Accomplishments!

Today I was bored and calculated how far we had traveled in the last six weeks.

Visited 14 countries, 40 cities, and the sovereign state of Vatican City.

Approximate distance walked on a dily basis, 3.5 miles (5.6 km). Total of 150 miles (241 km) on foot.

Total distance covered....

Counting air travel: 21, 416 miles (34,467 km)
Just travel in Europe: 13,055 miles (21,011 km)

13,055 miles is the same as driving from San Francisco, CA to New York City, NY 5 times. FIVE TIMES!!

I think those are some pretty awesome stats. :)

Safe Travels,
- Kit & Heather

Finalizing Plans & Packing!

Well we have 10 days until departure! I completed my last shift at work, making me unemployed for the first time since I was 17! It's amazing to know that we get to go to Europe for a month and a half and not worry about work! I lucky enough to have a job lined up upon our return, so I don't even have to worry about coming home and being broke. :)

With ten days to go we have been kicking it into high-gear. Mostly finalizing our itinerary, checking out train reservations and hostel reservations. There's so much planning that goes into a six-week trip! Even so, we have left space in our itinerary for changes. I mean, no one wants to go on vacation and have an hour-by-hour schedule. Especially not a trip like this one. We know what cities we'll be in on what days and have a list of things to do, but overall it will all come down to how we feel when we get there.

Usually I wouldn't start packing for a trip over a week in advance. However, we leave for Colorado tomorrow and won't be back until the 16th. Which means we will have one full day between before we leave for Europe. So as much packing as we can is a good thing to get done now. We don't want our one day to be stressful, we should relax and enjoy our time in the states before departure.

One thing that we had to get done was our "in case of emergency" file. It's good to leave copies of important documents with a trusted friend or family member in case you run into trouble abroad. We're leaving copies of our passports, bank info, nonliterary, travel insurance, embassy phone list for the countries we will be visiting, Eurail passes, and our loss and theft protection for our passes. This way, worst case scenario, if we loose any valuables it will be easy to get copies faxed to us. It's the little things like this that are important to remember when planning a trip like this. Safety first!

As we pack we are thinking about other logistics. Such as "do we need an extra camera battery or SD card?" Currently, I have a 1GB SD card for my camera and Heather has a 4GB. You would think 4GB would be plenty of space, but you probably haven't seen Heather's travel pictures. ;) Luckily, we have family members who have graciously agreed to let us borrow an extra SD card or two. I suspect we will come home with a ridiculous amount of photos! Photos are free, and the very best souvenir! Specifically, I want some stereotypical tourist shots: trying to push the Tower of Pisa back up, in front of the Eiffel Tower, on a gondola in Venice, up the clock tower in Brugge, drinking a stein of beer at Oktoberfest, etc.

All in all, I think we have planned this trip effortlessly. And I cannot wait to embark! I also can't wait to share our stories with all of you. Stay tuned!

Safe Travels,
- Kit

Itenerary!

Well, as I briefly mentioned in my last post...our plan to get to Europe and trek around aimlessly did not work out to our benefit. We had to plan things out a lot more than expected. Mainly, because a couple of the things we want to see are time sensitive.

The main two things that are "musts" are Oktoberfest in Munich and this amazing cheese market in Amsterdam! We wanted to also go to Tivoli Gardens (Copenhagen), but they close the amusement park on Sept 25th for the down season.

Our first draft itinerary looks like these are the cities we'll be staying in. There are others we will be visiting on day trips.

Madrid, Spain
Barcelona, Spain
Lyon, France
Bern, Switzerland
Munich, Germany
Frankfurt, Germany
Paris, France
Brussels, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Hamburg, Germany
Copenhagen, Denmark
Stockholm, Sweden
Oslo, Norway
Berlin Germany
Prague, Czech Republic
Vienna, Austria
Salzburg, Austria
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Patras, Greece
Athens, Greece

Other cities we will be visiting:

Tarragona, Spain
Vienne, France
Interlaken, Switzerland
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Bruges, Belgium
Norrkoping, Sweden
Verona, Italy
Milan, Italy
Bologna, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Vatican City
Capri, Italy
Brindisi, Italy


We have A LOT planned, but we are good on budgeting our time. Plus we will have time to rest on the trains and in the sweet hostels we've found. While Heather has been researching day-trips and sight-seeing opportunities, I have been living on Hostel World, reading reviews and comparing prices/locations/accommodations/etc

Ironically, in some cities it's cheaper to stay in a hotel for a night than a hostel! Which will be nice, because a private shower will be few and far between. Not to mention getting to sleep in the same bed. I mean most of the trip we'll be sleeping in twin sized bunk beds!

I'm really excited! There is just over a month until we depart, and although I know 1 million things could go wrong.... I'm really not worried. We have rail passes, a guide book, a loose plan and 6 weeks in EUROPE! No matter what, this is going to be an amazing trip. Besides, if we don't see everything we wanted to on this trip, we will just have to go back again. :)

Safe Travels,
- Kit

Free to Travel

We have officially decided on our itenerary! It looks like this...

Sept. 17 - Arrive in Madrid,Spain
Sept 18 - Oct 27 - Travel via train, anywhere we please. TBD day-by-day
Oct 28. - Depart Athens, Greece.

Sounds good to me! Basically all of the itenerary planning was useless because we both feel it'll be best to play things by ear when we're there. With a completely open itenerary we can plan more or less time as we get to the cities we want to see.

We will both have a list of "must see" cities, but as far as when we get there and how long we spend in those cities will depend on how we feel that day.

It's the best way to back pack, in my opinion. Iteneraries tie you to a schedule and can end up making your vacation more of a chore. I don't want to get back from Europe and be ready for some down time. Or not be able to remember things from the trip because everything was such a whirl-wind.

I can't even begin to explain how excited we are for this trip. An open itenerary makes it even more exciting!!

Safe Travels,
- Kit

Must See Countries and Cities!

In planning a 6 week trip to Europe one of the first things you need to figure out is WHERE do you want to go and WHAT do you want to see?

To help us figure out the answers to these questions we started out by watching "Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown" on Travel Channel. Then we started stalking the Eurail website to learn more about our pass options (we're doing Global Flexi 15 days in 2 months, btw). Then finally we picked up the newest edition of Europe by Eurail.

Not until we had done all of this did we even BEGIN to brainstorm our "must list". Currently I've got the following on my list:

France: Paris
Spain: Madrid, Barcelona
Germany: Berlin, Munich
Denmark: Copenhagen
Belgium: Brussels
The Netherlands: Amsterdam
Czech Republic: Prague
Switzerland: Bern, Zurich, Interlacken
Greece: Patrtas, Athens
Italy: Verona, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Napoli, Rome

This list is in no way complete, yet. If at all possible we're going to try and get up to Stockholm, Sweden as well.

It'll be interesting to see how much this changes by the time we finalize our itenerary. :)

Safe Travels,
-Kit