The first few stops in Spain were a good introduction to hostel life, living out of a backpack, and being in a new city. It was especially helpful that I chose a place where I could at least manage to communicate when necessary to start out. I couldn’t imagine starting this trip in a place like Denmark or Prague.

Copenhagen and Palermo were tough for me. They were the first cities I did on my own and I didn’t particularly like them. At that point I was about a week into my trip and the combination of being on my own in strange places where I didn’t speak the language and being in two cities that I just really didn’t enjoy in hotels rather than hostels (they were the cheapest option) made me consider booking a flight home right then and there.

Thankfully I managed to convince myself that it would get better once I got back into the hostels and once I started on BusAbout. Definitely true. I’ve loved BusAbout so far and I’ve met so many great people along the way. Though we’re all traveling independently, it’s nice to have a group to go home to at the end of the day and to see some familiar faces.

On BusAbout, Venice and Rome were great. I absolutely loved Venice and Rome is a place I’d definitely visit again, not only because I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to (and really, how could you in just one trip?), but because it’s so rich in history and just plain interesting.

I’ve also really enjoyed staying in a campsite. I didn’t think I would, but they’re actually a lot of fun. The only downfall is that they’re often pretty far from the city. We generally had a 20-30 minute trip to get in. Not so bad, and considering the prices, I’m not complaining!

Now we’re in a proper hostel, so I’ll have to get used to being inside more. And, luckily, this place has free wi-fi. Yay!

The most important update, though, is about my trip as a whole. After my experiences in Palermo and Copenhagen and generally getting adjusted to life in Europe, I’ve realized 9 weeks is just way too long. At first I thought it would be great to just have 6 days between when I get home and when I move to San Francisco to pack up and move and such, but really, it’s kind of insane. Money also doesn’t go as far as I’d like it to here. I could skimp and eat once a week and not do things that I find cool in order to save a Euro here or there, but what kind of fun is that?

After looking at my itinerary and the BusAbout map, I’ve planned out a new itinerary that will take me a grand total of 6 weeks and only cuts out a few stops that I wasn’t too excited about anyway. I’ve also rearranged some of the stops. For example, I’m going from Nice to the Interlaken area of Switzerland, possibly to Zurich and then off to Munich and Berlin. I’ve cut out Amsterdam and Budapest and a few others.

Now the trip from here on out looks something more like:
Florence
Nice
Lauterbrunnen
Zurich
Munich
Berlin
Prague
Vienna
Salzburg (still have to go on the Sound of Music tour!)
Brussels
Bruges
London

or something to that effect. This way I get to be with BusAbout for some of the busier cities where I’d like to have company and I’ll be on my own for some of the other cities where I don’t mind just exploring or want to do super cheezy things like The Sound of Music tour or just hang out.

I’m thinking of changing my flight out to July 15th out of Heathrow instead of Edinburgh because I’ve also been putting together a quick trip (maybe a week or so) back here to do the UK area early next year.

I know photo uploading has been pretty much non-existent, but having very sporadic and slow internet combined with a teeny tiny screen and no photoshop or any real ability to properly handle RAW photos has made it really unpleasant to do anything but download and backup the photos onto my external HD. I promise to upload LOTS when I get back to the States and have my MacBook Pro back. Oh how I miss it.

So that’s the trip so far. I’m really enjoying Italy, but I’m ready to move on to a new country. I’m especially excited for Switzerland. Cooler weather and beautiful scenery? It’ll be like a taste of Ithaca without the school work. Win!

Like I’ve mentioned, I really enjoy getting long emails from you about what you’re up to and just general hi-there-and-hellos. I also promised to send post cards to those of you who’ve emailed me your address. I’ve written them but it’s strangely difficult to get stamps around here. I PROMISE to get this round mailed out before I leave Florence so if you want a post card now’s your chance.

Thanks for keeping up with my travels and here’s to another month of adventures!

I have to say, it took a lot for me to cut out places like Glasgow and Stockholm, but when it came down to which places had to get the axe, I tried to pick groupings that would logically form into a future trip: a trip to Scandinavia, for instance, would let me cover Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and a bunch of other places instead of just the first two. Same goes for the UK. The UK seems like the easiest trip to make somewhere down the line and dedicating an entire trip to the UK would let me cover the more rural parts of England and also fit in Wales and a lot more of Ireland.

So, with the exception of London, none of those places will be included in my trip this summer.

The second bit that helped me to make a lot of big decisions was my initial desire to spend a decent amount of time in Rome or at least somewhere in Italy. I’ve always been a “depth and breadth” kind of person – I like to do a lot of things, but I also like the ability to focus on one or two things to learn in better detail. This was the major turning point in my mapping: spending a large chunk of time in Italy would let me get in the depth part (and hopefully will teach me some Italian along the way) while still letting me see all but a few of the cities on my last map.

With this itinerary, I get the best of both worlds: I get to spend a significant amount of time in Italy (23 days: nearly half of my trip!), but having 14 days in Rome to redistribute if needed gives me a huge amount of flexibility for adding in some secondary cities (the orange dots) or spending an extra day or two in a city that I especially like. Not to mention, having so much time in Rome might open up the possibility of an overnight trip to a place like Split, Croatia which Matt has been trying to sell me on for some time now.

I haven’t yet decided if I want to fly into Madrid and out of London (as I envisioned it as I was mapping this out) or the other way around. I think being able to get settled first would be really helpful, so starting in a country whose language I speak seems logical to me. (I obviously speak English, but my Spanish isn’t too shabby either). There are arguments for either case, but I’ll think on it a couple of days and then hopefully will be able to buy my plane tickets!

So without further ado, here it is!: (click to view larger)

That posed a bit of a problem when it came to figuring out my itinerary. I had a list of cities that I rattled off, but I couldn’t really tell you how far apart they are or where a good number of them are in relation to each other. I needed a map. A good one. Off to the book store I went, but to my surprise, price tags were upwards of $20. $20! For a map! No thanks. That’s why we have the internet. After a little poking around I found a decent, grammar school geography class map that was perfect for my needs (like I said, I’m a bit geographically challenged). I needed a way to “stick pins” in the map so I could see if any logical patterns would emerge that would help me to decide where to fly in and where to fly out. Using my trusty list, I marked down the cities on the map in 3 colors: definitely, hopefully, and possibly. (And yes, I realize those aren’t colors).

With all of the points laid out before my eyes, it finally hit me: holy crap there’s no way I’m going to cover all of this. Soon followed by: why the hell is Athens so far away?! And Stockholm?! Come on now, Europe, how about some better planning? I wanted to sleep on it before I started to eliminate any cities. Visions of Dijkstra’s danced through my head. At least it was a break from those photography nightmares I’ve been having.

The next day I decided that it would make the most sense to see where the Eurail could take me. Maybe that would help in my decisions? This Eurail route map is a godsend. Especially the mini map in the bottom right corner with estimated travel times. Fantastic. I printed it out and started to connect the dots, cross out some lines, connect again, rinse and repeat.

Enter reality check.

With rough underestimates of how much travel time is needed and how many days I would stay in each place, I would need at least 90 days to complete the map with all of the points I put on it. That’s 30 days more than I actually have. And since I don’t want this to be a complete whirlwind tour, I’m going to have to prune back a lot. That means going from 32 to…well less than 25 but likely less than 20.

The likely candidates will be the outliers: Lisbon, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Budapest are first on the chopping block. I’d also like to maximize my time in Spain and Italy because that’s where I’d like to go most.

The good news is that I’ve made progress. The bad news is that I still have a long way to go, but I’m not complaining. If I’m having this much fun planning, I can only imagine how much fun the actual trip is going to be!

• Amsterdam
• Athens
• Barcelona
• Belfast
• Berlin
• Brussels
• Budapest
• Cardiff
• Copenhagen
• Dublin
• Edinburgh
• Florence
• Frankfurt
• Geneva
• Glasgow
• Lisbon
• London
• Lucerne
• Madrid
• Milan
• Munich
• Naples
• Nice
• Paris
• Pisa
• Pompeii
• Prague
• Rome
• Salamanca
• Salzberg
• Santorini
• Sicily
• Stockholm
• Stonehenge
• Stratford-Upon-Avon (what can I say, I’m a nerd)
• Venice
• Vienna
• Zurich

That’s a bit ridiculous for 2 months, and I realize that. I have these places roughly divided into 3 categories: definitelys, would-love-to-fit-ins, and would-be-cool-but-not-necessaries. The biggest problem I think will be dealing with the outliers like Greece, Spain, Portugal, Stockholm and Copenhagen. I’m not too attached to Stockholm, Copenhagen and Lisbon, but Spain? MUST SEE. Athens? I’d really prefer not to take that out of the itinerary.

So many places, so little time! Perhaps I can skip the rest of this school year and just start my trip early? I’d love to fit in as many of these as possible, but my goal for this weekend will be to cut the list in about half. I think that’ll be more sensible. If I end up at some of the other places along the way, well then that’s great, but otherwise, well, it’s just an excuse for me to go back!