Bigeme

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I am graduating this spring and hopefully going to Grad school in the fall. I want to spend my last summer doing something exciting and worthwhile. I have always wanted to backpack through Europe, but never given it real thought until now.

I mentioned it to a friend who seemed completely down, but I want to get some info before I really propose this to him and set things in motion. I read a little bit on some informational website and it seems totally doable.

My question is basically has anyone done this? Is there any advice you can give me? I would like to spend somewhere in the 4-6 week range there. Is that too much or too little? How much should it cost? I know a little bit of Italian, but other than that I'm pretty useless. I think my friend might know some Spanish but nowhere near fluent.

I went to Italy with my family a few years ago, and from what I gathered on the website I read its always the most crowded, so I might try to avoid that. I was thinking of starting in southern France and spending a few lazy days exploring some coastal towns just to get accustomed to the time change. Other than that, any destinations that I should try for would be greatly appreciated.

BradleyNIN

Yeah... I did it for 6 months. I'll try to jot down some notes and send them to you.

BradleyNIN

What month are you going?

Bigeme

Hopefully late May early June. It's still very much in the planning, but if I can get enough set up in the next few weeks I'd like to buy a plane ticket sometime in January.

BradleyNIN

1. You dont need to know any languages, everyone speaks english.
2. You can fly anywhere on Ryanair for pretty cheap. www.ryanair.com
3. I hate France
4. Amsterdam and Maastricht are awesome cities in the Netherlands.
5. Charleroi Airport in Belgium is a great place to fly in and out of.
6. Be very careful what you take to Germany from the Netherlands
7. Prague is awesome and cheap but hard to get in and out of.
8. Ireland is terriffic, the people are wonderful and everything is reasonably priced. Plus you can ryanair in to Shannon and that gives you a pretty good taste of the countryside.
9. England is too expensive to go to. Its not that much fun either.
10. You've been to Italy, so you know about that, but Greece is fun, and you can use your Eurail pass to get from Bari, Italy to Patras, Greece. Just be sure you take the bus, not the train to Athens from Bari. I flew out of Athens and then had a layover in London and hopped a ryanair flight to Ireland.
11. Check out Switzerland and Prague. If you're worried about the crowded, "touristy" places, then try out these places. Lots of fun.
12. In 12 days, I visited (in this order) Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Greece, London, Ireland, Brussels. It was alot of fun. If you're trying to do 3-4 weeks, you may want to visit Paris, Switz, or Prague. My friends also went to Barcelona and had great things to say. You may want to look into flying into barcelona and starting there. Hope that helps.

Bigeme

fixed thanks a lot for the advice. number 6 made me laugh.