[00:00] Hey guys, my name is Natalie, and I just got back from a two-month solo backpacking trip throughout Europe, and I saw over 15 countries, which is crazy, because before that trip, I literally just went to Canada and the United States of America,
[00:12] and that was it. I vlogged the entire trip, so I will throw that playlist up here. If you are looking to plan your own two-month solo backpacking trip through Europe as a solo female traveler or your male traveler, I'm here to help you plan the whole thing out.
[00:24] If you just look at the whole big picture, it's kind of overwhelming, so we're going to break it down step by step, and I'll show you exactly how I did it. Step number one is to choose the countries that you want to go to, okay?
[00:38] And then write those out into an Excel spreadsheet. Don't hold back with this step. Just write out everything that you want to see. If you just get your ideas out, then it'll be a lot easier to plan the whole thing.
[00:51] Step number two is to create a budget. Okay, so how much money are you comfortable with spending on your first solo backpacking journey? And then whenever you have that number written out inside of your Excel spreadsheet, what you need to do is multiply that number by 1.5.
[01:06] As are, you're not accounting for a lot of different things that could go wrong. And so you need to have a little bit of a buffer on top of your budget. So once you have that new number, that is going to be your budget for this trip.
[01:20] Step number three is to choose how long you want to be backpacking throughout Europe. That two months was perfect because it was my first time traveling outside of the United States and being in Europe and besides Canada.
[01:32] So it was nice to get my toes in the water and then see 15 countries at the same time. For me, I like going fast and seeing a lot. You do you, but choose how long you want to be there.
[01:44] Step number four is to reduce the number of countries that you have on your list to an appropriate mix of countries. Okay, what I mean is you have to look at your list of countries. Say you're going to like, you want to go to 17 different countries. Just look at that list and realistically ask yourself, can I see that amount of countries in X amount of days?
[02:01] For me, what I did, I think I had like 20 different countries that I wanted to see. And I knew I was only going to stay in each place for like a day or two. So I figured visiting 15 countries was realistic for me.
[02:13] The idea with this whole thing process is get it all down on a piece of paper or an Excel spreadsheet and then reduce or remove the things that aren't really realistic. And remember that you can always go back to Europe.
[02:25] You can always plan a separate trip another time. So that's what I kept telling myself and gave me like a peace of mind. Step number five is to now find your flights.
[02:37] Okay, so choose the country that you want to fly into. If you have like five different countries on your Excel spreadsheet, what you got to do is go into Google Flights and see what the prices are like, you know, maybe a couple months down the road, maybe for next year, whenever you want to go, look at the prices. So what I did was I planned my entire trip out in December of 2022. And I knew I wanted to go in the summer of 2023. I just looked up every single country I wanted to go to. And I saw the cheapest flight was flying into Germany into Berlin. That's what I chose. And I went from there.
[03:10] So that was my flying endpoint and then I knew that I wanted to end in Sweden and the flights were actually really cheap there as well So I end up buying my flight back from Stockholm, Sweden What I would do is look at each of your countries and then see what the cheapest flight is and then go from there
[03:29] Okay so for step number six you have to indicate how long you want to stay in each country High level decide how long you want to be in a country and then we break it down from there Next to each country, write out the number of days so it's very clear and organized.
[03:43] I'm like a very visual person, so that was helpful when I was planning on my trip. Now, step number seven is to find your accommodations. Now, this part was really stressful for me because this is when the prices really started to add up.
[03:57] I didn't want to do hostels. I wasn't sure if I'd be comfortable with them. I ended up doing one hostel in Vienna and it wasn't for me. I didn't like it. So I would prefer spending a little extra money to feel safe and comfortable staying in an Airbnb.
[04:11] That's my own personal preference. If you want to stay in hotels and that's your vibe, by all means, look at different hotels in each country. Find the accommodation. Find the exact date that you want to stay there. find the price for like let's say three days in Florence and write that price the total price
[04:28] on the spreadsheet next to the city you would add in the link for the Airbnb to give you a peace of mind you don't need to buy anything just yet we're just trying to see what the total price is and where you need to kind of adjust your budget number eight is to find
[04:46] transportation between cities and between countries start googling if you want to take a train if you want to take a plane if you want to take a bus I ended up taking a lot of flix buses through Europe which was super convenient and nice I never had a problem with them they have a lot of different
[05:01] times throughout the day so if you want to you know do transportation in the morning you can get to your destination midday and still have time to explore that's exactly what I did I felt very safe you can also take the train if you're in Italy the train system is like absolutely amazing
[05:15] thorough star is one of like the popular train systems that you can take throughout Europe and just do like a Eurostar Europe trip. I did not do that because I wanted to jump around a lot more than the the stops that were available through Eurostar. I did end up taking Eurostar for one
[05:32] journey which was convenient. Just go into Google. I would type in one city and then the next city where I wanted to go to and then it would give you the options like train or bus or whatever and I would just go there or I would just go right to flixbus.com and then just find the bus route that
[05:47] I wanted to take. The buses are not bad and like super cheap. I went from Venice to Switzerland for like $20. It's very affordable to use Flixbus. That's what I did.
[05:59] Step number nine is to look at your total price that you have now for every single day and see if you are comfortable with that total. This total should include all of your accommodations for every single day, all of your transportation for every single day, and your flight to Europe
[06:14] and your flight home from Europe. See what that price is and see if that is within your budget. Now, if it's not within your budget, see where you can kind of pull some strings. Maybe don't do an Airbnb for one spot.
[06:26] Maybe just do a hostel or maybe you don't need to fly somewhere. Maybe you can take like a bus instead. This is when you can start to like play around with things and get creative. Or if you really need to, just don't spend as much time in Europe.
[06:38] Like just chop off a week or something and then you can save money that way. Step number 10, what you need to do is start booking. And I know this is like the most nerve-wracking part for me because I'm like the moment I start booking, it's going to be like I'm locked in.
[06:53] You know what you can do is get insurance for each of your bookings So like through flights and stuff there always like flight insurance Same the Flixbus they have that Airbnb I think you can pay for like air cover or something it called
[07:05] If that gives you a peace of mind, if you need to cancel maybe in the future, you have that option. I didn't. I just went full force and I was like, let's book. I'm not backing out. Like I'm ready. I did all the accommodation in one day and I did all the transportation in one day.
[07:18] And then I had to take a day just to like digest and be like, okay, now I'm asked. I have to book it. Like this is real. I have to make this like a real life thing. when I finally gained the courage and strength to just go for it and take the risk I just booked everything and I'm like let's go I was like ready to move and trust me it's going to be scary but
[07:34] it's going to be so worth it. Step number 11 is now to choose all the different food places and maybe different like tourist spots you want to see or maybe different hikes or different buildings
[07:46] or unique things you might have found on like Instagram or TikTok or different like travel blogs or things like that and what I do is always go into Google Maps and I'll look up the food place or I'll look up the hiking trail and I'll put a star on it and I'll save it down into
[08:00] a list on my Google Map. My Google Maps is organized by country. Let's say I was going to Barcelona, Spain or something so I would just go to Barcelona on my Google Maps and I would swipe through and I would see all the food places I saved, all of the hikes or tourist sites, churches,
[08:16] things like that that I wanted to see and then I could just quickly like when I arrive in Barcelona I just click on Barcelona and I could see all the stars all the places I stayed and I could choose which ones I wanted to go to a quick tip here I would say is don't plan every single day to a
[08:31] team so it's like you wake up at this time you're going to go to this place you're going to eat at this place and like have it so organized and like stringent that you have no flexibility at all because there's going to be things that go wrong, like with transportation and money and just like arrivals,
[08:46] just like random things that you can't account for. So if you have a day planned out so tightly that all of a sudden one thing goes wrong and your entire day is messed up, you're going to be so stressed out and there's no reason to do that.
[08:58] And when you are exploring a new country, part of the excitement is just going in blind and just seeing what you see as you walk around and being like, I want to stop there or I want to try that food or let's go talk to this person. That's why I
[09:12] always just had scars on things and I knew like the general area I wanted to go to but I wasn't like I need to do this and I need to do that. It was like this is an option. I know like where I'm what I'm walking into but I don't have to do it if that makes sense.
[09:28] Step number 12 is to pack your bags. I did make another video on this how to pack for a two month full of backpacking trip. I'll throw the link up here in the description box down below. Try to pack as little as you can and trust me it's okay to repeat outfits you're gonna hold your
[09:42] entire life on your back if it's super super heavy you're not going to be happy and as you're walking around very steep steep steep streets like Italy and Lisbon oh my god Lisbon had really
[09:55] steep streets you are not going to be happy you're going to become a minimalist I swear like you should become one before you go. Step number 13 is to prepare yourself mentally this
[10:07] This is something that no one really told me, but I knew I needed to take a couple of days just to get in the swing of things. Because you're about to embark on a crazy adventure that you obviously have no idea what's going to happen, but it's scary.
[10:19] If you're going by yourself, many things can go wrong, but also many things can go right. And you also learn who you are and experience such raw beautiful and authentic things on this trip that you going to come back a new person I guarantee it The version of me that went to Europe and then the version of me that came back from
[10:37] Europe are completely different people, okay? Not just like, oh, I went to Europe. It's you took care of yourself for two months in a country where no one really spoke English and you had to get around, understand the transportation system, find your accommodation,
[10:52] you know, take care of yourself 100%. And if anything goes wrong, it's like you have your own back. So you're going to learn a lot about yourself. You're going to be faced with a ton of challenges, but your problem-solving skills are going to be top tier after this trip.
[11:04] I guarantee that. You're going to learn on a deeper level who you are. You need to take a couple days mentally to ask yourself, like, why are you even going on this trip? Like, what are you trying to get out of this trip? I wanted to just challenge myself.
[11:16] Like, drop me in the middle of a random country. Can I survive? Like, that was kind of my mindset. And then also, I wanted to inspire people to do the same thing. So I knew I wanted to blog and edit a video every single day on my trip.
[11:28] And that was like my goal because I wanted to inspire people to just jump out of their comfort zone and live life and just go after it. Because why not? Every day when I was in Europe, I just kept reminding myself back to that thought. Okay, I'm doing this for this reason.
[11:41] I'm going to keep pushing. The last step is number 14. Remember to have a good time and also be open to making mistakes. be open to running into different challenges and problems be open to talking to new people and
[11:57] jumping out of your comfort zone because this trip is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you and sometimes all you think about is like all the things that could go wrong and you're freaking out about your schedule and like things that could be canceled and you're just like oh my
[12:11] god there's a lot that can go wrong yes but if you're only thinking about that then they're probably going to go wrong 100 but if you think about having fun you think about like this is a really amazing opportunity and I'm blessed and honored to be able to go on this trip
[12:27] then your entire mindset shifts and it's like you learn to have a good time I remember there were so many days where I was scared to death just traveling around by myself I'm like something bad's gonna happen I'm gonna die oh my god and then I had to like remind myself I'm like this is an
[12:41] amazing day I'm literally walking the streets of like La Spezia Italy right now and I could just go into this grocery store and get like the freshest gelato in the world eat this gelato while looking at the sea. It's like you don't get days like that every day and so just to appreciate
[12:55] it and remember like this is a fun this is a fun thing you're about to do. It kind of helps you have a peace of mind and bring some like comfort to you if that makes sense because it's scary. The unknown is scary. Like those are the 14 steps that I took. These are the 14 steps you can also
[13:10] take if you are planning your first solo backpacking trip through Europe. You got this and if you have any other questions about preparing for your solo backpacking trip through Europe. I went to 15 different countries so I'm sure I can help you out in some way. If you do have any questions drop
[13:23] them in the comments down below and if you want to see any other videos about preparing for your solo backpacking trip or what to expect on your trip or which countries to go to or any different travel guides definitely let me know in the comments down below and I'm happy to help you
[13:37] guys out because solo traveling really opens up your mind and just traveling in general is a beautiful thing and I just I can't wait to see the entire world. So I love you guys so much thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!
[13:50] Thank you.