Let’s be honest, if you’re backpacking around Europe between the ages of 18 and 25, chances are you’re looking to do one or all of the following things:
1) party
2) “find yourself”
3) take an incessant amount of pictures to post on various forms of social media to prove to friends and family that you did, indeed, go backpacking
4) rebel against the man, man. Avoid getting on the hamster wheel as long as possible… since we’re all just mindless cogs in a machine, man. Live life while you can, man
5) learn about various cultures and people that are different from you. Imagine that!
Regardless of your various motives for backpacking around Europe between the ages of 18 and 25, you decided to do it so give yourself a pat on the back. So here you are all saved up and excited. Perhaps you’re attempting a solo trip, perhaps you’re traveling with a best friend (hopefully not a boyfriend or girlfriend for the love of GOD) and you’re ready to go! The first step is to make sure you burn any and all tour guide books you most likely purchased for the trip. You don’t need them. Sure, a significant lack of preparation might get you into a pickle or two but those pickles are delicious! Take for instance the time I nearly got stranded in Budapest. Amanda and I both somehow assumed it would be easy to travel around Eastern Europe, which let me tell you is not the case because the railroads are literally the same as they were in the 1960s. Communism. Sure I could’ve planned where I was going to go next before I had even arrived in Eastern Europe but where’s the fun in that? We eventually got out in the form of an 18-hour train ride through Croatia with no air conditioning or water. Not ideal of course but if I had planned a more convenient way out I wouldn’t have met Danika, a lovable Canadian who loves NASCAR, or the Hungarian engineering student who spoke to the train conductor on our behalf as we had accidentally only purchased one train ticket between Amanda and myself. Oops. I also wouldn’t have gotten that impromptu tattoo on my right ankle once Amanda and I found out that we were, in fact, stranded in Budapest for a couple of extra days.
Buy yourself a good backpack. Seriously. Osprey or bust. Don’t eat much and stay in shitty hostels to save money but for god sake get yourself to REI, find an employee with dreadlocks and tribal tattoos, and get fitted for a nice backpack. It will adhere to your body and become you by the end of the trip. Chances are you’ll over pack, so make sure that you’re okay with spontaneously throwing away anything you do pack. I call it the snail mentality. Snails leave trails behind so you should too. Leave your shoes at one hostel and your towel at another because someone will eventually use it and you’ll delight in the extra room you’ve given yourself for trinkets or extra clothes. Take for instance Hippie Tyrone in our Budapest hostel. Well, his name wasn’t Hippie Tyrone but that’s what we called him. I don’t think he cared what we called him because his brain was literally Swiss cheese; chewed through by LSD and Ketamine and god knows what else. Either way, Hippie Tyrone was so excited about my towel, which I bequeathed lovingly onto him so I could fit the Hungarian Flag into my backpack instead.
Another important point: sex doesn’t matter. It might matter to you, in fact, it matters to me. But it doesn’t matter to other backpackers. The freedom is…well… freeing. So don’t get scared or squeamish or whatever. I’ve seen so many indirect penises that I think I could make a dick anthology at this point. So even if you don’t want to fornicate with any and every one, for the love of god reserve your judgement or book a hotel room. Embrace the genitalia, it’s the hostel way!
Finally, and most importantly, if you enjoy sleeping, you will miss out on many opportunities. So swap sleep with the word “yes”. Say yes to everything (disclaimer: mostly everything. Don’t accept drugs from strangers in Lisbon). Say yes to new friends, to conversations, to debauchery, to skinny dipping in the Danube river as the sun rises (trust me). Sure the river might be dirty and polluted and there may have been a body discovered in it a week prior, but damn you will get a sight of the sun rising over the beautiful Hungarian parliament building like you wouldn’t believe. Say yes to going outside of yourself. The worst that can happen is an untimely death. The best is that you might actually find what you’re looking for. Or maybe you’ll find yourself somewhere in the middle, having a hell of a time and learning something about yourself and others in the process. Happy Travels!