Coming into this year, my senior year, I had every intention of taking a long backpacking trip to Europe with two of my best friends from St. Mikes. Flash forward to Thanksgiving and they had bailed. That meant no booking flights, no planning of routes and no deciding on where to fly in and out of. It meant no bar crawls in Ireland, soccer games in Germany or pizza in Italy. It meant no late nights watching the sunrise over global monuments or flirting with attractive men with fabulous accents.
It also means that I am still itching with the travel bug. Now, the question is: what are my options for traveling solo?
One of the best solutions: Contiki Vacations.
Upon entering the website, I was able to explore trips by destination or by type of trip. The great thing about Contiki is that individuals can travel solo and they will pair you with a same-sex roommate for the trip. In fact their website claims that more than half their travelers go on the trip alone. I could go to Egypt or Australia (or almost anywhere for that matter) by myself. I could also decide that I only want to go on trips that involve diving and snorkeling or skiing. The world is my oyster. It would be overwhelming if it wasn’t so amazing.
My first search was for a trip to Europe between June 2013 and September 2013. I sorted them by price: low to high. I’m on a budget like everyone else. Some of the options are simply a day long. A few are for 4 days like this one in Pamplona for $309.
I am interested in something a little longer and more expansive. I want to see a lot of the world and I want to completely dive in. I’m not interested in simply skimming the service, so I organized my search by duration.
Obviously, a 48-day trip is more expensive. I certainly don’t have the money to pay for something like that.
(Want to hear my brilliant solution? I’m going to send out graduation notifications to all my friends and family. Let’s think of it as a personal fundraiser to continue my education on an epic foreign adventure.)
Now that I’ve established a theoretical way to fund this expedition, let me tell you about the Contiki vacation option I am most excited about. It’s a 47-day, budget trip that visits 24 World Heritage Sites. It starts in London and from there it makes its way to places like Barcelona for flamenco dancing, Rome for a tour of the Vatican and the Red Sea for a cruise.
According to the widget on the Contiki website, the total cost of this type of trip is $6,284. That number includes estimates for meals not included with the tour and internal flights.
While I remain unfunded for my post-graduate travels, Contiki seems to be an awesome option for safe, organized travel to exotic lands that will broaden my horizons.