Travel porn

Google Maps with photos is total travel porn. The same goes for Flickr geotagging.

Tickets are purchased!

I called EF with some questions about my trip the day before the full bill was due. I mentioned that I would be coming back for my cousin's wedding without much time to spare, and they pointed out that while I'd be leaving a day early, I'd still be arriving on the day of the wedding. No good. I could leave Delphi the moment I arrived, catch a cab and drive to the airport in Athens, but I'd be missing out on almost all of Greece. Since I just finished a Greek art history class last term, this was also a no-go.

But! It turns out I could switch my trip to one held earlier in the month at no charge. This would put me in Amsterdam on July 1st and finishing the tour around the 18th or 19th. From there, I could travel to Nice at my leisure and leave on the 28th, which gets me back home with a few days to spare before the wedding. Perfect.

Another nice side effect - since I'd be arranging my own flights, I was able to switch my EF tour to Land-Only. This took $14xx off the bill, which was their price for plane tickets. I was able to get tickets with an employee discount for $9xx, but decided I'd rather have a layover in LA to see my brother and his wife. This bumped the price up $150, which I figured is cheaper than buying a round-trip ticket to LA normally (turns out, not by much). The overall cost of air travel went down about $19x, which makes my Eurail pass that much cheaper! I also get to see my brother & wife, a day in London, and an extra day in Amsterdam. It's win-win, really.

So, the tickets have been purchased! Travel plans are as follows:

1. (June 28th) Portland -> L.A.
2. L.A. -> London
3. London -> Amsterdam
4. Amsterdam -> Paris
5. Paris -> Versailles
6. Versailles -> Florence
7. Florence -> Pisa
8. Pisa -> Assisi
9. Assisi -> Rome
10. Rome -> Sorrento
11. Sorrento -> Pompeii
12. Pompeii -> Delphi
13. Delphi -> Athens
14. Athens -> Anywhere! Barcelona?
15. Anywhere -> Nice
16. Nice -> London
17. London -> Fort Worth
18. (July 28th) Fort Worth -> Portland

All of this in a month. Whew!

Southern France?

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday about my trip and he mentioned I should talk to another couple of friends who were going overseas this summer as well. The story, as I understand it through-the-grapevine, is that one of their relatives has a villa in southern France that they'll be staying at during the month of France, free of charge. I'm told they'll be visited by other friends over the summer, so I'm welcome to join them as long as I'd like.

This is the type of plot-twist I like!

Living the budget

Bought food in bulk for the month, in an effort to do what it takes to avoid eating out and going over-budget. My regular, already frugal budget puts me over-budget for the trip, so I'm hoping to cut back in my food costs (which is really the only place I can adjust.) Now I'm eating under 10¢ an ounce.

A change of plans

Had a sudden realization that my cousin was getting married soon and that this might interfere with travel plans. Turns out the wedding is the day after my EF tour is supposed to end, so I can forget about extending the trip this time around. This also has the nice side-effect of solving my budget worries for the trip, and gives me time to save up for a second trip sometime in the next year, hopefully.

The only thing to work out now is whether that will be enough time for my part in the wedding. I expect I should be able to get fitted for a tux a week or two before I leave, but we're still ironing out the details.

Budget

So that brings us to the budget. Using Numbers, which I'm a huge fan of, I started with the money I have now and tried subtracting all the expenses I knew would be coming between now and then. My Pre-Europe list includes:

• Spending cash
• Rent & utilities
• Cell phone
• Car

There's also my expenses before I leave. I had a lot of fun doing a podcast of my trip to Hawaii a few years ago, and would love to do that again. I'll go into more detail in a future post, but this will require an additional expense. My For-Europe includes:

• EF Bill
• Extend trip ($100)
• Passport ($110)
• Flip mino HD ($210)
• Still camera ($400)
• 16GB Memory card ($35)
• Netbook ($99)
• 1TB External HD ($130)

So obviously there's a little leeway in this list. I'd expected to be able to afford all these things, but hit a snag on the next list. Mom mentioned I should get a Eurail pass, as it would be the cheapest way to get around Europe. Cheap is good! However, I had a little sticker shock when I saw a 4-country pass would be €235 (roughly $312!)

So this will be tough, as I was already at the wire and still haven't accounted for lodging. Mom had mentioned youth hostels as being a cheap way to lodge, so I did some searching. I printed out this handy PDF from backpackingeurope.com which lists hostels in (all?) countries in western Europe alongside contact and price info. I'm hoping to stay anywhere from 2-4 weeks after my EF tour ends on July 31st, but as the cheaper hostels tend to run around €13/night ($17.25), this will cost between €182 and €364 ($241.50 - $483.00)! Sounds like it's time to get serious about CouchSurfing.

CouchSurfing

Last night I geeked out for several hours on YouTube watching videos from places all over Europe. Technology is amazing, and I say that as someone who works with it closely. Got to daydreaming about all the places I could stay around Europe.

I was talking to a customer a few months back when the conversation switched to Europe. she started telling me about a site called CouchSurfing where you can meet people living all over the world (232 countries!) who will do everything from offer their couch for a day or several to take you out for some tea and a tour of the city. A few minutes later she waved at someone at the door and said that was someone she was showing around Portland that day. Ha!

So CouchSurfing sounds compelling. I made a profile on the site and was happy to see they have a verification & testimonial system in place. There's few things more frightening than being alone in a foreign country in the house of a nutcase. I'll be contacting people on the site once I decide how long I'll be extending my trip and where I can afford to go.