Matt Gossett's Stories: One backpack, two weeks, one epic trip

When I mentioned earlier that the most difficult part of living in France is planning your next vacation, I was not kidding. After our first 4 weeks of work, our first 2 weeks of vacation has arrived, this time in honor of Toussaints, a religious holiday known is All Saints Day in the US. In the US, we may get an afternoon off for Halloween, celebrating the day before Toussaints. In France, they get two weeks to sit and ponder what the significance of the holiday is anyway.

Fortunately, my roommate and I are equally ambitious and passionate for seeing as much of the continent as possible before we leave. We first began researching Eurail passes, which allow you to travel by train for a good price through a selected number of countries. Then, we discovered the Interrail pass, literally the same thing except its for European residents only, its cheaper and it allows you to travel by train to any of 30 countries in Europe. With all of Europe at our fingertips, we got to planning an epic adventure:

Thouars à Paris à Brussels à Amsterdam à Berlin à Prague à Budapest à Munich à Zurich à Paris à Thouars

So maybe ambitious was an understatement. We plan on traveling to all of these cities for 2 or 3 days (except for Paris, which is required connection to any city in the world out of France). Fortunately, there’s no reason that we have to stick to schedule, and it’s hard to believe that we can make it across the continent in two weeks, but I think we will give it our best shot.

Anyway, deciding where to go was easy enough. Choosing a place to stay and things to do is a whole other story. Fortunately, we have our first couchsurfing host reserved and ready to pick us up from the train station in Brussels on Saturday. The rest is anything but planned.

In order to make these extreme travels as stress-free as possible, I’ve decided to take just a backpack, a mere 65L Gregory Baltoro Industrial World Traveler backpack that is. Thanks to my mom, I am confident in my packing efficiency skills, and not to mention the “6 countries in 6 weeks with One Pair of Underwear”, which I laughed at when she gave me before leaving, should come in handy.

Also in the interest of space and efficiency, I’m traveling without my laptop. So blog access will be limited to iphone, iPad, i.e. short posts with lots of pictures. I hardly know what to expect but I can hardly wait to find out. I’ll try to keep you all posted.