This time last year I was studying abroad in Galway, Ireland for the semester. I went with people I barely knew and although the adjustment was a struggle at first, I ended up having one of the most formative experiences of my life. Galavanting around Europe every weekend, we indulged ourselves in new cultures and were able to see what the world had to offer. That being said, I was unaware of just how much planning should and needed to go into these trips to make them successful. The inspiration for this article came from my friends and I recently planning our post-graduate trip to Europe. For this trip, I will be much more prepared because of my time abroad, and so, here are some of my three biggest tips for anyone planning a trip to Europe.
- Outline a ROUGH itinerary
Giving yourself the structure of the day by planning an activity or knowing that everyone in the group wants to see a specific site can help give you an idea as to what your trip will look like. These activities don’t have to be expensive – in fact they don’t have to cost any money at all! For example, in Paris, my friends and I knew that we wanted to watch the sunset at the foot of the Eiffel Tower with a glass of wine and a baguette – tell me you’re a tourist without telling me you’re a tourist, right? At the beginning of the day we looked at what time the sun would be setting and worked our day back from then. We structured our day so that we started with the attractions the farthest away from the Eiffel Tower and made our way closer to the Tower in time for the sunset. On our way to the Tower, we stopped by a little market to get our wine and baguette, and had a wonderful evening!
- Just because you didn’t plan on a country, doesn’t mean you won’t have fun
For one of our trips, we wanted to go to Amsterdam, but the tickets from Dublin to Amsterdam were expensive and out of our budget. We weren’t quite ready to give up on our destination, so we looked at plane tickets to neighboring countries and cities to see if we could find anything cheaper. We saw flights to Brussels, Belgium for half the price of tickets to Amsterdam. None of us had ever really heard about Brussels being a huge destination, but we figured, why not? We ended up staying in Brussels for 48 hours and took a train afterwards to Amsterdam. Those 48 hours were easily some of my favorite memories from study abroad. We didn’t have any expectations going into the country and had no plans. We quickly looked online for an activity for us to do to see the city and found a bar crawl that was popular for tourists. We ended up having a great night and meeting people from all over Europe and even Australia. If the original tickets hadn’t been so expensive, we never would have even thought about Brussels as an option. And in my opinion, 48 hours was not enough and I hope to travel back someday soon to see the rest of the city.
- Don’t feel like you have to pack everything
I love having options, especially when it comes to clothes. Traveling every weekend on a budget, however, did not alot for me being able to bring my whole wardrobe with me. We only took our backpacks with us on our trips, which meant that everything I needed for the weekend needed to fit in my LLBean backpack. It was a struggle at first, but I soon got down to a system of packing only the necessities and being sure to leave room for souvenirs. For me, one pair of shoes (which I wore on the plane) worked, but they were always shoes I knew I would be comfortable walking in. Since I was abroad during the spring semester, it was pretty chilly in Europe for the majority of my travels, so I also needed some kind of jacket. Most of the places we went only required a medium weight jacket since Europe doesn’t really, or at least in my experience, get as cold as it does in the United States. The one exception to this rule was when we went to Finland. It was freezing. It’s worth it to invest in good socks with thick soles since you’ll be walking so much (I ended up having to buy all new socks since I wore through them so fast). I also found that one pair of jeans usually worked out fine and I tried to bring my most versatile pair so I could match different tops with it. In most airports in Europe, all of your liquids have to be in a clear plastic bag – which is sometimes provided and sometimes not – so I always kept them at the top of my backpack for easy access.
Being able to travel around the world was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It wasn’t always easy to navigate new countries, different languages, and even public transportation sometimes, but I would not have changed any of it. I hope that these tips can help you out with any trips you plan soon!