So here I am about to embark on a three
month adventure to Europe and all I could think of is what was I thinking? When
I say about to embark I mean it is May and I leave September 8 but still this
planning of all things Europe is mentally exhausting! Am I not going with
someone who can potentially assist me in this process? Someone who can take
some of the burden off me and help to avoid me ripping out all my hair, oh
right I do have someone who has the capacity to fill that description but does
HE? NO! I can't exactly blame him though, in the past three years in our
travels I have planned and researched all of our destinations and the outings
it is just this is not five days in New York or three days in Vegas it is three
LONG months in Europe.
My lessons learned so far:
Lesson
#1: There is no way you can prepay for hostels
Me being the planner and organizer that I
am, I intended to reserve and PREPAY for each of the hostels/hotels that we
will be staying in. The website I initially starting book with was booking.com
and I thought that since I booked through them before and had to prepay for my
reservation I assumed that it would be the same for the hostels/hotels in
Europe. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Here I am mindlessly booking rooms and putting
what I was told the price of the room on my credit card but in reality it is
the amount I need to pay when I get there. This was all my own doing if you
read the fine print you would see that it all needs to be paid upon arrival. I
then moved on to hostelbookers.com which still would not take all my money but
they did take a deposit. I am now using this website because I feel better
leaving a deposit than nothing at all. So far so good at hostelbookers, I am
trying to keep it as consistent as possible with one website now hopefully when
we arrive at the 23 different destinations we actually have a bed!
Lesson
#2: What the hell is the difference between purchasing three month continuous
pass from Eurail or Rail Europe?
This lesson I have yet to actually learn.
RailEurope has always been the company I have been directed to for the purchase
of a Global Rail Pass for our three month stay but I stumbled upon another
website that offers what appears to be the EXACT same thing for a fraction of
the cost. For my boyfriend and I to purchase two youth passes with RailEurope
it costs just over $6300 dollars BUT for what appears to be the exact same pass
BUT two adult 1st class ones it is only $4242 dollars. Why this is the case I
have no clue! I have investigated and investigated I have yet to find the
differences between the two besides the cost. Both companies too seem like legitimate
companies so I am truly at a loss here and if anyone has any insight it would
be greatly appreciated! It is no guess though as to which company I plan on
purchasing from.
Lesson
#3: I want to see it all!
I really do want to see it all, I want to
see all: the small towns, rustic villages, the big cities, the festivals,
everything! I know that I am being a bit unrealistic. When planning out the
itinerary I realized just how much we are going to miss and how much more I
would like to see. This trip I understand is going to be a once in a life time
trip but I have a feeling I will go back for one more visit at least. 23 cities
in 12 countries is going to be a lot and we are already travelling every 3rd,
4th, and 5th day so I am sacrificing some sites but only for the remainder of
my sanity that I will have left after planning.
Lesson
#4: It is too easy to stay behind.
The final lesson I have learned to date is
that it could be very easy for me to stay in Canada, settle down, earn money
and buy a house. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, I truly
admire people who are doing that but for right now there is something in my
heart telling me I need to see this part of the world for this long right now.
The closer we get to our departure date the more I freak out a little bit and
the louder the voice in my head is saying WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I see clearly how
people are willing to stay and I could easily be one of them was it not for the
thousands of dollars already invested in my departure date.
This is only phase one of planning and I
still have three months left to over think, over plan and attempt to over pack.
I imagine it is going to be a loooong summer of planning but it will be a
summer that goes by super-fast!
