anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
Posted 14 years ago
Hi,
Myself and 4 friends (Age 19) are hoping to go travelling in Europe in the summer and they have left the organising to me. I was wondering if it is best to simply book travel from England to our first city and back again, with a rough idea of where we would like to go/when/how many days and then just ad lib accommodation and rail travel?? I'm just concerned about finding somewhere to stay before we get knackered and have to stay somewhere dodgy or expensive because we didn't have time to find anywhere else!
We're looking to go for 10 - 14 days but I'm not sure if we're going to do a couple of countries or just one. :S Any advice you can offer would be great because I'm feeling pretty clueless!
Natalie
Peter
Traveller
9333 comments
hi Natalie ...
the best is to get a rough plan of the places you want to visit.
then book your first nights at your first place.
you can leave the UK either by ferry or expensive Eurostar train or especially from the UK worth by a cheap plane as you can't travel for free in your country of residence:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/ferry-london-paris-england-france/f1222[/u]
[u]https://rail.cc/en/london-paris-eurostar-train/f1805[/u]
hostel booking is possible via [ux]https://rail.shop/hostelworld[/ux] ... so you can travel to your first place, stay there for 3 nights and afterwards start with your tour.
during the summer months it is good to book hostels some days in advance. and it is more comfortable to arrive in a new city and have already the bed ready. just drop your bags at the hostel and go to town.
Peter :)
Head
Traveller
101 comments
Hi,
Well, some planning is needed. As for train travel - it''s best to know how to get out of some place before you got into it. Otherwise you may once come to the station only to learn that the last train to your destination has just left. You have plenty of time ahead - use it to figure out possible connections and print out timetables on key routes (night trains and other rare connections), even if you don't make advance reservations.
The same with accomodation. If you don't book anything ahead - at least have the list of possible places with you. Remember that booking hotels ahead is often much cheaper (but normally these bookings are non-refundable and you won't be able to change travel plans). Still there are chains which allow cancellations without penalty at short notice. In hostels it's flat fare in most cases.