don’t agree anymore. You need to have at least a rough idea of where you’re headed, or else you’ll waste a lot of time and money trying to figure out where to go when you should be spending that time drinking beer and ogling hot European women. Therefore, it’s best to have a loose itinerary — one that gives you a bit of structure, but not so much that it restricts you. You still want to be able to change plans at the last minute if you want/need to, and this will most likely happen. You’ll meet a lot of cool people that say hey, we’re heading to Poland tomorrow, wanna come? You want to be able to accommodate situations like that.

Some other information:

The Eurial Pass is pretty awesome. The one you’d be interested in getting is called the Eurail Flexi Pass. You can get this pass in chunks of time, like 10 days, 15 days, 30 days, all the way up to two months. But the cool thing about it is you’re only charged time for being physically on the train. So say you go to Europe for a month, you could get a 10 day pass (€387), and you can ride any train to over 25 different countries. (See a list of the supported countries here.) This means that during your month-long trip, you can pick any 10 days to be on the train. According to their website, “A travelday on a Eurail Pass is the period from 12 midnight on one day until 12 midnight on the following day. You can travel as much as you like during that 24-hour period and hop on an off any train whenever you want (except for some high speed trains which require seat reservations, they still count as one travel day, but you will need a reservation prior to boarding).” For a month-long trip, I’d recommend at least 10 days, maybe 15, but it all depends on how long you’d plan on staying in each city. The Eurail also gets you on some boats, too, like the one from Italy to Greece and back.

Assuming you plan on staying in hostels (you should), I’d recommend booking about 2-3 days in advance while on the road. When you find out what city you’re flying into, book well into advance, and give yourself a few days there to get over jet lag and whatnot. But once you’re on the road, plan on booking a few days in advance — especially during the Summer. A good routine is this: Arrive in a city, spend the first day checking out the local sites and, at the same time, be thinking of where you’re heading to next. That night, book a bed in a hostel in the next city you plan on visiting, which should be about 2 or 3 days away. There are a few good ways to find decent hostels to stay in:

  1. Websites like HostelWorld.com have a huge database of hostels with user ratings. You can search by city, and sort by things like price, rating, location, etc. This website comes in extremely handy if for no other reason than research. But just because HostelWorld lists a particular hostel as being full, don’t assume it is right. Hostels typically only book a portion of their beds through HW to allow for walk-ups. So if HW says the hostel is booked, try emailing them or calling, chances are they have availability. Also, many hostel booking sites charge a booking fee, which might not necessarilly cost you any more money, but it tends tod gouge the hostels. This is especially detrimental to the independently-owned hostels. A good alternative to HostelWorld is Gomio. Unlike HW, they don’t charge hostel owners booking fees.
  2. Your fellow travelers you meet on the road are the best source of information, however. If you’re heading to Munich, for instance, ask around — there’s a good chance someone was either just there, or has been there in the past. Get recommendations from them.
  3. Ask the hostel staff. They’ll give you recommendations and pamphlets on other hostels in cities you plan on going.

Packing. Millions of words can be written about packing, but I’ll keep it simple: pack as little as humanly possible. You could spend tons and tons of money buying every little travel accessory that will supposedly make your trip easier and pack heavier, but don’t. Invest in a decent, mid-sized backpack (I recommend under 65 litres, not one of the huge, stereotypical framed backpacks), a money belt, and a decent pair of shoes that are built for walking comfort. For clothes, I pack about 5 days worth, and do laundry on the road. Most hostels have laundry services that are either free or cheap enough. 5 shirts, 1 pair of pants, 5 pairs of socks, 5 pairs of boxers, 1 pair of sleep shorts. That’s it. What most people seem to forget is anything you could ever need can be bought while on the road. Rip your pants? Buy a new pair — it’ll probably be cheaper than what you’d pay back home.

Prices on the road. In general, plan on paying anywhere from €15-25 on a hostel bed, per night. This could be cheaper or more expensive depending on where you go. Western Europe (generally regarded as everything west of, and including, Germany) will be the most expensive. Central Europe, like some parts of Germany, Greece (could be considered west, I guess), Czech Republic (highly recommended), Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and that area is considered Central, and a little less expensive. The cheapest part of Europe is Eastern, like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and the like. If you want the cheapest beer, go to Poland and Czech Republic, for sure.

Online resources:

Beatlemania returns to Liverpool

by Iva Skoch on

Since Liverpool is the The European Capital of Culture for 2008, the “Liverpudlians” have scheduled some interesting events–namely concerts–for this year. The local authorities have invited Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to help present Liverpool as the place to be. Liverpool hopes to attract people to come here and celebrate its link with the Beatles.

You can’t escape references to the Beatles in Liverpool, from the moment you arrive at the “John Lennon Airport”, go to the “Cavern Club” on Matthew Street, “Penny Lane”, to the time you brush your teeth at the “Hard Day’s Night” Hotel.

The biggest event of the year will probably be the Liverpool Sound concert Paul McCartney is hosting on June 1 at the Anfield soccer stadium.

Europe has been naming a “European Capital of Culture” every year since 1985. Usually it is actually two cities or regions that get a chance to show off their culture. Last year, it was Sibiu (Romania) and Luxembourg. The European Capital of Culture for 2008 are Stavanger/Sandness (Norway) and Liverpool (UK).

Happy Day of Kings!

by Abha Malpani on

In most Hispanic countries, the day the Three Wise Men visited Jesus (Epiphany) holds more significance than Christmas Day. On the night of January 5, children write to their favorite king (rather than to Santa) for what they want and leave their shoes outside, filled with straw for the Wise Men’s camels to eat; today is when they open their gifts.

Yesterday evening, the streets of Madrid’s center were packed with people waiting excitedly from 2pm to see the Parade of the Kings that began around 6pm. Today as families spend time together, there is a tradition of eating “Roscon of the Kings” which is a large loaf of bread in the shape of a king’s crown, coated with nuts and dried-fruit and filled with cream or chocolate. A gold coin is hidden inside, and it is believed that the person who gets it will have good luck throughout the year.

To reassert the importance of this day over December 25, recently in Madrid there was an anti-Santa campaign to spotlight the existing capitalism around the concept of Father Christmas. It highlighted his unacceptable behavior that included: doping his reindeer, racism, exploiting his elves, relations with the Romanian mafia and general susceptibility to commercialization. There was a demonstration outside the Finnish Embassy demanding the closure of Santa’s toy factory — a cause of contamination in the Scandinavian country.

Based in Madrid, a website has been created for the cause that includes an anti-Santa pro-Kings rap by campaigners dressed as the Three Kings which you can see here; it ends with a stage killing of Santa Claus.

Indie travel guides – pipe dream or way of the future?

by Leif Pettersen on

With all due respect to my generous client Lonely Planet, without whom I’d still be an obscure, broke, moonshine junkie in a forlorn corner of Romania, guidebook authors wallowing below the Sushi Line are increasingly probing new “Screw the Man” applications for their hard-won expertise – namely their very own online travel guides.

There’s certainly something to be said for a trusted brand name guidebook, but equally independently produced, digital travel guides allow authors to toss in all kinds of wacky content in addition to the usual sights/eating/sleeping content, uncorrupted by editors, guidelines, house styles and meddling lawyers.

A 2,000 word, absurdly detailed walking guide to Tijuana? Why not? A sidebar entitled “Top Ten Curse Words You Should Know Before Attending an Italian Football (Soccer) Match”? Bring it on! Why [insert your least favorite German city] sucks? I’m all ears.

This developing genre was recently augmented by the completion of Robert Reid’s online guide to Vietnam. As Reid rightly points out, the advantages of an independent online travel guide are numerous:

• It’s free – Guidebooks cost $25. Why pay?
• It’s fresher. Unlike a guidebook, turn-around time is immediate.
• You can customize it. The most common complaint guidebook users have is having to tote around 400 pages they’ll never use.
• It’s more direct, personalized. With my site I can ‘tell it like it is’.
• Anyone can talk with the author. [Just] hit ‘contact’.

In addition to this excellent resource, other free sites serving the online travel community include Croatia Traveller, Kabul Caravan, Turkey Travel Planner, Broke-Ass Stewart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco, and (cough), the Romania and Moldova Travel Guide (now with extra moonshine).

For the time being, these independent travel guides are usually not money-making ventures (and boy do they take a lot of time to put together!), thus the current scarcity. However, as print media gasps to its inevitable conclusion – one decade, mark my words – the online stage is set for authors to leverage their expertise and provide autonomous, interactive, up-to-the-minute travel information for anyone with an internet connection.

Talking Travel with Eric Nuzum, Author of The Dead Travel Fast

by Kelly Amabile on

I’ve never watched a horror movie from start to finish and I’m not a fan of haunted houses. Needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes that I would make it through Eric Nuzum’s new book about stalking vampires. But the title intrigued me enough to start it, and then, well — when a book begins with someone attempting to drink their own blood, you just can’t help but get sucked in.

For Nuzum, it all started over breakfast one day when he noticed several vampire references pop up during the course of his morning meal. His curiosity at the ubiquity of vampires eventually grew into an all-out quest to discover what makes these fanged bloodsuckers so darn popular. The results of his research are gathered in The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, an intelligent and thoroughly entertaining look at the world’s fascination with these mysterious creatures.

Tracking the history of vampires took Eric from his home in D.C. to a handful of U.S. cities, as well Romania and England. Along the way he made friends with a countess, spent time in a coffin, almost lost his lunch on a road trip through Transylvania, conducted crucial investigative research at the Las Vegas topless revue Bite, and watched a ton of horrible vampire movies (216 out of a possible 605 films that exist.)
Nuzum is a fantastic storyteller — his chapter about the Dractour he took in Romania is a hilarious travel memoir all by itself. But the entire book (a historical hybrid of cultural insight, quirky facts and useless trivia) is worth a read, even if vampires are not your thing. After reading this book, you may discover that in fact, they are.

Earlier this week Eric took the time to answer questions about his new book and the places he visited during his vampire-hunting expeditions. Here’s what he had to say:

You explain in the book why you embarked on this vampire quest, but what about the title – How and when did you come up with it?

“The Dead Travel Fast” is a line from a Gottfried August Burger poem called “Lenore” that’s quoted in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In the opening scenes of the novel, Jonathan Harker is traveling from England to meet Count Dracula. Once he arrives in Transylvania, just about everyone he encounters tries to talk him out of going, but he doesn’t listen. One of the locals utters the phrase in response to hearing about Harker’s headstrong journey. The translation Stoker used is a bit sloppy, with most translations of the poem using the phrase “the dead ride quick” instead.

In your travels from D.C. to the “ass end of Europe” in search of vampires, did you meet other folks who actually attempted to drink their own blood?

Their own? No, I seem to be the only dummy willing to admit trying that. Now, I am sure that many of the vampire-curious have sampled their own blood before possibly graduating on to the blood of others, but no one was stupid enough to admit that publicly. Except me, of course.

(Supposed) vampires congregate in some pretty bizarre locations. Any clue why many of them seem to prefer meeting at restaurant chains like Jillian’s and Ruby Tuesdays?

Not really. I think that whether they like to admit it or not, most people (vampires and otherwise) go to lousy chain restaurants.

So what is it with all these Dracula and Goth tours that combine fact and fiction? And why do folks love them so much, regardless of whether or not they know they are being told false information?

Because often times the fictitious version of history is much more appealing than the truth. It’s hard to blame the tourists, though, they are on vacation for crying out loud. They want something exciting. When they go to Transylvania, they want to see Dracula’s castle. Now, the fact that none of Vlad Dracula’s castles still exist (other than in ruins–and all the Stoker-invented castles are fictional) doesn’t stop them. They just find existing castles along major highways and say, “Hey tourists, look here, it is ‘Dracula’s Castle.'” Seriously, that is what happens.

What is your take on the tourism component of this global vampire phenomenon and the “tourist trap” aspect of it?

The people who are the most perplexed by the vampire tourism industry are the residents of Romania (Dracula’s Transylvania is now part of modern-day Romania). They know Dracula as Vlad Dracula, the 15th century tyrant who maintained control by impaling just about anyone who crossed his path. The notion that he was a vampire, or that the name Dracula would be associated with vampirism, was a completely unknown concept to Romanians until Communism ended there in 1989. The novel Dracula wasn’t even translated into Romanian until a few years ago. While stories of vampires are very common to Romanians, Dracula is simply something that is used to sell trinkets to tourists.

You describe both the Borgo Pass in Romania (shown at left) and the town of Whitby, England as idyllic places, although neither sounds that easy to reach. Should non-vampire enthusiasts make the trek for the scenery and landscape? Or are these strictly must-see spots for gothic travelers?

Hmmm. Whitby, definitely. Borgo Pass, maybe. While their descriptions in Dracula would lead you to think that they were both dark, foreboding places, in reality they are both quite the opposite. Whitby has a substantial tourist industry on its own, its (relatively) easy to go there, and there’s a lot to do. The Borgo Pass, however, is pretty remote. Outside of a Dracula-themed trip, there isn’t a whole lot to draw you there. Therefore, I’d hesitate to call it “must see.”

Some travelers draw inspiration from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” in Leaves of Grass. Should we be creeped out that Bram Stoker drew similar inspiration from Whitman for his classic Dracula tale?

Many are shocked to learn of the Stoker/Whitman connection. Stoker was acquainted with many famous literary figures of his day: Oscar Wilde (who was Stoker’s rival suitor for his wife’s hand), Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and the widow of Charles Dickens. It wasn’t because Stoker was considered a great writer, but Stoker’s boss–the famous actor Henry Irving–was quite popular and attracted these people as friends.

Whitman was special, though. Stoker was obsessed
with Whitman going back to his days at Trinity College. Through his Irving connections, Stoker met with Whitman twice. You see lots of Whitman-esque ideas throughout Dracula, especially when a group of men band together in order to battle against their common enemy. Even weirder, if you look at Stoker’s description of Count Dracula, he looks like a hybrid of Henry Irving and Walt Whitman. Stoker imagined Count Dracula as the perfect man. When he was looking for models in his own life for that perfection, he thought of those two guys.

(Note: There’s plenty more about Whitman, Irving, Stoker and Count Dracula in Nuzum’s book.)


In the book, you refer to an American boy in vampire getup who “…could have performed his routine in front of people in Rome, Stockholm, Kinshasa, Moscow or Tokyo.” What are your thoughts on the universality of the vampire persona?

Just that. You can show a picture of a character wearing fangs, slicked back hair, and a large cape to just about anyone, anywhere, and they’ll know it is a vampire. Very few fictional characters have achieved that kind of cultural ubiquity.

Your vampire travels end with a visit to The Darkwing Manor in Oregon (shown below). Would you recommend it as a destination for die-hard Halloween lovers? And did you visit any other spectacular home haunts or freakish places during your travels?


Darkwing Manor is amazing. It is a couple I met on my tour of Romania who turn their home and property into a vampire-themed haunted house. It is bigger and better than most commercial haunted houses! Plus, you get a chance to explore the Rogue Valley area of Oregon, which is reason itself to travel to the area. Outside of when I am writing books, I general try to avoid freakish places. I don’t want to become a victim of whatever makes them freakish.

How many of the 216 vampire movies that you watched were viewed while traveling to and from your research-related trips?

Traveling to so many spots for research (Romania, Oregon, Los Angeles, New York, London), I spent a lot of time on planes. Therefore, I’d try to watch vampires movies for “research” during the flights. It didn’t work out so well. The problem was that after the first dozen or two movies they become very repetitive and boring. As a result, I ended up falling asleep on plane rides.

Beyond Europe and America, where else would you have gone in your search for truth about vampires?

You can find vampires anywhere–from darkened parks to foreign countries to chain restaurants to someone crossing their fingers to keep someone away. All you have to do is look.

All photos courtesy of Eric Nuzum. Check out additional vampire photos from Eric’s travels, read an excerpt from the book and learn more at The Dead Travel Fast. Eric will be appearing at Politics and Prose in DC this evening.