What is the best backpacking company?

How to go backpacking through Europe?

• I know this sounds like a stupid question. My best friends and I are currently in high school and we will graduate in a few years. The summer before we start college we want to go backpacking through Europe together but we want to do it cheaply. Where exactly do you sleep? And what do you do in a day? We don't know very much about backpacking. What do you put in your backpacks? Do you go through a company or something? What kind of transportation do you use? Do you sleep with a bunch of other people? Is that dangerous? How much walking do you actually do? And roughly how much does it cost? We'll be fresh out of high school so we won't have much to spend, (can't afford hotels). We'll be coming from the United States but we haven't yet planned what countries we want to go through nor how long we will stay. What's a good length of time to stay? We're considering France, England, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Germany, Norway, and Finland. We would love to go to all of those countries but understand that isn't practical. Any insight will help us so much!

• Answer:

  I would cut down the number of places to go...a LOT! It really is better to see less places better than more places less. I wanted to go to a whole lot of places but didn;t get to them all but I was happy with the places I went to. There is a saying that you take half as much as you think you need and twice as much money. Remember you can always wash clothes or pick clothes/shoes etc if you need them, don't waste space in your backpack with things you proabably won't need. Hostels are the cheapest accomodation and sharing with others is the cheapest in a hostel. I stayed in a couple of hostels and found them really social places where you meet a lot of other travellers. I met up with a girl I met in Venice in Rome as we were there at the same time, so its a good place for that. Some countries and cites will be more pricey than others and you can look through the websites I give to give you some ideas as to what you will pay per night. Note too that a lot of cheaper places tend to be further from the town center which means more time travelling to and from it and the cost of transport, so take that into account, sometimes its worth it and others not. I stayed in a campground that took 40-50mins by bus (which was 4 euros each way) to get into Florence. The accommodation was way cheaper than those in Florence but the time there and back was annoying at times! Timewise, thats completey up to you and of course it will depend on money!! 4-6weeks would give you time to see a few places but not get too tired....well you probably will but thats travelling for you. The other thing is to make sure you stay in a place for several nights to give you time to chill out! I came back to my hotel one day to sleep one afternoon as I was so damn tired!! You will find you walk..a LOT, so you REALLY need good walking shoes, that is probably the most important thing!! Getting day/week passes in cities for transport generally pays off and you can use public transport to get you around as much as you like to save time and your feet! Going east will help save you some money, although some places are getting pricey now. I did not go to scandanavian countries as they were truely expensive (even when I was earning the GB pound which was better than the euro at that time!!!!) , so you might want to cut them out of your list. I can recommend Prague as a wonderful city to visit. it rates with Paris as my favourite city, its incredibly pretty and cheaper than some other cities. Croatia and Slovenia are good options and none were places that I even THOUGHT about visiting before I went! Croatia has some very beautiful coastlines, and Lake Bled in Slovenia is lovely. I would cut your list of places by 1/2 to 2/3 and look at all the wonderful things you can do in and around it eg I had 5 days in paris and still had things to do!, In Florence I went to nearby Pisa, Lucca and Sienna, in Rome I did a guided day tour to Pompeii which was great ( and some of those day tours are worthwhile as they often include lunch on full day ones, transport, quicker entry into places as well as the inside info).