New Grads - 3 weeks in Europe!

Parent Cafe
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<p>My two youngest graduate from college next month! 5 days after the last graduation they are both traveling to Europe. The older has never been abroad but the youngest spent 6 weeks in Barcelona two summers ago.
They have their round trip air fare - JFK to Barcelona. They have a 3 country Eurail pass for 7 days of travel.
The plan is to fly into Barcelona, after a day or two take the train for Paris for a week, then to Rome for a week and then back to Barcelona for the final week.</p>

<p>They are “backpacking”; traveling light with just one back pack they can carry. They are planning on staying in Hostels but have not booked any yet.</p>

<p>Anyone have any suggestions, advice or thoughts?</p>

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<p>Son did a tour of Spain. To my complete surprise, he could not find a washing machine anywhere. He wound up trying to wash his clothes in the hotel bathroom sink and hang them to dry. In a couple of the locations, which were very humid, this was pretty much disastrous because nothing dried. I am still rather mystified by this situation and wonder how other travelers in Spain get their clothes clean.</p>

<p>I would love to see a posting of tips and hints after they come back. My son might want to do a similar trip when he graduates. What a wonderful adventure!</p>

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<p>This may be a busy travel season in those destinations. Finding reasonably priced, safe, well-located, and clean lodging takes planning. The internet is a good place to start researching hostels; now is the time. Our young travelers had success figuring out “non-sketchy” places to stay by reading reviews, descriptions, etc. Unfortunately, I can’t help with specifics for the listed cities. In some places, there are also religious organizations or colleges that offer rooms in a no-frills, but comfortable setting.</p>

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<p>in the big cities I would recommend they prebook hostels. It can be very hard to find accommodations major European in high season and hotels are extremely expensive. I just helped plan and book my daughter and her fiance’s honeymoon and many hotels in Venice and Paris were already booked up for June (the “cheap” hotels were still in the $200+ range for central locations). </p>

<p>Long haul train journeys also often require seats to be pre-reserved.</p>

<p>Tripadvisor is a great resource for travel planning. They have reviews of accommodations from real people, if you click on and also forums where you can ask and receive tips, often from local experts. </p>

<p>There is a youth hostel association they can join which I think gives a little discount on the price of the hostels. There are sites online with hostel reviews. I looked at some a few years back when I was planning a trip. Definitely worth checking reviews out as they will tell you whether a hostel is more of a party place or not, clean or not, etc etc</p>

<p>I would expect most cities to have laundromat facilities of some sort. I know in Amsterdam we asked the hotel and they directed us to a nearby laundry where we left the clothes and they washed and dried them and we picked them up. Quite reasonable priced as far as I recall. Other times we washed undies etc in the sink and dried them overnight. Never really had any problem in that area.</p>

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<p>We have talked about clothes. Some hostels have washing machines. They can always rinse their undies out in the sink. They are not buying new clothes and will probably be able to ditch dirty undies and tees along the way. I have told them to get used to wearing the same thing over and over -no one will care! </p>

<p>They have researched hostels and will book one or two nights in Barcelona when they first arrive. I do want them to book Paris as well - they want to be flexible.</p>

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<p>My daughter had a friend who went to Rome one summer without prebooking a hostel and after traipsing around and not finding a vacancy ended up foolishly sleeping in a park. Got robbed, but fortunately not injured. I would be really cautious about going to major cities without pre-booking a place (even if they at least do it a few days before they get there).</p>

<p>And, as I said before, even with a eurrail pass, pre reserved seats are often a necessity on the long haul trains. We did a 4 week 5 country trip a few years back and had to prebook seats on all the long haul fast speed trains that took us between countries.</p>

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<p>S1 spent three weeks in China post-undergrad. He stayed mostly in hostels and sometimes booked overnight trains as a way to save money. He found reliable information online and made reservations whenever he could. Your sons will need a “sheet bag” for staying in some hostels and a travel towel (quick drying) is nice to have. Son did not feel he needed it in China but I think a money belt is a good idea.</p>

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<p>Their train passes are not scheduled to arrive until May 7th. I don’t think they can reserve their seats until the passes arrive and then there won’t be enough time for the reservation to arrive prior to May 16 departure?
I don’t know if they can get their reservations electronically?</p>

<p>If it comes down to it they may need to hang until Barcelona until they can get a train to Paris or Rome whichever comes first.
They insist on being flexible which is making me crazy.</p>

<p>We do have travel towels and sleep sacks on the list - thanks for the tip!
BTW - they are daughters.</p>

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<p>My daughter traveled by herself all over Europe the summer after her junior year. I met her for a week in Paris, but she was on her own for the rest of the time. She traveled by bus, train & air, sometime with last minute changes. (Jokes about Ryan Air still go over real well with her). I think the smartphone with an international data plan was pretty much indispensable – she could make reservations on line & easily check train & bus schedules. </p>

<p>And as far as “flexible” – not a problem, my d. made lots of changes and unanticipated side trips along the way. The other advantage of the phone + data plan was adherence to my “tweet” rule – I asked her to send either a text message or a post to twitter once each day just to let the family know where she was and that she was safe. So typically we would get messages like: “In Budapest. Not dead.” I still want the daily messages when she travels on her own - she just spent a week in Southeast Asia in March – though I am more relaxed at times when she has a traveling partner. </p>

<p>In all of the years of all of the independent travel, my d. has never run into any serious problems beyond a damaged camera and a few lost items of clothing. Plus a couple of credit card snafus along the way.</p>

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<p>My soon to be grads- D-college and S-high school, will take a similar trip beginning in June. They’ll start in Madrid, head to Paris, Zurich, and end in Rome. The cost to fly to Madrid and back from Rome was basically the same as a round-trip to Madrid and saved an extra eurail pass day. Their eurail pass is more limited. Fortunately they agreed to dates to leave each city so DH scheduled their reservations. They booked several hostels with the knowledge that if it’s really bad, they can find something else. They will stay with a friend in Madrid. (I hope!)</p>

<p>We’re skipping the sleep sacks as most of the hostels they have booked have linens provided or available for rent for very little. Same with towels. This will leave more room in the backpacks. They’ll take wash clothes though. They also looked for hostels with free internet access. Several had free computers available. Some included breakfast.</p>

<p>Our biggest hurdle right now is the backpack! Any suggestions for a backpack that meets carry-on requirements, is relatively inexpensive, and sturdy? They decided given the hostel stays they will each just take a carry-on. </p>

<p>I’ve also seen “city-pass” type tickets available for many of the sites in each of these cities. Anyone have any knowledge about those?</p>

<p>I am also wondering what type of locks the lockers available in most hostels use? Just a standard high school locker type lock?</p>

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<p>My daughter did her traveling with this type of bag:
<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/6wz8zgo[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/6wz8zgo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I don’t think that’s the actual bag she had, but same idea: it’s a wheeled carryon with a day-pack size backpack that can be attached to the wheeled case, or worn separately as a backpack.</p>

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<p>DS also did a 3 week Europe trip post graduation…Used a hiking backpack we bought at REI which he checked and took his school backpack as a carry-on. His group pre-booked their hostels and had a fairly firm itinerary. They changed their bookings one or two nights, but kept with the ‘plan’ most of the time. Gave him a Eurail pass for a holiday gift, airline tix for graduation…Wonderful trip!</p>

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<p>after college graduation, I went to Europe for 4 weeks with one of my roommates, so I’ll share some stuff:</p>

<p>absolutely, you need to prebook train tickets for overnight trains. There is an extra cost that the Eurail does not cover, just so you know. Some trains you can get on/off with the Eurail pass (like, if you wanted to take a day trip from Rome to Pisa, or spend the day at Versailles) with just the Eurail pass by using a travel day.</p>

<p>The hostels will generally have maps (or can tell you where to get one) and explain how the mass transit works in the city you are in. All the hostel workers I encountered spoke fluent English (not surprising, but good to know).</p>

<p>Make sure when you buy train tickets, that you find out what station the train is leaving from. Just because the Barcelona to Paris train goes to station X does not mean that the Paris to Rome train will be leaving from station X. There are multiple stations in the big European cities, and you do not want to show up at the wrong one. Additionally, the trains leave on time. If you are not there, you are not getting on the train. Make sure you allow enough time to get from wherever you are to the train station, and enough time to navigate the train station (in a foreign country and foreign language) to get to the track where your train will be leaving.</p>

<p>I used a hiking backpack. Don’t remember the specific one. It was a couple hundred dollars though. So I don’t know if that counts as cheap. Most people I saw had this kind of backpack. Please remember if you are packing shampoo in your carryon, there are rules about container sizes, etc. Of course, you can buy shampoo in Europe. Europe has all the luxuries of the USA (at least the parts mentioned in the OP).</p>

<p>I recommend booking your hostel for the next city before you leave the city you are in. That always worked find for my friend and me. There are multiple websites where you can search all the hostels in the city. Lots of hostels have a few computers in the lobby that you can use.</p>

<p>There are laundromats… we used them a couple times, but often just did some laundry in a sink, even though sometimes hostels specifically tell you not to do that.</p>

<p>Most hostels that I stayed at included the sheets/blankets in the price or charged a couple Euro for them. Definitely something you can skip if you don’t want to carry them everywhere you go.</p>

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<p>Most of the hostels I stayed in didn’t have much in the way of lockers… sometimes they did, but then generally not big enough for your backpack. I carried everything of substantial value with me everyday (passport, cash, credit cards, etc). I didn’t have a lock and there was never trouble. I did see some people traveling with a bike lock, but I think you can just take a knife and cut whatever strap you put the bike lock through, so that wouldn’t do much if someone really wants your bag.</p>

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<p>There is (or, was) a boat from Barcelona to Rome that takes Eurail… met some people in Rome that used it. Might be worth looking into if they would enjoy a boat ride instead of the train.</p>

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<p>The EuRail passes came yesterday! Thanks for all the good tips everybody!</p>

<p>If they can’t get their train booked prior to departure - they will go to the train station upon arrival in Barca and book it then. They do have some flexibility in day and destination.</p>

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<p>JustAMomOf4 - my son spent a semester in Barcelona. It is a wonderful city but it has one downside - it does NOT have good train access. My son did most of his weekend travel from Barcelona on Vueling Airlines - based in Barca and reasonably priced. If your kids are starting in Barcelona they might want to fly to another city and then start taking the trains. </p>

<p>(Actually 2 downsides - Barcelona has a lot of pickpockets. S got robbed by them TWICE. But other than that, its an awesome city!)</p>

<p>I had bought 2 guidebooks for S, which he used it to find and pre-book hostels. I think he had a fairly good experience at all the hostels he stayed at. The books were “The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget” and “Rick Steves’ Spain.” TripAdvisor is also a good way to find hostels that are decent in advance.</p>

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<p>It’s been a month and I just thought I would check in…
The girls are in Europe. They flew to Barcelona a week ago. Found they could not get a night train until Monday night so on Friday they took a day train to Paris.
They leave Paris on Friday for Rome.
So far… mostly so good. They don’t communicate often - just posting photos and videos on facebook. They certainly are not answering my questions - lol. They have shared that Paris is not romantic is dirty and smells like pee. lol. It’s been quite cool and rainy but improving today and tomorrow.
They are flying by the seat of their pants and so far so good.<br>
As far as packs go they each opted for an internal frame pack - one is 45 L and the other is 50 L. I have not heard complaints so I suppose they are working well.</p>

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<p>We insisted our kids, just out of high school and traveling with like-minded friends, have hostels booked prior to departure. They adjusted their itinerary while overseas and had some difficulty with one local re-booking but they eventually found accommodation. France seemed to be the busiest destination. Some of the hostels were booked up for June as early as January! It was a very memorable trip and I’m happy to say they survived. Emailed occasionally and we moms relayed the info among ourselves!</p>

<p>The ‘tradition’ here is high school seniors go to the beach with the goal of drinking and partying (Admittedly this is mom’s POV!) so we were glad when they chose to do the Europe trip. At least their drinking would be legal!!! We had frequent flyer points and gave Eurail passes for holiday/birthday gifts. They earned their lodging and spending money. </p>

<p>I must say they contracted ‘travel bug’ as a result of this trip and will probably always love to travel. Glad they are having fun and congratulations to your graduates!</p>

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<p>My d is in Europe too! She is studying at Oxford till June 9th and then pack backing. At this point she has flights and hotel to Istanbul booked and flights from there to Vienna. Plan is then to take a train to Praque, then Berlin and fly to Piazza and travel to Florence. We are meeting up with her and friends in Barcelona June 27.</p>

<p>She is having a blast. At this point in her trip we are hearing from her and are quite relaxed. They are spending a few days next week in Paris. Not looking forward to June when they head out on their own. I know this is an experience of a lifetime, but I can’t help being a little anxious.</p>

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<p>Bumping this thread to see how all the kids in Europe are doing.</p>

<p>D is now in Berlin. Counting down the days till we meet up with her in Barcelona next week.</p>