(PS what do you think of the new Amazon links? I did it because it allows me to easily post a picture and link straight to where you can buy whatever I'm talking about. And I would get a commission if you click to buy it straight from my blog. Again, I mostly did it for the picture/link, but I'm surely not gonna say no to free money. If anyone finds it tacky, its gone, so speak up!)
I'm going to be doing some retro blogs, where I go back in time and talk about doing study abroad in London in 2005. I mostly want to do this so I can have a written account of it before I forget too much more. But before I do that my dear dear dear dear friend Meredith is leaving for Europe soon and after talking with her, I realized I had acquired a few "Traveling Europe Tips". I remember scouring the internet looking for Europe travel advice. So below is some of the advice I found useful or I made up myself. It may be kind of a long wordy blog, but I felt it was important to not break it up, I wanted to have all this information in one place, so that hopefully other people in my shoes would stumble across everything they need to know in one place.
So if you never ever plan to travel Europe, skip this blog and I will try and post a more entertaining one in a few days. But if you are interested in traveling Europe, I've written pretty much everything I can think of! I'm actually impressed my brain holds so much.
***I've "starred" the things I think are most important and things that would be less obvious thoughts until its too late.
Get your passport early. It can take months for it to be approved and shipped back to you. If nothing goes wrong it takes about 4-8 weeks, but I think the rule is it is best to start 3 months ahead or more. It costs around $100. You can apply for one at any post office. If you are an AAA member you can get 8 passport size photos taken for free a year. If not, I know for a fact you can get 4 pictures made at Picture People in the mall. ;). I went ahead and got all 8 from AAA and took the spares with me, you may need extra for things like student IDs, transportation cards, library cards etc.
I booked most of my flights through STA Travel or cheaptickets.com. STA travel gives special tickets to students and those under 26. Also some of their tickets are called "Blue" tickets which allows you to change the airport and dates of your plane tickets for a small fee. I changed my December flight home out of Germany to a September flight home out of France for somewhere between $60-$85 . This is a huge help if there is any chance of your travel plans changing. Or if you plan to stay longer than 300 days (ie. a year), flights cannot be booked more than 300 days in advance so if you want a roundtrip ticket you will have to buy one as far out as you can and then change it a few months later.
I booked most of my hostel reservations through Hostelworld.com. It has reviews of all the hostels. Read the reviews carefully to fully understand lockers, parking, where is transportation, is the hostel in the area I need. Can I leave my luggage even after I have checked out? Is there a pick up service available? Is there free or pay breakfast? Is it a party hostel? Have people complained about noise or cleanliness? Do people complain about management or are they helpful? Does the hostel charge for sheets? Can I rent a towel? Is there internet available?
There really isn't a need to travel with a computer, unless you will be staying a long time and you will have a "home base". But even then, if you are doing study abroad, you might want to travel afterwards and you won't want to take any extra luggage with you. It is very expensive to try and ship your things home. Make sure you are always able carry all your luggage by yourself, you might not be able to get someone to help you. (Ask my brother about hiding his luggage on the street under a parked car when he couldn't carry it all at one time.) My original plan for Germany was to take a years worth of clothing etc in 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons, where I would have someone to help me on either end of the flights and I would have a home base to travel from at all times. While traveling I would only take 1 suitcase. Well, plans change and I ended up having to move every bit of my luggage five times! I was quite a sight, luckily I had luggage that I could be hooked together and pull it myself. It was still difficult but not impossible. I had strangers telling me on the street how ingenious I was, and I'm sure a few were saying in their heads what an idiot I was.
Pack as light as you can, if you can live without a hairdryer, do. Go ahead and cut your hair short if necessary, it grows back. Pack versitle clothing that you can walk all day in, and then dress it up a little and go to a theater that night. You can make a pair of jeans last a long time, but they are heavy so if you can avoid it, don't take more than one pair.
***Some hostels have check-in times, and you will not be able to get into your room before then. Plan your traveling accordingly. They may have lockers where you can leave your stuff. But keep in mind that a locker room is 99.9%
not monitored. It is just a room to put down your bag, pretty much anyone can walk out with your bag. So I recommend cable locks like this picture. The extra little bit of "give" in the cable allows you to lock your bag to something, or if there isn't anything to lock it to, you can lock it to a friend's bag. Your bags will still be able to be stolen but it will be a lot more difficult. Cable locks have really been my friend while traveling and given me great peace of mind. But still, I would keep your passport on your person at all times, I wouldn't leave it in your luggage. Most thieves are really just opportunists, looking for an easy get away. Making it a little extra difficult for them is usually enough of a deterrent.
Example....
My roommate in London had someone watch her visit the ATM and then place her wallet in the outside pocket of her bookbag. THIS IS ABOUT THE WORST PLACE TO PUT YOUR MONEY! You cannot feel someone reaching into your bookbag. When she was getting onto a train, one man kept blocking her way so that she had to struggle to get around him. While she was distracted another man unzipped her bookbag and made off with her wallet. Split your money up and keep some money in more than once place if possible, like your shoe. Keep your wallet in your front pocket. Some people even recommend putting a rubber band around your wallet so that it will be even more noticeable if someone tries to slide it out of your pocket. I kept mine in my bag and if I was going through a crowded area. I would turn my bag so it was under my arm and close to my chest. I really never felt unsafe or scared about someone taking my money, but that didn't mean I was going to make it easy on them.
Spend your money on food, and take pictures of it! This is why you can, to find out what is different about the other side of the world! My brother says I am very french because they believe that to understand a culture is to taste it. Spend money on going to theatre, (check to make sure their are english translations) things locals would go to, most of the tourist attractions you can find a way to partake in them but not actually get the money sucked out of you: free museum days, student discounts, just walking around the outside, not taking the tour. You still get to say you've been there and take your snapshot. Save your money for what's really important to you.
***Make a list of things you will be disappointed if you never get to see them while in Europe. I didn't stick to the list, but it helped me prioritize. My list for my stay in London included seeing some of the Harry Potter landmarks, visiting Paris and the Eiffel Tower, eating fish and chips.
My list for when I went to Germany included seeing castles, visiting locations from The Sound of Music movie, going to Greece if possible.
So neither time did I really plan out an itinerary, but both times I was staying more than a week. If you are only staying a short time, then I would research more, and get more of a bang for your buck. But the most fun I had was never at museums or major landmarks. It was always in the crazy situations you just happen to find yourself in when you start exploring.
I was told about a free tour when I was in Munich. It turned out to be great. In major cities you can often stumble across signs for them saying "Meet here 3pm" or your hostel might have a brochure. I found the brochures in hostels to be really helpful, they had simple maps and ideas for what to do each day. Anyway, the free tour had a legit english speaker from an english speaking country who really knew their stuff. They work based off of "what you think the tour was worth" so if you want to be a jerk you can truly go on a free tour. But I felt like this method really made them work to make it entertaining and educational. (I went on a bus tour once where it was half english and half german, and neither myself nor my German friend could understand what was being said.) The Free tours company website is: http://www.newmunich.com/nm/ You can also use this link to view tour info in other countries.
Camping in Europe is fun and cheap and probably more luxurious than you would expect. Often there were places to wash clothes, plenty of showers, restaurants and more. Which is more than I can say for most hostels. Although, they tend not to be near major cities and public transport. You would have to be a super hiking hippy or have access to a car.
Try and make friends, the worst you can do is fail. If you are in a non-English speaking country sometimes people are apprehensive about speaking English even though they have been studying it for years. Keep trying, you are bound to find someone who loves speaking English and will love being your friend purely for the fact that you speak English. There was a period for awhile that I kept getting invited to parties, and I began to realize that it was a friend of a friend and they didn't even know me or how cool I was, they just thought it was cool to have an English speaker present. At first I took advantage of this and went, but then when I actually had my own friends that I enjoyed the company of, I realized I would rather spend quality time with the people I loved as opposed to meeting tons of strangers and answering questions about Coke and hamburgers.
Go to restaurants where the tables are close together or you are even sharing a table. Take public transportation and try to strike up a conversation there. This is how you will really learn what Europeans think about Americans! Always interesting. You might get to talking with someone from another country. I've met Polish people, Norwegian people.
If you are speaking with a local, try to ask "sterotyping" questions gently. Do not assume anything because you saw it on TV. i know it hurt me when people assumed things about me just because I was an American and they'd watched one too many episodes of CSI.
If at all possible, learn to say please, thank you, excuse me, for each country you are visiting. These words, patience and smiling will get you a long way.
(Extreme side note) Don't pretend to be Canadian, because you think people hate Americans, that's lame. If you are Canadian, that's great too, but you don't need to blast the maple flag everywhere on your bags to prove you are not an American, equally lame. Some of our friends told us that my brother and I changed their opinion of Americans. That is kind of an awesome opportunity!
****Don't be afraid or too proud to go to a McDonald's. It is familiar, they have free bathrooms, you will understand the menu, it's cheap, it's fun to see what is different on the menu, it can soothe your culture shocked nerves. I used to think "No! I'm in London! I will not set foot in a McDonald's" but somedays my budget and stress level said otherwise.
Most of the bathrooms in Europe you have to pay, or tip the attendant, annoying yes, but now you've been warned so it won't catch you by surprise.
*****Don't throw away your tickets once you are on public transportation (trains, buses etc.) You sometimes need your ticket to get on and off, to prove you didn't jump a turnstile to get onboard. I will share a costly personal experience about this in an upcoming blog.
***MAJORLY IMPORTANT*** Unlock your credit and debit cards for traveling. Your banks will lock them up when they see "unusual spending" in foreign countries. My first few days in London were filled with watching my fellow classmates make panicked phone calls home b/c they could not access their money. Not every country uses credit cards. Germany is almost straight up cash only.
I use Bank of America so I can only tell you which ATMs you can use if you have Bank of America. You can use Barclays (England) and Duetsch Bank (Germany, Austria) These will allow you to withdraw money just as if you were in America w/o fees. (although the money does come out in Euros instead of dollars, this will be a bigger hit to your account because of the exchange rate.) If an ATM has a visa symbol, and so does your checkcard, you can use it, but their may be a fee of $5-10 or higher, if it is not a partnership ATM. So if you have to get money from another ATM, get out more than you think you'll need. You can almost always find an ATM in a train/metro/tube station. Money in England will come out of the ATM as the British Pound, but the Euro is accepted everywhere, and every other ATM in Europe will give you Euros. Credit cards will charge you a "foreign transaction" fee every time, so it is best to take out cash.
If you use another bank, they might be able to help you find out what banks to use. I had to prowl through my online banking website to find out who they had partnerships with. No one actually at the bank could help me.
I never had a problem using my Visa credit card (unless I was in Germany, which is just anti-credit cards) But ironically I did have trouble using my American Express card.
For the most part I carried a bag like this throughout London. The most freeing thing was to be able to fit all you need into your pockets for the day and not carry a bag. In Germany or Greece if I wanted to carry my big dslr camera with me, I would keep it in a sports type book bag. I didn't focus too much on not looking like a tourist. I mean I wouldn't wear a big USA sweatshirt, but no matter what I do, I will always look like I don't fit in and I definitely talk like I don't.
I know most people want to stick within a budget, but you must have a credit card with a high enough limit to get you out of an emergency. I know one girl that was forced to pay for a 200 Euro a night hotel room once, because there was simply nothing else was available in Switzerland that night. You may even have a need for an emergency flight home.
Electricity is different in the UK and different again throughout the rest of Europe. You will need to buy power converters and adaptors for your electronics. Even with these things I have occasionally fried a hair straightener or two. Adaptors allow you to use your electronics in different countries even though they have different plugs and outlets. I really enjoyed my "all-in-one adaptor". It can switch for different countries. It even had the correct receiving plugs for when I had to plug a British cell phone into a German outlet. Converters are what supposedly stop your things from getting "fried" by the different levels of electricity in Europe.
Your cell phones will not work in Europe. If you want to have a cellphone/mobile/handy you will need to get one that has a removable sim card so that you can change your plan for whatever country you are in. In America we pick a cell phone company and stick with them. Europe uses "pay as you go" phones a lot more and everytime you switch services you get a different card. Some more expensive cell phones have the ability to be unlocked for travel but you will have to ask your provider about that.
I've never done the hardcore "back packer trip" across Europe, so my tips are not geared towards that. But I do remember a tip I read that was good but didn't apply to me. You can go to stores that might have free samples of shampoos and other toiletries and explain to them what you are doing. So instead of traveling with a whole bottle of shampoo, you can actually throw away packets as you go, and lighten your load a little everyday.
Another piece of advice that didn't really matter to me was, when you are on an international flight and changing time zones, drink lots of water. Everyone says it helps, but it made no difference to me. What did help was instead of taking a nap when your American time is telling you it is 3 in the morning, stay up until a proper bedtime the next night and you will wake up already adjusted to your new schedule.
A lot of people take big back packs to Europe, and again I've never traveled this way, but my advice is that at some point, you and your back will really be wishing that bag had some wheels too.
Get the biggest camera memory card you can get. In two weeks I can fill up an 8Gb card, if I haven't had a chance to unload it. Which unloading pictures on a hostel computer may not even be possible sometimes. If it is, you can move them over to a thumb drive (or three). I personally wouldn't just upload them to an online photo sharing site as your only means of storage. This is mostly because sometimes these sites compress photos, and it is not possible to retain the quality needed to make a large print from it once you return home. (But again, not everyone is me.)
I'll also just share with you about my point-and-shoot camera. The most important factors in my decision were:
ability to fit in my pocket, easy to understand operating, not too expensive, no zoom lens coming out of the camera (the are slow and break easy), and quick flash recharge for when I needed to take lots of pictures quickly. So I decided on the Fuji Finepix camera, and it has been pretty good. (This camera is a slightly newer version of mine, mine was around $140 when I bought it.) All the videos on my blog were made from this camera and more than half of the photos (even Greece).
So that's everything I know. If you've read this far, Congrats! Have a good time traveling!
And because a post without pictures is boring....this is my little buddy, he recently "allowed"
me to take some family portraits for him and his family. What's a busy bee to do?
and go sit in a corner and wait for the rest of us to finish being more awesome than you. 
. (I'm sad to see that the collection of all 7 now costs a measly $50, I'm pretty sure I paid that much per book.) I must mention my status as a Hermione look-alike. Hermione is the beloved-brainy-bff of Harry Potter. And even before there was a movie, I felt a special kinship to the first heroine I'd ever known to sport such frizzy hair.
!)
These are the stairs that the "First Years" stand on with Professor McGonagall 
Then I got to go camping with a few of my bestest friends. Unfortunately, camping turned into "Car Camping" after a long night of trying to find our campsite in the rain. We never found it, we ended up pulling our cars together with a tarp attached to the roofs so we could hang out together. Until it started raining so hard, we were getting wet no matter what. Then we spent a long night sleeping in our cars and not being able to hike the next day.
The following is not my food... but is a perfect example of "a plenty", which means you get plenty of fries and onion rings, to the point that you can't actually see your hamburger.
Ok and now for my favorite part! My babies!!! I babysit for this little guy before I left for Germany. Now I just babysit occasionally. I started when he was 3 months, now he's over a year old. I was shocked to see how much he'd changed. 
I did some pictures for her family when she turned 6 months!
And I spend my afternoons with these two!
I actually let them do this when it rains. I even bought rainboots so I could join them!
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