Traveling Europe alone?

Go for it mate!

Plan it loosely and be flexible. And as HM said, even if it goes tits up you'll be unlikely to regret it after.

The thing is to not keep putting it off.

People who don't do what they want tend to be either letting their life pass by while they figure it out, or are concentrating on the negatives too much. Of course it could be a bit scary, but that means it'll be even MOre rewarding!

 

AT he did put a smiley after it!
If you're gonna go travelling better get to understand irony

 

2 sentiments I'd very like to echo from my own personal experience too. :MILD:

The longest amount I've been out traveling on my own in a foreign country is 2 weeks max. Not long at all. Wish I'd done the year out thing after Uni but instead went straight into work. Still may be thinking of taking a year out from the 9-5 grind if circumstances align themselves this year.

 

Well, I'm off to India tomorrow morning for a week! Business trip but aim to get some wandering around in. Proud to say I've never been on a package holiday in my life. Started backpacking at university, including bumming round for a year in Algeria and Egypt, and then inducted my girlfriend-to-become-wife into cheapo travel.. Pre children all our hols were just to get a cheap flight somewhere hot and distant and take it from there. With the children we sometimes book just the first night and sometimes more, but still basically wing it. Once you get taste for going independent, you can't be penned in and shepherded around any more.
AT, just go for it - but try to get off the trail now beaten by the now near-compulsory year-outers, who just seem to go clubbing in Bali or Thailand rather than Malaga... You want to get ou t and see other cultures, not rejoin a bunch of Brits somewhere overseas. The Rough Guide / Lonely Planet explosion has made it difficult to really get away from it all, as supporting the independent travel thing has become an industry in its own right, but at least that makes it easy for the less experienced. For exotic places where it's really easy to get around and hook up socially with other travellers, I'd recommend Morocco, Northern Thailand, India as good bases in the first instance to explore in their own right then head out from.

 

I am only planning of visiting Euroope due to money and time issues, I will go gone for a month at the most.

I have never been on a package holiday either, although when we went to Barcelona last year we stayed 4 nights in Barcelona and 3 nights in Lloret Del Mar becuase its cheap, I suppose that counts kind of as a package holoday because its cheap.

I do like that kind of place because you can relax, no transport issues etc.

My plan is do a bit of both when I go, I intend to visit smaller towns in France, Spain, Germany etc.

So far abroad I have been to:
Paris, Dublin, Bacelona, Lille, Lloret and Amsterdam, all thats within the last two years so I am not doing to badly.

I would like to visit eastern europe as well if I get time, but for safety reasons this may end up just being Praque.

Of course to me due to my fear of flying even Dublin seemed a long way having to travel through bloody Anglesey to get a ferry across.

 

I've never been on a package holiday either.

These days I'm a bit of a Ryanair + hotel/b&b search-on-the-internet junkie as I don't have enough time off work to be away for more than 4 days. (I need to be working the weekends to pay the rent on my taxi.)

In the past I've managed to travel round France and the former Czechoslovakia by getting teaching jobs, and I spent a total of about 2 and a half years abroad by doing just this. All went without incident.

I was actually robbed last year in March by an Irish female student with whom I shared a taxi from Poitiers airport. She was getting out after me, so when I opened my wallet to give her more than my fair share of the fare, she neatly plucked out €140 while I was trying to dig a €2 coin from out of my pocket to add to the €5 note I had already given her towards the €11 fare.

Do a month-long TEFL course to teach English and you
can go almost anywhere - earning money along the way.

As an Englishman abroad alone upon departure I was rarely lonely because, believe it or not, being English still carries a certain kudos provided you don't sport Union Jacks/look and behave like chavscum.

 

Go for it (as I say to anyone who's considering it). It will be MUCH trickier if you want to do it later because of excess baggage (wife, kids, mortgage etc), so do it NOW!!
I took a year before uni, a month inter-railing around Europe to get a taster, then flew to Kathmandu (aged 18) all on my ownsome - ended up in Lombok just before term started.... but figured I'd better come home all the same...
Has taken me another 20 years to get that final step to Oz - hopefully for good later this year, (with baggage as above !).
Morocco & Eastern Turkey are close(ish) & a little 'wilder' than Western Europe. I found the people in both to be more welcoming & friendly than in most of Europe - literally being asked in off the street & staying in people's houses...but that was some years ago now - don't know how westerners are received there these days....let us know when you get back!?

 

Have no fear AT, I went to Romania on a 6th form visit and the people were so friendly. Don't believe the hype about most countries purported to be dangerous...if you use a bit of common sense and stay street wise you'll be fine. Of couse if you have no common sense and aren't street wise then don't leave your house!

I'll always remember the guy I went travelling with in the states, silver spoon boy and led a sheltered life all in all. We were walking through downtown DC and some bloke asked him for money….my friend didn't really hear him so he stopped and said something like “sorry what was that?†I couldn't believe it, I think even the guy asking for money was surprised, bit of a Monty Python moment. I mean what could the guy possibly of said that was of interest to my mate and worth repeating!? One of those cases of just walking on. Not an extreme situation but you can imagine what might happen in a more difficult situation. You got to know how to handle yourself. That's something you learn quickly when you travel.