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i lowkey think i see myself

nvm lol after the zoomout i realized i was way closer

@@JordanSarter i was first row of the seats both days

I really enjoy couchsurfing. The memories I have from couchsurfing will stick with me forever, whereas I've already forgotten some of the hostels I've been to. Couchsurfing is a A LOT of work though. Definitely more work for a female than a male, because you have to be really selective in who you ask to host you, but still, guys need to be careful as well. First you have to find people that you want to stay with, send them a message that isn't too generic, then you have to wait for them to respond, make sure they can host you while you'll be there. Figure out how you're going to meet up with them. Get to their house (or the place where you'll meet up), etc. With a hostel, you can quickly book a bed on your phone, you know exactly where to find the hostel, you can arrive whenever you want and most of the time, it's in a convenient central location. Also, couchsurfing is hard to do if you don't have a local SIM card so you can call or text your host. Don't try to rely on wifi to get into contact with them. I once wasted an entire afternoon waiting for my host at our meet up spot. Turns out she was caught up in something at work and couldn't meet at our specified time but I didn't have wifi at the meet up spot and didn't want to leave the spot so I wouldn't miss her. Another time I wasted a whole evening in Paris trying to get to a host's house. His address said it was Paris, but it was almost an hour away by metro from the center of the city. When I got to the building at the time that I said I would get there, the apartment building was locked, there was no wifi around, and the dude didn't think to come down the stairs and see if I was there...I even told him I didn't have a SIM card and wouldn't be able to call him. It took an hour to get there, I waited half an hour for him to come and open the door for me, and when he never did I spent another hour getting back to Paris. It was a major headache. I had to spend more money to go back to Paris, it was late at night. I didn't have a place to stay so I had to find a McDonalds with wifi so I could try to book a hostel, but last minute most hostels were booked, or partially booked. So my 5 days in Paris were spent at a different hostel each night because I had to take what I could get...Couchsurfing wastes a lot of time, and if the person doesn't live right in the center of the city, you could potentially waste A LOT of money on public transportation, especially if they're in an expensive city like Paris or London. However, when couchsurfing does work out, it's great, just be mentally and financially prepared to have plans fall through. Also, life happens. Sometimes people can host you and at the last minute something comes up at work and they can't host you. Or like what happened my first night of couchsurfing in Europe, my host's grandfather passed away and he had to leave the country (luckily he trusted me to leave me the keys to his apartment, but still) Things happen, and you have to be ready for plans to change.

Yes, about half the time I stayed in hostels, and the other half I couchsurfed via hosts found on couchsurfing.org and a few times with friends/family who happened to be in Europe at the time.

Definitely go to Switzerland. And Edinburgh really took me by surprise, I highly recommend going there if you're going to be in the UK. All of Europe is really well connected by trains. All those little towns I went to in Switzerland were connected by train and everything in those towns were in short walking distance of the train station. And in the mountains the small towns/villages were connected by either train or cable car. I did mostly hostels, and I couchsurfed a few times as well. The only thing I would do differently would be to be more social. I'm an introvert so sometimes I didn't bother to meet other people, but the times that I did meet other people, I really enjoyed it. But other than that I wouldn't have done anything differently.

The whole time I was planning the trip I wasn't scared at all. I only got nervous on my airport and I was like "what have I gotten myself into?" Hahah, but I quickly got over it once I landed and fell in love with every place I went. I was only lonely the first week because I saw a bunch of groups of friends traveling together and I wished my friends could have come with me. But I'm glad I went through with it and went anyway. It was the best thing I've ever done. Go travel Europe and don't let anything hold you back! :)

I'm really good at planning things in general so it came easy to me. It did take a lot of time, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I don't really know how I planned it. I guess I came up with a list of cities I wanted to go to, and used each country's train system website or bus company website to find how much it would cost to get from place to place. It's pretty simple. Every town and city has a main train station that is located in the center of the city, and you just take a train from place to place. Everywhere I went everyone spoke English so it was super easy.

Hanna Taylor awesome thank you! By this comment I am assuming that you did not use the eurail global pass? You just bought a ticket from city to city? sorry for all the questions!!

Yeah, while I was planning I figured the price of buying tickets from city to city would be cheaper. I also took a lot of buses, about 1/2 buses, 1/2 trains. Buses will save you a ton of money. Pretty much every country has its own "megabus" type of low cost bus service. And then there's also Eurolines, which goes everywhere.

LUCASEPINEY But if your trip is really short (like only a week or two) I would stick to planes and trains to maximize your time traveling. I had 11 weeks so taking an 8 hour bus ride here or there was fine and didn't really "waste" my time.

I'm from the US, about 40 minutes from Washington DC

Oh Wow! Thanks!

It only cost $5000 including roundtrip airfare (which is about $60 a day, which is pretty good). In some ways I knew I spent more than I could have, but in other ways I spend a lot less and saved a lot of money. But either way, I came in slightly under budget. It sounds like a lot, but it was a really long trip and it was completely worth it. I saved a little money during my senior year of college and used graduation money that I got from family. But most of it was put on a credit card that I got with no interest for 16 months. I have no regrets. After I got home I got a job and my credit card will be paid off before my card starts charging interest. It was all worth it.