First European Trip - Any Help Appreciated

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 13:56:39 GMT, Rita wrote:

My budget for travel in Europe on a daily basis has ranged from
$40 to $75 a day. That includes staying in hostels, using public
transportation passes, paying some museum entry fees, getting
breakfast free at the hostels, picking up a sandwich for lunch,
and eating one meal in a decent restaurant. And traveling between
cities.

Never having backpacked in Europe for any length of time, is there no
hope of cadging lifts to places for petrol contribution, if you're
there for 9 months presumably utterly flexible staying in hostels, I'd
envisage the chance of getting lifts as pretty high - I've certainly
had no problems in other countries, including private planes etc. (no
not with royalty, with a trainee pilot from Mauritius who was mostly
getting his hours logged) You need to be flexible of course, and
willing to ask, chat, but it can save a fair bit, and keeps you off
the trains/buses.

Is this not widespread in Europe?

Jim.

(Jim Ley) wrote in message ...
On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 13:56:39 GMT, Rita wrote:
[snip]

Never having backpacked in Europe for any length of time, is there no
hope of cadging lifts to places for petrol contribution, if you're
there for 9 months presumably utterly flexible staying in hostels, I'd
envisage the chance of getting lifts as pretty high - I've certainly
had no problems in other countries, including private planes etc. (no
not with royalty, with a trainee pilot from Mauritius who was mostly
getting his hours logged) You need to be flexible of course, and
willing to ask, chat, but it can save a fair bit, and keeps you off
the trains/buses.

I had a friend who'd go to the outskirts of major cities and then
hitch hike inwards, always getting a ride and when asked where he was
staying... many times got an offer to stay in a private house.

Don

Paris guides, cheese cookbooks plus:
http://www.visitparis.com/guide/

"Sjoerd" wrote in message ...
"Owain" schreef in bericht
...
"jesus" wrote
| Hello, I am planning on traveling to Europe around late August/Early
| September of 2004 and staying for approximately six months to a year.
| I will do roughly the same in every country that I go to. I am
| presently planning on going to at very least Ireland, Germany,
| Austria, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, and hopefully Iceland.

You might want to put the UK and Ireland, or Russia, in the middle of your
trip, as otherwise you may fall foul of the 90 day Schengen rule - you can
only stay for 90 days in Schengen countries in any 180 day period, unless
you have a visa for a longer period.

The Schengen countries are Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany
Greece Iceland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden.
The UK and Ireland are NOT Schengen countries.

http://www.eurovisa.info/ has links to all the Schengen countries.


In practice, if you are from a rich country (USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, Japan, most of Europe and a few others), nobody cares about your
length of stay. As long as you break no other law (rape, steal or murder)
and have sufficient money, people from rich countries can in practice stay
in Schengen forever without any problems.

Sjoerd

If you are planning your trip to Europe in September than you should
try to begin in So. Germany near Munich. Oktoberfest runs for the
last few weeks of September and if you're going to be in Europe you
should try and visit this Fest.

Not only are the enormous beer tents with dirndel clad waitresses,
carrying upto 5 beer mugs in each hand, fun to see but the are also a
great deal of rides. You will also see a lot of the traditional
clothing, such as lederhosen or trachten, of So. Germany in abundance
at Oktoberfest.

It's a great opportunity to experience some of the unique culture of
So. Germany that is known world-wide.

You should try to contact your Irish relatives before leaving, if a
cousin stayed with them in the past get the family name/ village/
townland/ phone number/ address etc.

How distant are they? One Irish grandparent entitles you to a
passport and that means you can work legally all over Europe. If the
connection is more distant than one grandparent i.e. someone none of
them have heard of, they probably won't be that interested. Ireland
isn't an especially easy place to work illegally, but a girl I know
works (illegally) part time for the 'youth' hostel she is staying in
and gets free accomodation and a really lousy salary as a result.

Can American students get working holiday visas for Ireland? Why
don't you find out.

The places you have picked sound like the worst places to visit in
winter and apart from Russia they are all expensive (Russia isn't as
cheap as you'd think either). Try to plan your route (if you aren't
trolling) to avoid the coldest and most unpleasant weather. Any
particular reason you don't want to go to France or Italy? They'll be
a bit warmer than Scandanavia in winter and I've heard that they have
some places worth seeing.

On the other hand it's easy enough to get work in Berlin (illegally).

The working holiday advice sounds excellent, perhaps you could visit
the ecotopia camps, they'd provide a place to stay but no money.



Best Regards

O'Donnell