Summer of 2015 – My Interrailing Do’s and Don’ts…

One big perk of university life is the extensive holidays we get as students. Summer being the biggest and the best.

My summer started very early on in May and after finishing my exams I picked up a lot more hours at work.

I was working at Jack Wills in Tunbridge Wells as a Sales Assistant but by the end of June I was asked if I would be interested in joining the management team and I was promoted to a Supervisor for the remainder of the summer break!

Chuffed with my promotion I was excited to take on more responsibility and do more around the workplace but the pay rise worked out to be a very nice bonus too and helped me to fund my summer adventures!

I only had two big things planned for my summer - a girl’s holiday to Malia, in Crete and a 3-week Interrailing trip around Europe! After getting the promotion the following couple of weeks flew by and before I knew it I was off for my week in the sunshine with my school friends from home! I had a brilliant time and it was so nice to stop thinking about work for the week, but on my return it only left me 3 more weeks back at work before I was off again on my travels!

The panic shopping and packing quickly commenced. I was so busy at work and the friends I was travelling with were still at university on placement and working too, which left us no time at all to meet up before our trip. However the girls had already chosen the destinations and planned a route and with Kayleigh (one of my old friends from college I was travelling with) having been Interrailing the year before she assured me it was very much a ‘plan and book as you go’ sort of thing… not exactly the type of organisation that makes an hopeful events organiser feel at ease!

Me being me, I had made sure I downloaded the EuRail app that helped you plan journeys and find out trains, running times, scheduled stops - everything you need, even offline. I did then find myself in charge of planning EVERY train route...

We also quickly learnt the difficulty of finding hostels on the move at very short notice, completely the opposite to what Kayleigh had experienced the previous year. We had two nights throughout the whole trip when we panicked and bulk booked available dorms.

Which brings me to my first DO…

•   DO plan as much of your trip as you can! If you’re planning on going Interrailing It’ll save you so much time, worry and even money if you plan your route, train, journeys and hostels in advance. It also means you know how much money you need to take to cover the cost of accommodation of your whole trip, leaving you to allocate as much as you like to spending on food, attractions and things to do.

•  DON’T travel with people you don’t know as well as your best friends or family… for example don’t travel with a friend of a friend, your friend may share completely different interests with them as they do with you and for that reason you’ve got a 50/50 chance of totally clashing with them or getting on like a house on fire…

•   DO make sure you and your friends you are travelling with have the same ideas about what you’d like to get out of your trip. Do you want to enjoy nice meals out in each place and try the local cuisine or play it safe and stick to the foods you know? Are there any important sightseeing spots anyone is desperate to visit? And do you all know what to expect in each country?

•  DON’T overpack! It’s so tempting to add in another pair of shoes or an extra outfit - “it doesn’t weigh much!” you’ll be telling yourself but it really does all add up. The less you pack the easier your travels will be. Personally I found trekking from the station across the centre of Florence with an 11kg rucksack in the 36 degree heat almost unbearable! It was only meant to be a 5-10 minute walk but oh how I wish my bag was even just a couple of kg lighter! You’re also unlikely to find yourself wearing everything you’ve packed. Just make sure you pack pieces you can mix and match, but beware by week 2 of your travels its safe to say you will be SICK of the clothes you’re wearing so it’s always nice to bring things to swap with friends.

I could probably go on writing a huge list of personal do's and don'ts about travelling but really any choices you make come down to personal preference and the type of person you are, everyones experiences and expectations are different but in general Interrailing really is a once in a lifetime experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone on a gap year or to students on summer break during university. However whatever you do make sure you do your research and you get a good idea in your head about what to expect, remember not every hostel is going to be like anywhere you’ve stayed before!

Interrailing is also a great opportunity to meet other teenagers from all over the world on their travels too and it’s always interesting to hear about their experiences and what they’d recommend from countries they’ve travelled in previous to you!

and with that all said I leave you with this...

"Travel while you're still young and able, don't worry about the money, just make it work. The experience is far more valuable than money will ever be."

For any students who've taken the time to read my blog, be sure to make the most of every summer break you have before it's finally time for us to join the real working world...

Thanks for reading,

Izzie x