Julianna Conlon

Any sensible person who wishes to travel the world understands you must fly to reach your destination of choice. The problem here encompasses which online engine to use. I am sure you have heard of the various ones out there such as Travelocity, Kayak and Chepoair. They all preach the same thing; the lowest flights around. Each of them command you to go out and comb through their website to find the best deal while at the same time compare prices of the other search engines in hopes that you purchase one of their flights, cruises or vacation packages.

Thinking about backpacking? If you are an adventurous type of person who is not nervous to get down and dirty and enjoy making plans on the fly then I would highly recommend backpacking. I backpacked through Europe to four different countries and eight different cities during the summer of 2010 and it was the absolute best experience of my entire life.

So you are all hyped-up because you are set in stone about backpacking through Europe. However, you are unsure where to begin. Essentially, you need my guide to backpacking Europe. My advice is to begin by picking a travel buddy to go with because you do not want to go alone. I am sure you have heard the phrase (the more the merrier) however, this does not apply to backpacking.

Let us picture for a moment that you are in Venice, Italy enjoying the Ponte de Rialto and reflecting on your day. Tomorrow you leave for Florence but have not decide the route you will take to get there. You assume that a train should be taken but you are not sure of the means to get the ticket. You could do one of two things. Either you buy the train ticket last minute at the train station for a high price and end up having to wait hours until your train leaves or you buy them ahead of time which allows you to save a decent amount of money.

The next destination on my wild backpacking journey was Liverpool. There was absolutely no way I would be in England and miss out on seeing Liverpool. What is in Liverpool? Well, are you a Beatles fan? Ask no more. Liverpool is the hometown and birthplace of the infamous Beatles. It is where their legend began. How did were we able to get to Liverpool from London? What a silly question! None other than Rail Europe! It was around a two hour train ride as well.

Ah, sweet Ireland. Following Liverpool, England came Dublin, Ireland. We took Ryanair to get there and shockingly, the flight was about forty-five minutes. I have always had high expectations of Ireland and wished to see it because my father and his family are from there. I think I fell in love with Dublin the minute we walked out of the airport. Could it have been the sites? People? Surely, it was.

The first stop on my crazy backpacking tour started with London. As a matter of fact, it ended with London as well. You see, I purchased my round-trip ticket from London and then worked my way from there. Overall, London was a total success. I had been to London the year before on a guided tour through Educational Tours however, I experienced so much more backpacking than I would have on any guided tour.

So you want to backpack through Europe, huh? You are and adventurous person and have seen the wonders of European cities on the travel and history channel so you conclude that exploring Europe backpacking style is for you. Excellent. Well, what is stopping you? Is the fear of flying, doing something entirely new or simply the cost. It always tends to be the cost that stops us of from doing what we want or what we love.

Have you recently gone back and forth contemplating whether or not you should buy travel insurance for your getaway? Are you wondering if the investment would be worth the money and if so, would the company stand behind everything they promise? For all of you out there on the fence of this situation, I have wonderful news for you. Travel insurance is a perfect way to ensure yourself that in case anything were to happen on your trip, you would be covered.

Whenever you travel in an unfamiliar territory make sure to follow these backpacking tips and your trip is sure to run smoothly. Number one, as I have mentioned before, the first and foremost concern when traveling is your safety. With that being said, be smart. It only takes one dumb decision to put you into an unwanted and potentially harmful situation.