Lesson #365 - European Backpacking

Seriously: if you're willing to stay in only the cheapest hostels, take a lot of night trains, and eat a daily diet consisting of a loaf of bread and a local beer, it's amazing how many places you can get to. If the opportunity presents itself, people, take it and run with it. You will not regret it.

There are a lot of guides out there to traveling around Europe - the problem with most of them is that they are usually written for people intending to spend a long visit, a luxury most backpackers don't usually have. This, then, is our list based on how long a traveler should spend in each city and feel like they've completed it to its fullest. If you're backpacking, the chances are you're going to want to push and see stuff in each city before a long period of downtime on a train - so you really can get to see almost all of Rome (and the Vatican) in two and a half days.

Don't take this list as our recommendations for the best places to go - frankly, we feel Berlin, Doolin, and Barcelona are three of the best places you can get to in the entire world. But if you're able to pull together a shoestring budget, you're going to want to know exactly how long to stay in each place before moving on. And that's what we hope you'll get out of this lesson.

Feedback from other previous/current backpackers or Europeans would certainly be appreciated in the forums.