Traveling Europe

Quote from Squirrelly

1) Should I purchase a motorcycle or 'hoof' it (use public transportation - on that topic, how is public transportation?)? Would my American license be valid? How would insurance work?

2) What are some places that are pretty much a required visit, and places that should be avoided at all costs?

3) How do I avoid being taken advantage of? :wink:

Any other advice you guys could throw my way would definitely be helpful.

1) Public transport was fine for me, trains to every city I was going to (I went through Holland, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Belgium, UK). Within the cities it was fine getting around with a bike or transport. I would have liked to of had a car but saves a shit load of $'s not having to put up with it.

2) Depends on your tastes, I hate being a tourist and having to see X Y and Z, so I just hung out with the locals and for that I enjoyed Amsterdam, Koln, Bad Soden (30 mins outside of Frankfurt) and Luxembourg was pretty cool too, somewhat touristic but I've always liked the small nature of Luxembourg so it was worth checking out

3) If it's your thing, couchsurf your way around. Most hosts give you a wealth of info on the city you're in, would normally show you around too. Not to mention you dont pay a cent for accommodation: http://www.couchsurfing.com/

You can get an international permit in addition to your American driver's license and that will allow you to drive in Europe AFAIK (better google if this applies to all EU countries). Nevertheless I recommend to take public transportation, especially when it's your first time to Europe. I don't know where you are originally from, but driving through Plano Texas is a rather different experience from driving through...Paris for instance There are also a few different rules and driving through England, well, that's a completely different story.. Public transportation within and between cities is usually pretty good, but I think it would be best to look for advice from Northern Americans who have been to Europe before, as us Europeans could be either biased or consider certain things as completely normal, whereas Americans might be surprised. Natives often have a different take on such topics than tourists

take the public transport, esp considering our gas-prizes

i'd try to see the bigger cities (for germany: Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and Köln) and some smaller towns on the trip - for the above it could be something like Frankfurt - Bad Soden/Darmstadt/Wiesbaden, Hamburg - Kiel/Lübeck/Bremen, Berlin - Leizpig/Wittenberg/Dresden, Köln - Bielefeld/Dortmund/Bonn.

You may also think about what you expect to see: If you're interested in european history you might just travel (again Germany as example) Berlin, Potsdam, Bonn, Weimar and Frankfurt, if you're more into art you might check out Köln, Berlin, München, city-life you may check out the same as for art plus Hamburg and Frankfurt and if you're looking for what the typical real life is you may just skip all of these, join some mapcorians in smaller towns, see some of the pubs and bars, some of the Mittelgebirge, while coolest places for Landscapes might be Mecklenburgsche Seenplatte, Elbsandsteingebirge, the Alps, some Mittelgebirge and the baltic coast.

Depends also on how much time you've got and what part of europe you want to see - it seems more and more tourists are coming to poland, russia, ukraine, hungary, while the majority of tourists only travel within the boundaries of 1989 (France, Italy, Germany and GB).

Only advice I can give you is that the best time to travel in Europe is definitely between June - September and

If you're travelling on public transportation you might consider getting an EuRail Pass. http://%7boption%7d

weather and the major tourism is heading south at that time.

weather mostly. europe sucks in winter. i'd even say go as early as may or april, though you may be unlucky to catch some snow if you start up north (we had snow at easter last year). tourism as far as i know goes on all the time... but that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you stay in hostels. i've met some awesome people on my journeys in the US and the far east... chances are you'll find the same in europe.

do you have a plan of which countries to visit?

If you go insane and go to norway, skip the south and east, go west and north. that's what you dudes wanna see, fjords and moose signs.

For Belgium : Leuven and Gent

Public transportation is good in belgium.

Quote from Squirrelly

Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, and perhaps England.

not a bad choice of countries. personally i'd probably want to explore more of the inbetween countries you don't hear about that much, like croatia/serbia/belgium/ireland rather than just the ordinary "germany, france, england, italy". you do have greece on that list though, which i'm going to refer to as a journey to the land of win. as for denmark, i reckon that the only two interesting places that are close to sweden would be roskilde (for your viking history lesson) and copenhagen (for your drinking needs).

Quote from Nysuatro

For Belgium : Leuven and GentPublic transportation is good in belgium.

Now that you mention it: What about Bruges? I heard it's quite nice and think about going there sometime as well!

Quote from FrieChamp

Now that you mention it: What about Bruges? I heard it's quite nice and think about going there sometime as well!

I went there recently, and I found it to be a beautiful town, but too touristic for my tastes. I don't know what you could do apart from just visiting the town, didn't even feel like people were living there.

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not a bad choice of countries. personally i'd probably want to explore more of the inbetween countries you don't hear about that much, like croatia/serbia/belgium/ireland rather than just the ordinary "germany, france, england, italy". you do have greece on that list though, which i'm going to refer to as a journey to the land of win. as for denmark, i reckon that the only two interesting places that are close to sweden would be roskilde (for your viking history lesson) and copenhagen (for your drinking needs).

Croatia. Go to Croatia. It's the best place I've ever been to.

Quote from FrieChamp

Now that you mention it: What about Bruges? I heard it's quite nice and think about going there sometime as well!

Ow yeah forgot about Bruges. Nice indeed, but like Corwin said : it's very touristic. But yeah, almost every popular city is touristic

If you want I can ask to family of me what are nice places to visit in Bruges. They have lived there for some years.

As for Switzerland, you should definitely check out Bern - a really beautiful city and everyone's real nice and unhurried by default Zürich and Geneva are pretty cool cities, too. As for the Balkans, there's too much stuff you could visit: The bigger cities I know of that are in the Serbian parts; like Zagreb, Belgrad/Beograd, Skopje, Podgorica, Tirana (Albania) etc. If you come over to Bulgaria, you should definitely visit Gabrovo and Tryavna, which are really beautiful cities (well, Tryavna is more like a small town) with lots of conserved medieval architecture (there's also a little art museum in Tryavna, where my second cousin sometimes does guiding for tourists). If you're into folklore and the sea, you probably won't go wrong if you visit Varna and the Dobrudja region in general. If you happen to be into Metal/Rock, you might also visit the coastal town Kavarna, where many rock and metal concerts and festivals are organized (since the mayor is a metal head ). Of course, visiting Sofia, the capital, wouldn't be a bad idea either. And when you're there nearby, you can just as well visit Thessaloniki down in Greek Macedonia

yea Bern is pretty nice and you may check out Geneva and see CERN or what's left of it anyway

For Balkan - I have absolute no idea about these countries what's touristic appealing. Belgrad doesn't seem to be a too safe place to be, neither is the Kosovo or Zagreb. Albania could be possible though. Oh and for Greek - no way around tourists, the whole country is one big Tourist place. For smaller towns you could check out Navplia (not sure if the spelling is correct) which hosts a castle of the bavarian king of greece and has some pretty nice spots overall. It's not too crowded and it offers something different than one-million temples in a row. Also check out the spartan region, it's got some pretty nice spots as well. I'd avoid Athens how ever, apart from the akropolis, because that city is just one big mess. I've never seen a town so unappealing as athens. it might be the part of athens I've been at but that city is noisy, it smells and most of the folks is unfriendly if you don't speak greek with athen-accent.

if you have the chance you may also travel to Kreta or Santorini. Kreta holds a whole lot of cultur (Min0s friend Minotauro s coming from there) and Santorini is basically the most awesome place on earth if you're into Lost Coast. Volcano in the mid of the mare nostrum with a village in the cliffs

[Blocked Image: http://www.poseidon-reisen.de/kykladen/santorini/images/santorini.jpg]

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Belgrad doesn't seem to be a too safe place to be, neither is the Kosovo or Zagreb.

Yeah, Kosovo is still pretty unstable. As for Beograd and Zagreb, none of them are more dangerous than Sofia I'd reckon. Then again, former Yugoslavia is pretty rough terrain still, you never know what might happen. Bulgaria's bigger cities are pretty tourist-friendly it seems (however, I'm more like a native guy, so can't tell clearly), if you don't run into local police or something Macedonia (or, FYROM, for that matter *coughs*) seems to be a pretty stable place, too, so you won't get...... I don't know what you all expect to happen and to see over there, since it's a pretty nice place. Just because the media and a bunch of greedy bastards summon all-embracing chaos in the Balkans doesn't mean that it's a permanent state.

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For Balkan - I have absolute no idea about these countries what's touristic appealing.

How about culture, languages, landschaft, architecture, history? You might just as well ask yourself what's so appealing for tourists to go to America, even though in every western country we're surrounded by American culture, so why'd you figure you'd need more of that?