<p>EMS = Eastern Mountain Sports. It’s a sporting goods store, specializing in outdoor sports.</p>
<p>Schengen Visa - most of the continental European countries are in the “Schengen zone,” which means one Visa gets you into all of them and you don’t have to have your passport checked or clear customs every time you go from one country to another. I don’t think you need a Visa if you’re staying less than 90 days anyway, but the Schengen zone makes it easy to travel around Europe. </p>
<p>Echo the recommendation to get a guide book. DS toured a bunch of worthwhile stuff his first week in Barcelona (his study abroad city), I asked him how he knew where to go and he said, “The guidebook you got me for Christmas, of course.”</p>
<p>I backpacked for an entire summer with then-boyfriend, now H, while in college. It was an unforgettable experience. I picked up a lot of budgeting, planning and problem solving skills and met all sorts of interesting people (including the Austrian student who, when learning we were Jewish, earnestly asked, as if she were doing anthropological research, “So tell me, why do Jews stab people in the back so much?”). We went where we wanted to go, vegged out and did nothing when we felt like it, didn’t answer to anyone or anything but each other and our very thin wallets. It was the summer of a lifetime and I highly recommend the experience!</p>
<p>man there are a lot of backpacking threads here recently.</p>
<p>I strongly advise against the tours. Get a Eurail pass</p>
<p>someone mentioned cheap planes. They are definitely an option, and I met some people who used them (also met a few people who used the boats, like Barcelona to Rome), just remember that these budget airlines to not fly to the main airports. The money you save can be lost in inconvenience or paying to get from the airport 2 hours away to your hostel.</p>
<p>I recommend [Hostels</a> & Youth Hostels Worldwide - Online Bookings](<a href=“http://www.hostelworld.com%5DHostels”>http://www.hostelworld.com) to look for hostels… that is what I used. Has traveler reviews and all the bookings were fine (if you read reviews about trouble, don’t stay there!)</p>
<p>I strongly suggest having a travel buddy. You don’t have to do all the same stuff, but you can do some stuff together, and least meet up at nights and stay in the same place if you decide to explore different parts of the city in the same day. Should disaster strike, a travel partner is a source of help that is right there, not halfway around the world. Travel partner can vouch for your identity if passport is lost (you should have copies of passport info in your bag, can put a copy of yours in your buddy’s bag), etc.</p>
<p>they did collect tickets and passports when I road on overnight trains (I was there summer 2008), for some reason. Always brought them back in the morning though… except once, but we found the person and got them fine. Miniature freakout/adventure though, lol.</p>
<p>An advantage of traveling by rail is that the stations are located in the centers of major cities. Right there where you want to be! Traveling by rail is a much more relaxed way of traveling than flying.</p>
<p>We will abandon S in Geneva after visiting family. This is his high school graduation gift of freedom. He has to make it back to Madrid for flight home 3 weeks later. He plans to meet a friend who moved to Paris last year and take off for the three weeks. they are frantically skyping and planning and scheming how to get to get to Rome stopping in various places and return to Spain to meet deadline. Think amazing race with two goofy teenagers.</p>
<p>Anyway, the biggest problem is really where to stay…looking at hostels but they are fortunate to have a few friends in top spots like Geneva, Rome, where they can crash…I am enjoying watching him scrimp and save knowing that what is in his savings account when he leaves the US is all that will sustain him for three weeks…fun. I forsee some nights in train stations. He is still trying to decide whether to get Eurail pass or do a few flights…fyi my H and I and two kids are all fling from Madrid to London on Ryanair for 15 euros each…no joke…15 euros.</p>
<p>Beware with Ryanair - your ticket is cheap, but they charge you for EVERYTHING else. S just flew them from Barcelona to Munich. Cost him more to check a bag than it did for the ticket (it’s the end of his Study Abroad semester so he has all his stuff with him). </p>
<p>S and his friends traveled all over this spring - Amsterdam, Prague, Munich, Rome, Athens, Bilbao, Grenada… and they stayed in hostels the whole time. Never had a problem that I know of, and they were cheap (16 - 30 Euro/night). I think they usually found them online. </p>
<p>A friends son couch-surfed and used hostels through Europe for almost a year after college graduation. [CouchSurfing</a> - Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time](<a href=“http://www.couchsurfing.org/]CouchSurfing”>http://www.couchsurfing.org/) His parents weren’t real keen on it right away but it worked out fine. He did call or sent a text home daily.</p>