Choosing your Trip:
There is a lot to consider when booking a backpacking trip through Europe. There are two ways to backpack Europe and which you choose is purely a matter of personal preference. You can either book your entire trip (flights, trains, hostels/hotels) before you leave, or you can book your flight to and from Europe and decide where you’re going to stay or go day by day. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so choose based under whichever circumstances you will be more comfortable.
If you choose to book everything before you leave, you may feel overwhelmed trying to figure out where to go and where to stay, but once you get to Europe you can travel with ease. The advantage of doing this is you have a larger choice of places to stay, flights/trains are cheaper, you do not have to hostel-hop (I will explain this later), and once you begin your trip you can spend more time out and about in the city rather than in an internet café booking your next city. The disadvantage to booking your trip this way is that if you hear about an event or city that is a must-see (which happens often in hostels) you do not have the flexibility to change your plans.
If you are comfortable winging your trip, this is a good way to do it too, but it comes with its costs. You have the flexibility to talk to other backpackers about their experiences and choose your next destination based on word of mouth. When I backpacked this way, I had a list of a few cities I definitely wanted to visit at some point, but left room for seeing new and different places off the beaten path. I was able to learn about a music festival in a village in Germany, so I bought my ticket and went not knowing anything other than I needed a tent. It is experiences such as this that really make the backpacking trip one to remeber. Of course, there are disadvantages to doing it this way too, namely flights tend to be a little pricier with only a few days notice and hostels have varying availability. It is not uncommon for a hostel to have only a few nights of your stay available, so you may need to book 2 or more hostels or look for somewhere to stay everyday. It is even possible for you to switch rooms every night within the same hostel. It is inconvenient to have to move every day, but at the same time you only have a limited amount of luggage to move. Also, if you book before arriving to the city, you have to sit on the computer trying to find places to stay instead of having fun in the city. If you wait until you get to the city to find a hostel, you have to wander the city going hostel to hostel hoping they have a room for that night.
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