Planning the Ultimate European Backpacking Trip

The Big Dream 

     On May 22nd, 2015 I finally graduated college.  A huge achievement, and an achievement I wanted to celebrate in a big way.  I have studied aboard, but I did not travel around too much.  To commemorate my graduation, I dreamed of traveling around Europe for months seeing and exploring as much as possible: Spain, Italy, Portugal, England, Switzerland, and many more! After making and revising many lists, we realized we would not realistically be able to see everything. Our list was very dynamic and fluid; It changed all of the time.  Eventually, we found a good game plan that we thought was realistic and achievable.

Porto, Portugal

     As Americans, we are only allowed to travel in the Schengen Zone for for 90 days. That's it.  After that we have to be out.  It gets confusing because not all members of the European Union are in the Schengen Zone, but all members of the Schengen Zone are in the European Union. So, we stayed in the Schengen Zone for 89 days, and then flew to Istanbul, Turkey.  We spent one week there, and then flew into the UK which is not part of the zone.

Venice, Italy

     We ended up spending four months backpacking through Europe.  We were traveling from September 14th 2015-January 14th 2016, and we traveled to 18 countries, two continents, and on numerous buses, cars, trains, planes, and boat rides.

Bologna, Italy

We spent a lot of time researching the destinations we wanted to explore and seeing how we would be able to fit in everything we wanted to see all while maintaining our budget and finding cheap routes to get between cities.  Finding affordable accommodations was another factor for us while planning our trip.  Knowing Switzerland was outrageously expensive but incredibly beautiful, it was our huge splurge of the trip.

The view of the Alps from Männlichen, Switzerland. 

Here is our itinerary for our entire journey abroad.  It took a while to plan, and the final result covered everything we wanted and more.

The Ultimate European Backpacking Itinerary 

Copenhagen, Denmark

Berlin, Germany
Prague, Czech Republic
Budapest, Hungary
Vienna, Austria
Salzburg, Austria
Berchtesgaden, Germany (Konigsee)
Munich, Germany
Ulm, Germany
Tübingen, Germany
Überlingen, Germany (Lake Constance/Bodensee)
Zurich, Switzerland
Luzerne, Switzerland
Grindelwald, Switzerland (Jungfrau Region)
Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland (Jungfrau Region)
Bern, Switzerland
Bellagio, Italy (Lake Como)
Como, Italy (Lake Como)
Venice, Italy
Bologna, Italy
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Barcelona, Spain
Valencia, Spain
Granada, Spain
Cordoba, Spain
Seville, Spain
Lagos, Portugal (The Algarve)
Lisbon, Portugal
Porto, Portugal
Paris, France
Brussels, Belgium
Bruges, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Istanbul, Turkey
London, England
Leeds, England
York, England
Glasgow, Scotland
Edinburgh, Scotland
Dublin, Ireland
Brighton, England
London, England