Travel Tips
5 Comments I’ve been compiling a few thoughts about how we Americans travel during the short two weeks I’ve already been away.
Travel Wallet:
The perception is that Europe is full of nothing but pickpockets that are just waiting for fat American wallets. We put all our cash, plane tickets, passport, etc in this one pouch that is on our person at all times. Though, I hear that there are pickpockets around– roving gangs in Barcelona– it’s not a big problem as made out to be.
But, nothing marks you faster as a tourist then diving into your travel wallet. This act is just as bad as having a dumb confused look on your face when trying to figure out where to go. You signal to everyone that you don’t know “the score” around those parts.
My tip is just to use a normal wallet with a little spending cash, main credit card main atm card in it. Store your backups in a backup travel wallet with your backpacking luggage, which should be locked up somewhere. Remember that Europe is a developed place, not the land of the lost.
Only use the main travel wallet for areas that you hear have high areas of muggings, but you shouldn’t be in those places anyways.
Passports:
We Americans are also scared of being separated from our passports. I think it’s because we’ve seen too many spy movies painting a picture of gloom, doom and being stranded. It’s ok to leave your passport behind. If a cop stops you, here in France, and asks to see the passport, you have 24 hours to produce it. I carry it around anyways for identification for booking tickets, etc.
Plus, you should have photocopies of them anyways stored with your backup travel wallet. This makes the process easier to recover if you should lose the passport. Let the consolate know that you’re around anyways.
Travel Light Backpack
I am infinitely glad that I saw the Rick Steve’s Travel Special on getting around Europe. I’ve seen American travellers, hostel backpackers, lug around a big backpack and a small suitcase. This is got to be the dumbest thing I have seen for this type of traveller. You carry around everything you take. If you bring a lot of stuff, you carry a lot of stuff… and it gets very tiring fast.
I ended up down to some bare clothes and items to take. I have a single pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, two tshirts, one long sleeve shirt, one short sleeved button down, and five days worth of socks and underwear. Shoes and sandals are a must. I stuffed all of this, with a whole lot of room to spare in a modified Rick Steves Convertable Carry-on backpack (added key rings inside to attach ID dog tags, keys and loose items.
Avoid the normal camping looking backpacks. You won’t be camping in the middle of a remote forest. You will be a guest in someone’s home (Couch Surfing) or in a hostel. If you have the convertable carry-on, you can actually take it with you onto the airplane. Trust me, I had to check in the normal backpack as baggage and was pissed to wait for the luggage to arrive in the airport terminal. This way, you just grab it and go. This backpack is, I found, to be just perfect so far here in Europe.
Travel Accessories
Damn, I sound like a Rick Steves shill. But the plain fact is that he’s been doing this Europe thing for a long time. I picked up a couple of things that he sells based on my last experience in Australia and New Zealand.
A king-sized microfibre towel saves so much room in the backpack– it folds into a very flat wallet. The towel also dries, being microfibre, fast in most conditions.
His clothsline. Because I brought fewer cloths, it means that I either wash more often or stink a bit more. When you wash in hostels, you have to hang your clothing because not all hostels will have a dryer. Even if it existed, it’ll be very occupied by other backpackers. The clothsline provides a convenient place to hang the cloths.
A towletry kit that has a hook for hanging on the wall. I bought the Rick Steves one out of convenience, but I’ve seen others just the same. Just make sure the kit has, when opened and hanging, a place to dump small items that can’t be hooked or slotted into place.
Those three items are– toothbrush too- my only must have travel essentials. Everything else from shampoo to soap is something I’ll buy here as needed. Don’t bring the CostCo sized toiletries.
Getting Around, and the Eurorail Pass
You need to travel a whole lot to make it worthwhile. Which, for the normal one month backpacker will be doing. I picked up a three month consecutive pass because I really wanted the flexibility, which comes at a premium. I’ll get close to making it cost effective, but I have extra expenses in travelling. For example, you have to pay a reservation fee when you make a reservation on a train at the railstation office. You also have to pay extra if you do an overnight train. But in exchange for more time during the day for sightseeing, I think it’s probably worth it.
Lines suck. If you do reservations, do it in batches.
I’m still a bit undecided about the rail pass. On one hand it’s liberating, on another hand it costs a lot of money and I haven’t found a quick website to make reservations using it.
However, once in the city you’ll generally need to take local transport. This is a tricky thing for us car loving American. Especially since every city’s metro system is a bit different. Do a bit of research before hand to get an overview, but realize that you’ll have to go through the learning shock no matter how much you study. Even so, a part of me thinks that learning the city metro lets one learn about the city’s life. And learning the city is more important to me than just taking a quick photo in some famously crowded tourist trap.
Journals
Picked up Moleskines for the journey. Use it. Bring your favorite pen (And backup pen, I lost my main space pen 3rd day).
Conclusion
Those are my few thoughts… I’ll have more sometime later, and definately have a postmortem on the items I brought once I return to the States.
Hello! Thank you for the wonderful tips…I’ve heard most of them before, but for some reason i never get tired of hearing them again! I’m leaving in 17 days to packback Europe….Starting in Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Nice, Rome, Florence, Venice, Munich, Berlin and back to Amsterdam!
Can’t wait. Take care
Miranda
Comment by Miranda — June 27, 2006 @ 9:21 am
Hi Miranda,
Have fun on your trip!
One errata for my tips… Only make reservations for trains that require it and for overnight trains. One will be all right with other trains. I stopped making reservations and just jumping on the trains, no problems yet.
Also, this site is great for finding train schedules:
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en
Comment by Ben — June 29, 2006 @ 8:47 am
Thanks for these tips – v. practical. I am a very unpractical person, backpacking around Europe on a very unpractical trip. And basically, I don’t want to smell. So I LURVED the tip about the clothesline.
I’m heading off to the colder parts – Scandinavia ect. Not sure why I’m inflicting such pain upon myself when I’m used to the climate of Australia but, you know. A man’s gotta have a hobby!
Comment by Rosanna — July 18, 2006 @ 12:11 am
[...] I’ve been back in California for some time now, and I’ve been able to think about some Travel Tips. But mostly, I’ve been looking over the stuff I took to Europe and how my gear weighed me down. [...]
Pingback by Badpopcorn » Travel Gear Postmortem — September 14, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
Great article, we should always think of everything before traveling so that we can enjoy it the most, it’s horrible to travel filled with worries!
Comment by new zealand tourism — January 16, 2008 @ 3:21 pm