How to plan a backpacking trip to europe
HOW To Plan Your EUROPEAN BACKPACKING TRIP! (Step by Step)
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hey what's up you guys my name is
Lindsey and you're watching my channel a
sight to see today is a very exciting
day because it is the day that you
decided that you're gonna start planning
your European backpacking adventure now
this video could be for anybody whether
you already started planning your
European trip and just wanted to get
some insight from somebody who's already
done it or if you think backpacking
Europe is walking through Europe with a
backpack on like my family thought
before I went but in this video I'm
going to go over step by step everything
that I did leading up to my departure
day for Europe and generally I'd say you
would want to start planning at least
six months before you go depending on
how fast you can make money I'm going to
post a link to my blog in the
description below about how I saved up
money for this trip but that's a
separate topic so we're just gonna jump
right into it first thing you're gonna
want to do is go to your computer and
open up Google Maps and we are going to
take a look at Europe I think it's a
good idea to just look at Europe as a
whole while you're starting this to kind
of put into perspective where everything
is on the map and how far away
everything is from each other one thing
that I personally like to do is just
look how far away one point is from
another point by either train or car to
just kind of familiarize yourself with
how big of a continent that we're
dealing with okay so this should start
giving you some inspiration you look at
all the countries that you've been
wanting to go to for so long you see
Italy using Spain France Germany Ireland
Wow Europe has so many beautiful amazing
countries it also has countries that you
may not have heard too much about in the
news but are still amazingly beautiful
like for instance Slovenia really
beautiful country that I had never even
heard of before going to Europe anyway
we are going to write out a quick list
of every country that you want to see
and you can also take this opportunity
to look at countries on Google Maps of
places you might have not heard of
before like let's click on Estonia
that's on a country that I had heard of
even when I was in Europe and honestly
now it's kind of a country I wish I did
go to there's a lot of countries that I
wished I went to but I only went to 14
okay maybe I'm being too hard on myself
14 is a lot of countries but anyway
start writing down a list of every
country that you want to see you can be
over-exaggerated right now we are in
step one so just for fun I made a list
of 20 countries
okay time for step two now you have all
of your countries written down the next
most important thing is to learn how
expensive those countries are for
example the most expensive country I
visited when I was in Europe was
Switzerland I spent a lot of time in
Switzerland and honestly I could have
stretched my money out a lot longer if I
went to countries say if more like
Eastern Europe what you're basically
you're going to want to do now is list
your countries in order for most
expensive to least expensive and the way
I usually do that is by looking up
hostels and hotels and seeing the
average price of how much you would
spend in one night there because when
you think about it what you really are
going to need when you're traveling is
transportation a place to stay and food
and of course activities which will
become extra but the most important
thing you're going to need is a place to
stay every night especially if it's your
first time in a foreign country and
you're alone and it's just nice to have
a place to stay the most expensive
hostel I stayed at was $57 a night in
Switzerland and the cheapest when I say
that was $7.00 a night in Hungary so
there was a pretty big difference in
those so I basically wrote out the
average price for the hostel in each one
of the countries and I kind of shows how
expensive of an area I'm going to be
staying in this also kind of gives you
an idea for your future itinerary of how
long you can stay in a place
[Music]
alright step three is getting ready to
choose your means of transportation now
there are plenty of ways that you can
travel based on your budget the most
expensive way to travel I would say we'd
be renting a car I'm almost 25 so I'm
not gonna have that young drivers fee
for very much longer but at the least
renting a car is usually like 25 to 30
dollars a day right and if you're
planning on traveling for months that
adds up really fast that's a hundred
dollars every 4 days minimum and there
are a lot of days that you might just
want to chill and walk around the city
and you're not gonna have the needs for
a car hey if you have the budget for it
by all means go ahead and do it but
there are definitely cheaper options as
well I took the train all around Europe
it cost me about I'm just gonna round up
and say $1,000 for three months of
travel in actuality I think it was more
like 900 but I'm just gonna stab
probably spent about $100 on ubers the
entire time that got me to places where
the Train couldn't but Europe's trains
are definitely a lot better than
America's trains I will definitely say
that I could get from small town to
small town here and if trains are your
thing you can actually fly really
cheaply around Europe from big city to
big city but that does take away going
into smaller parts of cities for example
if you wanted to go in travel
Switzerland you could get to Zurich or
Bern
but you couldn't go to interlaken or
ladder Bern and like where I went where
I saw those beautiful mountains because
you need to get on the train or you need
to rent a car or an uber in that case
I'd say the Train is definitely the
cheapest option so once you've picked
your means of transportation we're going
to move on to step four which is looking
at plane tickets I love looking at plane
tickets it's like a hobby for the thing
that I was most concerned about when
going to Europe of course is the price I
was not buying a round-trip ticket
because it would be kind of stupid to
leave in the same place that I got to
because I had already seen there and why
would I circle back around to the first
place that I went to just to get on
another plane when there are airports
everywhere so I chose flying entirely
mainly because Ireland is separate and I
would also have to take another plane to
get to Ireland if I say flew into Spain
I would have to fly to Ireland and I'm
fly back to the rest of you
that didn't make much sense so I decided
to go to Ireland first so I could just
hop on a plane and then do the rest of
Europe after that but another big factor
in me starting in Ireland was how cheap
the plane ticket was to get there I had
looked at flights from my Airport to
every single Airport in every city that
I had looked at in Europe and I saw
which one was the cheapest and I also
only bought one plane ticket at a time
so I bought my ticket to depart from the
United States to Europe because then
once I got to Ireland I kind of
understood a little bit more about
Europeans Airlines and I picked the best
one with the baggage that I had after
what I had learned since I got there and
then I kept looking at tickets to go
back home I was actually flying to
Denver and I had looked from every
single Airport in each city that I was
going to in Europe while I was already
there and I saw that Paris was the best
to leave out of it was the only place I
could offer me a nonstop flight from
Paris to Denver and it only cost me like
two hundred and fifty dollars which I
thought was a great deal so basically
what you're gonna want to do is find the
cheapest Airport that you could fly into
and make that the starting point of your
trip unless there's some reason it's
super inconvenient but most of the time
as a solo backpacker you can really make
anything work with your schedule all
right step five is going to be you
deciding how long you want to travel for
I mean you're planning a backpacking
adventure which usually means are gonna
be traveling for more than one week and
probably even more than one month but
really the deciding factor is how long
you think you can afford to stay away
without it breaking your bank so I
initially chose to travel for six months
but I decided to come home a month early
so I could have that last month's budget
to kind of start over back here in the
United States instead of starting with
nothing and that's one thing you kind of
want to plan for you want to make sure
that you come back with something
because it's kind of hard to work with
zero unless you're the type of person
that puts things on credit cards which
I'm not
so if you think about your spending
monthly at home if you are a person like
me who is single living in their own
apartment and doesn't have anybody else
to take care of my monthly spending is
probably about $2,000 and that's talking
rent utilities car car insurance food
gas entertainment going out with friends
I'd say I spend about $2,000 a month on
average when I'm not extremely saving
for a big trip like this kind of the
same goes for when you're out traveling
when I add it up how much it would cost
me every day to rent a hostel and adding
the price of saying maybe 20 dollars a
day for food and most of the time I did
go to the grocery store to get food I
didn't go out to eat every day I did
what I could afford it but that was
definitely not every day and definitely
not every country so I basically
budgeted $2,300 a month when I was in
Europe I decided to you know keep timing
that by 2 by 3 by 4 and on when I hit 14
grand was when I realized that that was
about how long I could afford to travel
for it I didn't started planning my
backpacking trip about 6 or 7 months
before my departure date and in that
time I knew I was able to save up $2,000
a month until then so by the time that
my departure day came I had all that
money in my bank account and I was ready
to go so basically what you want to do
now is write down how much you think you
will need a month based off of your
research of researching how expensive
these countries are and how much you're
going to be spending on food and on
transportation and on hostels put that
all together for one month take into
consideration how much you can save a
month up until the day that you want to
leave and come up with that number of
how long you'll be on for everybody's
situation is different and unique so I
can't speak for absolutely everybody but
if you want more help from me on this
please comment down below and I will
definitely help you as best as I can
alright step 6 is going to be narrowing
it down a little bit so one step when I
told you that you should list all of the
countries that you want to go to but now
we're going to dive a little bit deeper
into that so one example of a place that
I didn't really want to give up but felt
like it was necessary and logical for me
to give up was Santorini Greece because
it was very very far from everything
else that I was seeing and to be honest
I don't really know much about the rest
of Greece I just really know that I
wanted to see Santorini but I was like
is that really worth being on a think it
was about a 14 or 15 hour train ride
from Crowe way
which was the lowest point in Europe I
was going to be at if I didn't go to
Santorini and Santorini is also very
expensive and I would have to get on
another boat which was not covered by my
Eurail pass so I was like is this really
necessary for this backpacking trip or
can I save that until later and I
decided to save that until another time
and same goes for Norway and it really
breaks my heart because I wanted to go
to Norway so badly but it was very out
of the way I couldn't get a train ticket
that I didn't have to pay extra for
without a reservation and the plane
tickets to get to Norway were probably
the most expensive country to go to
within Europe and I decided that I kind
of needed to save that money because
Norway is another very expensive country
to go and visit and one thing that I
really would have wanted to see in
Norway is the Northern Lights and there
was not a Eurail station stop on my path
so I wouldn't have even been able to go
to Rome so I'm not really sure you say
it I kind of narrow it down and see all
of the places that are kind of more
close together or more doable without so
much space in between because at the end
of the day I'm assuming you're trying to
save time and money with your trip to at
least that's what I tried to do I tried
to make the most of my five months and
do as much as I possibly could all right
step seven is basically going to be
you're gonna want to set yourself a
daily budget at this point you know how
long you're going to be going away for
you know your average price of hostels
and transportation and food and
everything that you're going to need so
when I broke her down from the amount of
my budget to the amount of days I was
going to be away I came up with a grand
total of seventy six dollars a day and
that accounts for everything so if your
hostel is $40 a night that means you
have 37 dollars left to spend during the
day whether that be on food guber or
activities it was really great when I
was at hungry and my hospital was only
$7 a day because then I was able to
spend $70 that day and do whatever I
want with that $70 without feeling
guilty about it I'm trying to show you
guys real quick of how I kept track of
my daily budget because I really like
writing things out and making lists and
stuff so I would write down my
accomodation how much that would cost
how much I spent on food and drinks and
then I would write down how much I spent
total for that day and then I would also
write down how much I had leftover so if
my budget daily was
seventy-six dollars and I spent about 39
I would have about 37 dollars left over
from the day leaving my complete total
leftover to be 37 dollars and when I
move on to day 2 I would once again
account for how much my house would cost
how much did I spent on food and drinks
how much I spent total and then how much
I had left over from that day and then I
would put that with my complete total
leftover so I knew that if there was
something really cool that I wanted to
do in a country that may cost $100 I
have this little bit of extra money kind
of put away from the days that I didn't
spend too much but I would keep
everything really organized because it's
important to know how much money you're
spending and how much you have less even
even if you could see in your bank
account you always want to keep in mind
how much your monthly and daily budget
is so you don't go over it and don't run
out of money too soon ok so now you're
on to step eight and step eight is
diving deeper into your itinerary that
you're making so I like having an
itinerary to follow but it's not a
strict itinerary and if I want to do
something else that I wrote down it's
not a big deal because at the end of the
day I wrote it but it is nice to have
something to follow in case you're kind
of like well I'm stumped I don't really
know what to do for the day and it's
also a good idea to map out the cost of
the things that you want to see in each
city if there is a tour you want to take
like I wanted to do The Cliffs of Moher
tour and I only knew I wanted to do that
because I researched it before I went to
Ireland what you're gonna want to do is
take each country start with the one
that makes you most excited so you
really feel like diving deeper into this
let's say Switzerland the first thing I
would do is learn everything that I
could about in Switzerland learning
about the coolest towns that were still
within my budget learn about the places
that I wanted to eat the activities that
I wanted to do things that I wanted to
see and I found all this out by going on
blogs and watching blogs and websites
and Facebook groups even typing in
things like all the weirdest thing to
see in Switzerland the most unique thing
to see in Switzerland the craziest thing
to see in Switzerland and you just get
all of these articles about things that
you've probably never heard of and then
write those all down because that's
gonna be really important when you're
planning that's whole itinerary which is
our next step so now let's just say for
example you have ten countries on your
list that you want to hit and now you
have a bunch of things under each
country listed that you definitely want
to see
now it's time to plan your actual
itinerary and the reason that this
itinerary is so important is not just so
you have a plan but so you know how
you're getting from point A to B to C to
D and everywhere in between so it's like
sure I'm right after Spain I'm going to
Switzerland but okay how am I getting
there
which train am i taking like you're
gonna have to know these things and you
don't want to leave them till the last
minute because that's when things go
wrong and also when you're planning your
itinerary you want to do it in the most
efficient way to get from these places
so you're not bouncing all around Europe
and wasting time on a train when you
could be spending any of these countries
you want to know which path to take so
you're spending the least amount of time
on the train and things we change when
you get up there but that's fine that
happens it happened to me I was
originally going to go to Bali but I
went to Hawaii instead things happen
writing out your itinerary is going to
take a very long time it took me months
it wasn't even completed by the time I
left for Europe because things keep
changing but it was really good and
comforting to know that I did have my
first month planned out so once I really
got into the swing of things out there
it was easier to plan as I was going
along the way and now we're on to the
most exciting step step 10 do it you
planned everything out you researched
every country you're so excited you have
probably not a finished itinerary but
the means of having maybe half finished
one so I would say about three to four
months before you plan on leaving is
when you should buy your plane ticket
and really set that date don't leave
until the last minute but also don't do
it like a year ahead of time I would
save three to four months that's when I
did it and I got my plane ticket from
New York to Ireland for a hundred and
eighty three dollars that's like the
perfect time to book your trip and then
it really gives you a set date of when
you know that you're leaving to help you
prepare for it better but also please
don't forget to get travel insurance
nobody likes paying for insurance and
yes it's expensive and if something
happens to you and you don't know where
you are and you break a bone or I don't
know worst case scenario things get
stolen you want to be covered so
definitely do your research before there
are a lot of different travel insurance
companies that you can get from but you
just got to find the one that suits you
best and about a month before
is when I would book your first four
hostels I was always booking places for
in advance at a time because you don't
want to book every single thing for your
entire trip I would kind of just book a
country-by-country because your plans
can change and some places don't offer
refunds some places make you pay more if
you want like that free cancellation but
at the end of the day it's kind of just
easier to just do four in advance unless
it's say Oktoberfest booked further in
advance for that if you know you're
gonna be there during those certain
dates because those places are going to
set up very quickly but this way you
always know where you're going to be for
say the next week or two and you have
you have that feeling of comfort but at
the same time you can be spontaneous and
be like actually I'm gonna go here next
instead of here and a month before is
also when I'd say booked your if you
have any buses that you need to book
like I took buses around Ireland instead
of using the URL and I booked those a
little bit in advance just so I knew I
had a seat on that bus when the time
came and last but not least you're gonna
have to buy a backpack or I guess you
could buy a rolling suitcase but I was
already carrying something rolling so I
needed something on my back and you're
going to want to list out every single
thing that you're gonna want to put in
your backpack I also made another video
that I'm going to link down below of
everything that I brought with me when I
traveled Europe
and I know the title says Bali but I
went to Hawaii and they're kind of
tropically similar but get used to
packing and unpacking your bag if you're
not used to living out of a backpack
it's good to learn how to pack it to be
the most efficient when you're out there
so I hope this video helps you plan your
first European backpack adventure it was
the most exciting thing I ever did in my
entire life and I'm sure you can do it
and be spontaneous but I didn't really
have any major problems with my trip and
I believe that is because I spent so
much time with my pre-planning for it if
you guys have any more questions I'd be
happy to help please leave me a comment
down below or message me on my Instagram
directly and I will get back to you as
soon as I can
happy travels and I will cut you all on
the next one
[Applause]
[Music]
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