Notes from Abroad

Well that’s it – classes are over, finals are over, and all that’s left to do is graduate. These last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. but they’re over and now I have an entire week (a.k.a. Senior Week) to just hang out in Ithaca and do whatever my little heart desires. And then I realized: oh boy, I’m leaving in 16 days. I don’t even know where I’m going to stay or where I’m going to go! So much to do!

So my week of downtime has turned into a week of scouring the web for planes, trains, ferries and hostels to try to piece together at least the first few weeks of my trip. It’s been a very expensive past few days and I’ve only booked about two weeks worth of travel and lodging, but I think that’s more sticker shock than anything else.

Why the changes? Well, I’ve decided to put myself at the whim of cheap transportation and (hopefully) comfortable, but affordable hostels. Along the way I’ve found a few sites to be absolutely indispensable:

Skyscanner.net

Skyscanner.net is amazing. You must check it out. I’ve been using it something like this: 1) Enter current city (i.e. Barcelona) 2) Choose “Any Country” as destination and see what it spits out. I found a €20 trip to Copenhagen from Barcelona and it turned out to be the cheapest and most interesting next stop so I decided to ditch my original plan of flying to Rome or Naples and will get to see a place that I’ve had on my list for a while. Score! The trick is to be flexible with your dates, though. Always check +/- 1 day from your intended departure because the fares are extremely variable (€9.99 on one day and €32.59 the next!). Really, the site is fantastic.

Hostelworld.com

I mentioned Hostelworld.com when I was interviewed for a Wall Street Journal article on Deals on Travel Abroad. In addition to the cheap airfare, I’ve found that it’s also important to check the hostel listings before booking your ticket. What good is a €9.99 fare if you’re going to be stuck in some hole-in-the-wall at your destination? Or, maybe one plane ticket is slightly more expensive than the other, but perhaps at the more expensive destination you can stay in a posh B&B for the same price as the hole-in-the-wall in the cheaper one (Palermo won this battle. Private room in a B&B for cheaper than a mid-rate hostel anywhere else I could fly cheaply).
When checking reviews on HostelWorld, I always sort Lowest to Highest rated because people are generally very specific about what they don’t like and very vague about what they do. It lets you decide what you’re willing to put up with. If two hostels are rated equally and they’re around the same price, I’d take creaky floorboards over dirty showers.

The Others

Though I haven’t booked anything through these sites yet, they’ve been very valuable in helping me to decide what a better sequence of visits would be or whether I should fly vs. taking other modes of transportation.

Planes

I’ve found to avoid EasyJet as much as possible. That line nickels and dimes like you wouldn’t believe. TransAvia’s final price is quite close to the original quote on Skyscanner.

Trains

RailEurope.com is the best site I’ve found for searching all of the various rail lines at once. Though you don’t get to see the discounts that many of the rail sites would provide on their own sites (The same train from Madrid -> Barcelona was €56 on RailEurope and €33 with a Youth Card on Renfe) it does give you a general idea about prices and travel times.
Speaking of Renfe: Another little trick is to always use the national rail sites in their original language. You can sometimes save €20 by going through the Spanish or German version of the site instead of switching to the English translation. Trickier, but €20 can go a long way!

Ferries

Sorry, no automobiles. Not at the moment at least. The final site that’s been quite useful in gauging prices and opportunity costs (I know, nerdy, but I can’t help it) is aferry.to. It’s another multi-service aggregator that I’ve referenced mostly when I’m in or want to go to a coastal city (duh?). The site is pretty ugly and usability-wise it’s a pain, but it gets the job done. I’ll likely be using it to book a mini-excursion to Split, Croatia during my Italy tour on BusAbout.

But most importantly…

Give your credit card company a heads-up. Even though you’re still in the States (or in your respective home country), don’t forget that these places will likely be booking from an international location and if you’re using your credit card, the credit card company might get suspicious. I didn’t realize this until a hold was put on my card and I had to call up to tell them that I am, in fact, charging all sorts of random things to my account and I’ll be doing so for the next few months.

My itinerary has been through a few facelifts since I originally posted it here and it’s still changing with each stop, so there’s really no point in my posting a new one just yet, but as a brief glimpse: I’m no longer going to Greece, but I’ve added Copenhagen, and Sicily (Palermo) and will likely also add Budapest. For now the bookends of my trip are all sorted out. I have a place to stay in Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Palermo, and Edinburgh and transportation to/from almost all of them. Still a long way to go, but it’s a start!

Tags: hostels, Planning, tips, transportation