4 months. 20 countries. 2 friends. 1 amazing summer!
Holger and I are friends who will be railing our way through Europe this summer.
We met this spring travelling in Asia and decided Europe was a great place to spend the northern summer. We’re both long-term travellers – I’m from Canada and on my year off from my corporate job to travel around the world. Holger is an Australian lawyer turned professional photographer, who’s been travelling around the world non-stop since 2007.
Top experiences we look forward to
Europe is more than big cities. There are small towns, beautiful landscapes and historic landmarks. We want to get a sample of this and are looking forward to:
- Photographing Italy’s atmospheric neighborhoods
- Visiting the smaller countries: Vatican City, Monaco and Luxembourg
- Watching European countrysides go by through train windows
- Eating gelato in Italy, chocolate in Belgium, and tapas in Spain
- People-watching from sidewalk cafes on cobblestone streets
Rail route
Our aim is to explore 20 countries across Europe over four months, so we’ll be making great use out of our Eurail Global Passes. The tentative plan is to travel from east to west, roughly in this order:
- Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic
- Central Europe and Balkans: Germany, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Croatia
- Western Europe: Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Monaco, Spain and Portugal
Trip planning
Four months is a long time to plan in advance, so we’re just using this itinerary as a guideline. Most of the time, we’ll fill in the details of our travels as we go, probably 3-4 days in advance. One of the benefits of travelling on our rail passes is not worrying about flight connections and having more room for improvisation and spontaneity.
Much of our European rail trip will be spent together and with new friends we make along the way, but we’ll also be taking side trips individually to keep things in balance.
A summer of photography and blogging
One of the aims of the trip is to share the adventure with other travellers. Holger will be taking lots of photos and posting one each day on his blog veoelmundo.com (Spanish for “I see the world.”) I’ll be posting articles on my blog exploreforayear.com and covering subjects like travel costs, trip planning and safety. We’ll also be posting regular updates on Eurail’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
Stay connected with us as we rail, eat, photograph and blog our way through Europe this summer. For updates on our adventure, follow Eurail on Twitter and Facebook.
Cheers to summer in Europe!
