Last summer a group of friends and I—all college-age—took a 10-day trip from LA. to Europe). It was my first time on a non-family trip, as well as my first time overseas or flying alone. Our planned itinerary: 2 days each in Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. 5 countries in 10 days (it turned out to be 6, we ended up on a spur-of-the-moment bus to Bratislava) is exactly the sort of rushed itinerary I see newcomers post on this subreddit somewhat frequently, so as someone who had actually done it before subscribing here, I thought I'd share my experience.
Did I have fun? Yes, it was a blast! Was it perfect? No, no, nope, definitely not. Here’s a list of things I thought we did right, and also a list of many things we definitely did wrong.
Things we did right:
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Stayed on top of flight fares and policies. We started keeping an eye on ticket prices 9 months before the trip, and were prepared to buy tickets as soon as we found fares below an agreed-upon threshold; my round trip flight to Paris ended up under $300 (on WOW, but for a student on a budget I can’t complain). We did the research on things like buying tickets on a travel card for the insurance or getting around ATM withdrawal fees (I opened a Charles Schwab account), which ended up helping a lot as well when things went wrong.
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Kept it relaxed, and accepted before starting the trip that we’re not going to be able to see or do everything, or even close to it. There wasn’t any consternation about missing out on something or wasting time, because we didn’t have many expectations of what we’d be disappointed about missing—and the things we would be disappointed about missing, we prioritized first.
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Stayed flexible about new or unplanned experiences. Most of our best excursions on the trip were unplanned; we ended up on a day trip to Bratislava, for instance, which was a surprise destination that I very much enjoyed. Other times we went based off the recommendations of other travelers at the bus stop or locals we met along the way, and those activities were a blast, too.
Things we did wrong:
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Not plan in any rest time. My flight to Paris was delayed, and I ended up meeting up with the rest of my group at around 7 PM in the city. At this point I had been awake for around 30 hours between the trip to LA, the wait at the airport, and me not being able to sleep in vehicles, but I was determined to make up for lost time by compressing the Day 1 itinerary (the sightseeing parts of it) into the next 3 hours. We were staying at a friend’s place, and between jet lag and excitement I wasn’t able to sleep that night, either. The next day, we stayed out late and didn’t get back home until 3 AM, a few hours before the flight to Amsterdam. Anyways, I managed to sleep for about an hour at the airport itself before boarding, but again couldn’t sleep on the flight. Fast forward another few hours and I unwittingly knocked out on a park bench in Vondelpark, after almost 4 days of no sleep. My friends let me nap for another hour, but I kept falling asleep that day (the highlight is probably me at the Foodhallen passing out on an empty plate turned upside-down as a “pillow”). Exhaustion hit again in Prague; we had a two late nights out in Vienna and didn’t sleep before our train to Prague. We arrived at the AirBnB and knock out at 8 PM, and we woke up the next day at 6 PM. We more or less wasted a whole day in Prague just catching up on sleep—the rest of our time in the city was great and my friends didn’t mind at all, but I thought it was pretty bad.
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Trying too hard to do things as a group/not sufficiently planning around individual limitations. One member of our four-person group was vehemently against spending money on tours, museum tickets, activities, etc. It wasn’t a budget restriction, he didn’t like doing those sorts of things, and got a lot of enjoyment out of finding things that were cheap or discounted. It worked out great for our flight fares, but was a hassle when we wanted to see the Anne Frank museum or the Louvre, for instance (we ended up doing neither). Another member of our group was on a budget, which was understandable. In our planned finances I said the trip might be up to $1500 including airfare per person, which I thought was reasonable for a 10 day trip in western/central Europe, especially staying in mostly hostels. He agreed and bought the tickets, but when we actually were on the trip we found out that he didn’t have that nearly that sort of money allocated for the trip, which also affected what we could and couldn’t do since for some reason we all had the notion we had to do everything together. By the time we got to Vienna, me and the other friend finally suggested splitting up if we wanted to do something the other two didn’t, and I think all of us benefited from that decision. We still did most things as a group, but everyone being able to do what they wanted to do was such a simple change that didn’t even cross our minds before this.
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Related to the above, we kept “running out of things to do,” which sounds terrible but felt true at the time. For instance, we spent our second day in Amsterdam (probably my low point of the trip) doing next to nothing because I simply could not find anything through Google, word of mouth, or otherwise that the group wanted to do. We went to the Foodhallen a second time; I took the aforementioned extended nap; we walked around for about 6 hours without actually entering any stores or doing any activities; we ate dinner; we then walked around another few hours, again without actually stopping anywhere, before calling it a night. In total we visited just 1 place (the Foodhallen), had two meals, and otherwise just walked around the city for the other 10 hours because we had either done everything on my list or considered it unviable (anything that cost money was automatically out of the picture, and by the time we thought about leaving the city it was too late to actually do anything in our destination before having to head back to the hostel). The reasons were a combination of all of the above: poor planning, travel companion restrictions, and shortness on time.
So if you have some 2-days-a-country itinerary lined up, I would give the following takeaways.
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Is it doable? Yes. Is it enjoyable? I had fun on my trip, but at the same time I essentially wasted two days of it by being exhausted. If I were to do a rapidfire trip again, I would try to spend at least 3 days in a city, just to slow down the pace and give myself time to recuperate. People here suggest sticking to one or two places for a weeklong trip for a reason, but it's understandable to want to see a lot of different places without necessarily wanting to get deep into the culture and atmosphere. Still, at least 3 days is what I'd recommend to avoid severe burnout.
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Consider sticking to a small-ish geographic region. I can't say I particularly enjoyed waking up early after next to no sleep multiple days in the row to catch the planes to Amsterdam and Prague. On the other hand, I think part of the reason I enjoyed Bratislava so much is the lack of rush associated with it; it wasn't on the itinerary in the first place so there was nothing that needed to be done, and the train back to Vienna was short and hassle-free.
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This one seems obvious in hindsight, but if it's your first trip it might be taken for granted. Make sure you know your travel partners and their preferences. I learned the hard way that some people have very, very different tastes when it comes to travel.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip and considered it a learning experience, and I think I'll look back on it fondly and remember the moment I arrived in Amsterdam and thought, "yeah, I can spend a full day here even though I haven't slept since I left L.A.!" I'm going to the UK for another 2-week trip this month and have definitely learned from it myself. Best of luck to anyone else planning their first multi-city trip!
Submitted June 27, 2019 at 08:58PM by clapyourhands59 https://ift.tt/2IURgcm
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