The Trail's Our Thing

Last week I got an e-mail from a former student Jay who graduated in December. His roommate Bret, also a December grad, was a student of mine too. I liked both of these young men very much, and I knew they were planning a trip to Europe soon. Jay wrote to invite me to lunch so they could talk with me about their travel plans and get my input. I jumped at the opportunity to talk travel with two young travelers heading off on their first big adventure.

Jay and Bret are leaving in two weeks and will be in Europe for 11 weeks. They have been friends for eight years and said they have been talking about this trip since high school. Neither of them took a "real' job right after graduation, since they knew they were leaving soon on this trip. So they've had lots of time to dream and plan, and they have a somewhat amazing itinerary... definitely not a Slow Travel plan!

They have Eurail passes and will carry backpacks and stay in hostels. They even hope to do some "couchsurfing," an interesting approach to free/low-cost travel. Their trip begins in London and ends in Cairo. Here are at least some of the places that they'll visit in between, at least those I can remember:

Dublin, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Paris, the Normandy beaches, Mont St. Michel, Barcelona, Nice, Interlaken, Lucerne, Munich, Salzburg, Hallstatt, Vienna, Zagreb, Prague, Rome, Florence, Venice... I know there were some other Eastern European cities, and maybe another place or two in Italy. I have probably forgotten a third of the places.. It was an amazing itinerary really-- well planned out. They have done some very good research. Most places they will stay just two or three days (four or five is the longest), and sometimes they will sleep on night trains. They want to rent a car for a few days in Ireland and also in northern France. I was pleased that many of the places they want to visit are places that I love.

They are hoping to do the 11 week trip for about $7500 each. It helps that they have Buddy Passes from a friend who works for Delta, so their airfare to/from Europe is minimal. They are going to take a few intra-European flights.

We talked about their itinerary and I offered a few suggestions. And we talked about some of the practicalities of traveling in Europe. These are two bright young guys with lots of interests. They are so excited about seeing all these wonderful places they've read about. I know this will be only the beginning of their love affair with Europe.

I wanted to do a trip like this after high school, but I didn't have anyone to travel with. (This was back when you could do Europe on $5 a day.) I remember writing away to all the Tourist Offices and all the exciting information I got back. I started a European Trip Fund, but I didn't end up going when I was 17 or 18... I didn't make that first trip until I was 35, and I never did a Eurail/hostel/backpacking trip. It was fun today to share in the excitement of two young people heading off on a trip like that. They'll be keeping a blog and I'll be following along.