How To Backpack Europe

Good wine, multiple languages, historic buildings, underground parties, and French women. These are the joys of backpacking through Europe. There's nothing like having a few weeks or a few months to kill by Euro-railing it around the land of good bread and cobblestone streets. But all that culture can be pretty pricey. And if you've never backpack traveled before, food and lodging will ad up quicker than you student loans. So you'll want to do a little advance reading first.

About.com (surprisingly) has put together an excellent and fairly comprehensive article / guide with links to pretty much all you need to know to backpack through Europe. They talk about what gear to bring, the best ways to get there and around, setting a budget and choosing destinations. Good stuff. So click here for the full story and the best tips to help you save money and impress French women (or men). I made the last part up. Enjoy your travels!

Or you can leave your own hard won Europe travel tips in the comments section below.

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BackpackTravelStore.com Now Offers Asolo Backpacks

Hello all, Here's a bit of shameless self promotion that you may also actually want to know about. Backpack Travel Store has just added to its offerings one of the highest quality travel backpack brands available - Asolo. Many of you have been doing your online research prior to your trips and have come upon Asolo backpacks as some of the most recommended packs from travel. So, we decided to add them. So far we are carrying the Navigator and Wayfarer series.

The Navigator 

is a great full-sized, full-feature travel backpack. It offers really everything you could want - Removable day back, lots of storage, integrated rain cover, large main compartment and zips open like a suitcase. And unique to the Navigator, it offers a detachable toiletries kit / waist pack.






The Wayfarer

is one of my personal favorites and the pack of choice for experiences travelers. At 3051 cu in / 50 liters, its smaller than the Navigators and other full-sized packs. But if you are an experienced backpack traveler and know how to pack, this is all you need. It has a big main compartment which is important is smaller packs as you want to fit as much into the main bag as possible. And it includes a sizable day pack and other features of larger packs, such as compression straps and sturdy hip support. It's also priced right at only $139. Short of climbing everest or other gear intensive trips, the Wayfarer is the way to go.

Other packs will be added shortly. So check them out here.

Obviously, I'm a big fan of these two packs, but would love to hear your experiences/opinions from the road. So share your take on these two packs in the comments section below.
Enjoy your travels!

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Get Paid to Share your Travel Love

Back in the day. Roughly your grandfather’s day. When one person shared a tip with another. Be it the bar with the best music, the hostel with the best beds or the city with the best looking girls, they called it “word of mouth.”  But that was 1947. Today they call it “micro-blogging” and a new website not only helps you do it, but just might pay you for the privilege.

The founders of backpackerforever.com have just launched version 2.0 which includes a “knowledge sharing portal” (Formally known as a hostel bulletin board) which allows actual travelers to rely on each other for knowledge and guidance.

Chances are someone has been where you’re going and you’ve been where someone else is headed. So why not share.

“Backpackers are the best travelers in the world. We travel in tiny budgets, rely on local transportation, meet dozens of locals and fellow travelers daily, and are not afraid to go off the beaten path, says Matt, one of the website’s founders. “The collective budget travel community has the largest and most reliable database of travel information in the world, and if we all worked together, we can build something great we can all rely on.”

And though there are lots of sites that will pay you a pittance for your travel tidbits, backpackforever.com is different in that it returns 100 percent of the site’s profits to its members.

“Backpackers who run out of money early have to go home early, and we thing that stinks,” says Tran, the website’s other founder. “It is our hope that a little bit of extra income will help backpackers stay on the road a bit longer.”

So if you know the best bar or the city with the best looking girls, please share. And it just might get you a few more days in Amsterdam.

To read the whole story on the website’s pay program, click here.

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