Around Europe in 30 days #1: Forming a plan

As probably a lot of travelers, my big plunge into the mystery of travel came after a breakup: In 2008, I was 21, heartbroken and felt a deep urgency to leave the city… in parts to not accidentally run into my ex. Somehow I came up with the idea of booking an Interrail ticket and touring Europe. Additionally, I felt the strong urge to do it alone. Considering how sheltered I had been up to that point, it surprised even me. But it felt important to do this for myself and for once in my life (I am the oldest of 4 children) not to worry about anyone but me.

My parents were a little shocked and concerned. Why would I not consider partnering up with one of my girl friends? Luckily for me, aside from having done my initial research and having made sound arguments, I was able to play the equality card: My dad had set out on the exact same adventure when he was my age and surely they would be okay if one of my (younger) brothers decided to do the same in a couple of years. They reluctantly held their peace after that.

So I dove deeper into the research, got resources from the local library, acquired train time tables for the European railway system and started planning my first real travel endeavor. In an ideal world, I would have visited every single European country in that one month, but I quickly had to realize that that was not feasible. So instead, I opted to focus on the major cities of Southern Europe.

I decided to take a flight from Berlin (Germany) to Paris (France) since the Interrail ticket is only valid outside your country of residence. From there, I wanted to set out to Spain and visit Madrid, Granada and Barcelona and then head over to Italy to explore Venice and Rome. From there I was going to take the train to Bari to catch the ferry to Patras and cross over to Athens (Greece) and then make my way to Istanbul (Turkey). After that, I was going to take two long distance trains across the Balkan to reach Vienna (Austria) before flying back home to Berlin.

The route in itself was ambitious, but I wanted to see as much as possible in the one month that my summer break from university and my global interrail ticket were offering me. The planned route was going to give me between 1 and 4 days in each location which would not allow me enough time to see everything on my To-Do-List, but I was going to give it my best shot. But obviously, a trip like that was not only about time. I also had to think about budget…

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How about you?
Where did you take your first big plunge into the mystery of travel?

Cover photo was taken in Venice (Italy) in Sep 2008