How do I get off the urban circuit with a Eurail pass and a backpack?

Judging by the site it seems it works like inter-rail (same ticket but for europeans, also, cheaper). So you can take any class of train, and you don't need a reservation if the train don't need one (so you basically can jump on it without caring). If you want some planning the thing to do it's making a list of places to see with a good guide, than searching on the website of national railroads. Let's say for example you want to go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisi: you go on http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/ferrovie/util/inglese.jsp, and see the route. There are a lot of hostels around europe (and not just in big cities), so the best way to find one might be googling for a place followed by hostel. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could just hop in any train passing by, sleeping in train stations and decide on the spot where to go :) [In Italy slower trains are often awful and very late, so be prepared to waste a lot of time in the train stations of our Banana Republic.]

I made similar trip years ago (Eurail, youth hostels, and a backpack --for a few months). Here were a few of my favorit places and why: -Vaison-la-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaison-la-Romaine this little town had lots of well preserved Roman ruins (supposedly more well preserved than areas of Rome according to the guide, don't know if it's true). In this region of the country (France), you will see lots of small towns, wine country, many Roman ruins...beautiful scenery. At vaison-la-romaine, there is a free tour --it was given in French, but if you have a moderate language level -- very useful. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordoba_Spain Spain The pictures do not do justice, but this town has an incredible mosque. Very large complex with carvings, water streams running through the complex -- I loved it. The only challenging part is that the trains were slow here. I took an overnight train to go from Barcelona to this town. -Many, many places in Italy, including the folloowing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_assisi -this town was interesting because not only do you learn more about the life of a religious person who preached to animals, but you can get free tours of many of the churches from the middle ages (with paintings of the life of St. Francis of Assisi). It's interesting because Franciscan monks give the tour, and they will tell you about the symbolism in the paintins, and the story of his life. You can hike into the hills (easy hike, 2 miles at the most) and see the former place where St Francis used to preach to animals -- monks still live there today; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii - not a small town, near Naples, but you can still see casts from the bodies (everywhere, just glance through some of the excavation sites --back areas), mosaics on the floor, murals on the wall --all still intact even after the volcano erupted and took out that town; Florence and Venice - also not small towns, but beautiful - lots of art -nthing Salzburg - beautiful gardens - I remember seeing a castle with a lot of 'water' works - intricate machinary that run off water, etc. I spent months backbacking, but those are my favorites. Most of the places I stayed were at youth hostels (90% of the time) -- I picked up a 'let's go europe' book that listed these places. Also, in most towns, there was an info booth, or people on the bus helped you out. Have fun.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1741045916/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ It seems like the obvious answer to your question, and I found it pretty helpful when I was travelling around.

http://www.turquoise-voyages.fr/uk/destinations/france-biarritz/surfing-biarritz-france.html Kinda sleepy but ritzy beach town in the U.S. Maybe Newport Beach, CA?

I had a couple of others! Hyeres, a small town in the south of France, right on the Mediterranean... I think it's about an hour fron Niece, but I'm not entirely sure. nthing Heidelberg... it's where I'm going next year for school, and I have yet to hear a bad thing about it. It wasn't touched by world war II, it's university was built in teh 1300s, and it's supposed to be absolutely lovely!

Torun, Poland, where I'll be working in the fall, is a town of about 200,000 people, with a red-brick Hanseatic-era Old Town on the UNESCO World Heritage List. I just visited last weekend and it was gorgeous, cheap, and relatively untouristed (though it was just the beginning of April). It's a little off the main Berlin-Warsaw path, but is totally lovely and worth at least a couple of days if you're in the neighborhood. My train from Warsaw was 41 zloty, which is something like $20, so not super pricey.

From Salzburg you can head down to Bolzano to see Otzi, on to Cinque Terre by way of Verona, then a hop and a skip the Alpes Maritime.

Seconding Interlaken for nice Alpine hiking, and Salzburg for awesomeness. Also: how about Seville? It's a short high-speed train ride from Madrid. Other nice cities: Heidelberg, San Sebastian, Toledo, Dresden (well - interesting, anyway), Carcassonne, or anywhere in southern France is nice. They're all reasonably well-known, but that just means they're easy to get to, and they're not huge urban centers.

this is a bit out of the parts of europe that have been mentioned so far, but i had a great time finding some smaller towns on the algarve (southern) coast of portugal. lagos is of course touristy but some little towns like salema are nice, although the tourists are getting there as well, mostly in the summer. when i went to salema i got off the bus and an old man was there waiting to rent a room to anyone he could wrangle, which was actually a good deal and a nice private room. i think this is common. i've also heard good things about northern portugal in terms of being off the beaten path. this is lonely planet, but i thought this was an http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelstories/podcast/soundssightsofportugal_0806, sounds interesting. figueres is a cool town a short train ride from barcelona, well known because it is where the dali museum is, but a cute little town in itself. you'll have to see about using the eurail pass, the buses are often better than trains on the iberian peninsula but i think eurail might get you a deal on some anyway.