1) Don't eat 'fancy food' in 'cheap restaurants'
This lesson I learnt the minute we arrived at our first destination. I have, and always will be a foodie, so I convinced my travel companion, my good friend Caroline, to have a cheap 2 course meal with me (I thought 2 courses for 12 euros ain't bad, especially when a hard boiled egg for 7 euros seemed to be the norm in Paris). Caroline had a safe option of a Hamburger, whereas I went adventurous and ordered the steak tartare. I love steak tartare, despite it essentially being raw beef, so I knew what to expect, but I was not expecting raw beef mince with the addition of some raw chopped onion. Needless to say, it was as appetizing as it sounds. This may have been a case of bad luck, or just a bad experience, either way I'm too afraid to make the same mistake again.
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| Can you see that it's just raw mince!? (bottom left hand corner) |
2) Less luggage will mean more laundry
After researching the top tips for interrailing, the one recommendation that popped up time and time again was to pack as light as possible. As much as I appreciated this tip, no one mentioned the amount of laundry would need to be done as a result of my frugal packing. This may seem like common sense, but that is something I have lacked in all my life. I was moving around every 2-3 days so drying time also was limited. And laundry could be expensive, depending on how desperate you are. Basically, take in account time, money and amount of washes you expect to do when it comes to your luggage.
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| Another thing... buy a rucksack with many pockets! I kept losing my socks :( |
3) WiFi is never a certainty
I had an important email to send and had a little meltdown when I could not get WiFi. WiFi was guaranteed in the hostel description, so I thought I would be OK, but I quickly came to learn that that does not guarantee a good WiFi connection. To avoid stress, and I admit some tears, then send any important messages in advance, preferably before you go travelling.
4) Have low expectations when it comes to 'free breakfast'
Many of the hostels we stayed at offered us a 'free breakfast' with our stay. Now I am not complaining, as a free breakfast is better than one that costs you money, although I will advise that it is best to have low expectations. For example, at our last hostel the breakfast basically consisted of cake, again I can't really complain about that, but it doesn't set your stomach up for a day of walking. At another, it was stale bread and warm milk. With low expectations, also comes many opportunities to surpass them, and the majority of the breakfasts did just that.
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| Unfortunately, this was not the cake in the 'free breakfast' option. |
5) The brilliance of a 'free' tour!
I had never heard of a 'free' tour until a guy we met in Munich recommended it to us. Essentially, you are given a tour of the city you are in, and only after do you have to decide if the tour was worth any money. If the tour was terrible, you don't have to pay. Luckily the two free tours we did were incredible so they more than deserved a tip.
Free Tour: http://www.neweuropetours.eu/
6) Always bring plasters!
Again, my common sense prevailed here. Who would have thought that you would obtain blisters from 8 hours of walking, nearly every day, for three weeks? I certainly didn't. But I did get blisters, and I did not bring plasters. Thankfully my travelling companion is prepared for anything and bought an entire first aid kit. We didn't use anything else from the kit so I am only going to emphasize the importance of plasters. Oh, and in her case, also bring bug spray!
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| Resting my poor feet on the final days of our trip. |
7) Bring a book (or two)
This may sound strange to those who could think of nothing worse than spending time reading a book when you are visiting another country: 'You should be making the most of it! You can read a book at home!'. However, I am someone who needs their downtime, especially after walking on cobbles for 8 hours. My travelling companion agreed with me, although her entertainment of choice was a power nap. Whenever she was napping, I was catching up with my reading.
8) Running red lights is a normality in many places...
Be prepared to put all fears aside when it comes to crossing roads, especially when visiting Berlin and Rome. In Berlin, we heard you would only get a five euro fine for running a red light, so no wonder it was happening so often when we were there. And in Rome, you just have to have the confidence that cars will stop and not hit you when walking a zebra crossing.
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| Budapest was one of the better places for driving. |
9) How much I hate selfie sticks
If you want to take a selfie, that's your prerogative. It's not something I would personally do, especially when travelling, as I'd rather memorize the landmarks than a photo of my face. However, what I don't like are people so involved with selfie-taking that they forget that there is anyone but themselves walking around... shocking, considering that all the places we were in were busy tourist areas. I cannot tell you how many people bumped into me because of this, but I can tell you that I did not appreciate it one bit.
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| The landmark that attracted the most selfie stick users. |
10) Do not drink alcohol on an empty stomach.
This is definitely a life lesson, and boy did I learn it the hard way. I'm sure this is not a lesson unique to interrailing, it just happened to be one I discovered on this trip. Let's just say, saving money on food so you can spend more of it on a pub crawl, results in a lot of vomit and regret. This was the first, and last time, I will ever drink on an empty stomach.
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| The perfect end to our experience. And see, there is food... I learnt my lesson. |
