Travel Around European Countries

If you're going to Europe, and planning on traveling, as opposed to staying within the 1 location during your trip, and you don't need to invest a great deal of money, there is two or 3 alternative methods that you'll be in a position to travel throughout the continent.

The initial alternative would be to take what you might call the " traditional conventional" budget alternative, which would typically be backpacking and traveling by train. Nothing wrong with that at all, and by using a pass on the trains (recognized as a Eurailpass, and obtainable in the USA from http://www.raileurope.com/eurorail/index.htm) you can to certainly reduce your spending, whilst journeying widely throughout a lot of countries.

You can find, nonetheless, a number of down sides to this conventional "budget" planning.

Initial, whilst it can usually be exhilarating and exciting to meet and travel with strangers on a train, equally, occasionally, it's nice to have your own space to enjoy the journey, on your own.

Secondly, by definition, trains can only take you in as much as the railway station, and railway stations aren't usually placed where you want them to be placed. This means that, should you have definite "target" places that you want to see, then you may well wind up having to take a train, then a bus or taxi (for who knows what distances) before arriving at your destination. This shouldn't be a problem if the location you so desperately desire to visit is in the city, but what if it not?

And, naturally, trains extend to their timetable, not yours!

An alterative to trains are planes. Flying within Europe is now very low-cost, and can be reasonably easy, particularly if your visiting a country that it widely equipped for tourism.

For instance, correct now, it actually is feasible to fly from the UK to gorgeous Salzburg in Austria for GBP19 1 way (approximately $35) or to Istanbul in Turkey for GBP31. See http://www.easyjet.com or http://www.ryanair.com for a lot more information on availability of flights and fares.

Budget flying, nevertheless, carries with it several of the disadvantages of the trains - crammed into little seats next to somebody you have never met prior to, the necessary delays and so forth.

So, here's my suggestion. If your lucky sufficient to be planning an extended European adventure, (at least 1 month) then make it an actual adventure of which you're in total control.

Travel by car. Then, you can go exactly where you want, whenever you want, you can select your own establishment, and, basically, you're the boss. Possibly you're now thinking, nothing so revolutionary in that, vehicle hire is not exactly a new notion, is it?

No,. it isn't, but I'm not suggesting that you use Hertz, Avis or any of the other global car rental businesses.

I'm suggesting that you do what I did some years ago for a three month tour of Europe.

Get a car - a employed model, something reasonably low-cost that you can to then resell at a later date, before you fly house. Be certain that it's a fairly basic model, something which is widely available throughout Europe (to make sure that any required spare parts is going to be affordable and plentiful) and that it is mechanically straightforward - no turbochargers or superchargers - to make sure that if anything does go wrong with it on your travels, repairs will be basic (i.e. inexpensive) also.

In my case, I traveled to Europe, bought an estate automobile (a station wagon) in France for $750, drove some 10,000kms throughout France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and so on, and sold it for $650 three months later. Apart from a couple of minor repairs (a new battery) and the cost of the gasoline, I lost exactly $100 on the deal.

In the meantime, I had gone exactly where I wanted, when I wanted and executed precisely what I wanted to when I got there! Really, the freedom of outdoors road!