High times or low times?

Ideally, for a budget traveler everything is based on the cheap airfare, but occasionally you have the luxury to plan your trip around events and preferences. Some people want to go to Oktoberfest, while others would rather see the Pope on Easter Sunday. Both are acceptable and accomplishable goals. Others prefer to travel during low tourist seasons while others thrive on the abundance of people to make them feel more comfortable. Either way you look at it, you're going to need a good set of guidelines to accomplish your goals.

I would recommend that you spend a several hours reading guidebooks at a local library or bookstore to get a good start. A book like Frommers, Let's Go, or Lonely Planet will most likely give you the best of Western Europe in one, two, or three weeks as well as one month and two months. It's a good start to familiarize yourself with the number of days you might need to stay in a destination in order to get the most out of that area.

For your first European vacation, it might be wise to stick to Western Europe rather than Eastern Europe for the mere fact that Western Europe has a more developed tourist industry that is used to accommodating visitors from all corners of the globe. On the other hand, Eastern Europe is cheaper, less affected by tourism, and less likely to suffer from angry, tourist hating people, but it may provide more day to day challenges.

On my traveling resume I have 3 distinctly different vacations with one common goal: I wanted to get more bang for my buck. The first was a two-week long vacation during "Semana Santa", literally translated into the "Holy Week" of Spain during Easter. The goal of this vacation was to see as much of Europe in 16 days for as cheap as possible. This consisted of 5 countries (stopping in 3 other countries on our way) in the span of the 16 days.

I booked flights with ryanair and hostels with hostelworld.com. On this journey we accomplished our goals by making some significant sacrifices. First, we only ate out in countries that we could afford to (Austria, Czech Republic, and Germany). Next, we never opted for a taxi since the bus will always be cheaper. Finally, we flew into airports out of the way to save a couple of bucks. Somethings that we didn't sacrifice were our safety and side adventures. Side adventures can be the most memorable part of journeys. I might not remember the the Holocaust Museum, but I'll never forget visiting the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 25 minutes outside of Berlin. I will also never forget getting free admission to the Underground in Berlin (block long night clubs underground). Of course there is a price to pay for all of this, mainly me sitting in an internet cafe for nearly 22 hours planning every detail of the adventure.

My second journey was with my four friends and I at the end of my study abroad. The mission for this trip was to combine the majority of our interests. After polling our interests I decided on a two and a half week adventure in Spain and Italy. First, three of us had 5 days to waste so we traveled from Valladolid, Spain to Santander and San Sebastion in the north of Spain. From Madrid we traveled to Rome, Venice, Florence, and Pisa. Surprisingly, we were able to do Italy in about 7 days. We then flew from Pisa to Sevilla, Spain. While in the south of Spain we went from Sevilla to Cordoba to Granada. We did this little journey in 5 days before we headed to Madrid to leave study abroad forever.

Our goals on this journey were to save as much money as possible and to experience culture. This was a good amount of time to see two countries. Spain for 10 days and Italy for 7 days. It was a bit exhausting at times, but nevertheless fun. One thing to remember when planning a vacation is to make sure that you travel with people that have similar goals and thoughts on travel. This vacation group was split between saving money and spending money. Needless to say we had a few altercations about food and such.

My third journey was when I went to visit my cousin in Spain in 2008. I went with my uncle Steve to see my cousin. We were there together for 2 weeks, and then I stayed an extra week to spend some quality time with my cousin in more of a low key fashion. I spent the entire journey in Spain. We landed in Barcelona, then we went to Zaragoza, Vitoria, and Madrid.

Afterwards, my uncle Steve left and I went with my cousin to Alcala de Herenes for the week. During that week I took in the sights of Alcala and took a day trip to Valladolid (the town where I studied abroad the year before). I got to know Spain really well again and see sights I hadn't spent too much time at before. The only problem was that I was taking an online course at the time and had to do homework on the trip. A bit of a headache for Kyle and I.

Each of my 3 vacations I view as a success because I was able to travel throughout Europe and still afford to go to college. The key when planning vacations is to know who you are as a person and ultimately what your capable of. If you can't carry a backpack through Europe, bring a rolling duffel. If you want to relax, don't try to do 5 countries in 16 days. If you want to save money, look for countries and destinations that have low season rates (like Malta in December and January). Finally, make it happen. You would not believe the amount of people that have said to me "Of course I'll visit you" or "I wish I could do what your doing". First of all, don't tell me your going to visit me if you're not. Second, you can do what I'm doing, you're just not willing to make the sacrifices in your lives. That's all folks. Stay tuned...

Spanish
Pijo-Posh, snobby

Basque
Polita-beautiful

British English
to slag someone off- to make fun of someone. Billy was really slagging you off yesterday when you got shot down by that girl at the bar.