A Few Updates

Despite how excited I am to go to Europe, I haven't been doing much planning in the past 2 months. Actually, the truth is that Guitar Hero (a very addictive game!) was distracting me. However, I still have a few updates to talk about. First off, I have to talk about the backpack I bought last week. After much looking around, below is a picture of the backpack I chose except mine is red, which gives off a great "I am Canadian" feel!
For some reason I am super excited now that I have the backpack! A few of the most important features I was looking for in a backpack were the following: 1) a daypack for sightseeing around cities; 2) a zip cover for the straps (ideal to protect the straps while checking in your luggage at the airport and hostels); 3) between 65 and 80 liters of packing space (this was an educated guess for what I needed, check my packing list); 4) finally, I wanted a lot of pockets on the inside to organize my stuff. The pack is made by Mountain Equipment Coop, which also offers many other backpacking essentials on their website.

I was given some good tips about how to fit and pack a backpack. You want to try to pack the heaviest items in the center of the pack, with medium weight items below, and light items on top. This puts the center of gravity of the bag in the ideal position. In terms of fitting the backpack, you want the waist belt to be on the top of your hips with the shoulder straps resting lightly on your shoulders. Most of the weight should be transferred to your hips (about two thirds) with one third going to your shoulders.

Secondly, Jack, Josh, and I have bought our airline tickets and are flying on Air Transat. We are leaving on the 8th of September and returning November 19th (72 days). In addition to Air Transat being the cheapest flight out there, we were fortunate enough to get a discount through a family friend. With taxes the flight will cost us $458; regular price would have been about $490.

Finally, you can check out the updated/real route we will be taking in Europe. We also have our first and second hostels picked out. In London, we are going to stay at the Meininger City Hostel. In Edinburgh, we are staying at the Castle Rock Hostel. Well that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll beat Guitar Hero soon, so that I can spend more time on posting.

OKTOBERFEST!!!

Book your Oktoberfest hostel now!! Oktoberfest goes from Sept. 22 to Oct. 10 in Munich, Germany. We just booked our hostel for 2 nights and it was challenging because vacant rooms were getting low. We will be staying at the A&O Hostel and already their rooms are almost all taken. If you are going to be in Europe anytime during these 3 weeks, you should check out Oktoberfest; it is supposed to be a blast. Germans say that it is only a tourist grab and don't like it too much; however, it is still supposed to be a lot of fun.
The A&O Hostel is the first hostel we have booked and it was exciting. Our first definite stop is planned! Apparently, over the 3 weeks, 6 million liters of beer is drank last year; well, I sure have a lot of drinking to do in those 2 days in order to help them reach 7 million this year!

A Brief Synopsis

As promised, I'm back with some of the major details of my backpacking trip around Europe. First, I want to start off by introducing my backpacking buddies. I will be traveling with two friends, Jack Bangay and Josh Caswell, from my amazing hometown of Milton! You have to be from Milton to understand that sarcasm. We have been hoping to go on this trip ever since the end of high school. Now our chance is finally here, well in 4 months, but everything is piecing together beautifully and the three of us cannot wait until September comes.

We are planning on traveling to as many countries as we can fit into 3 months and will be staying in hostels for the majority of the nights. We are using www.hosteleurope.com to coordinate which hostels to stay at and I have added a Google Map on the sidebar that will show where we are and have been throughout our trip. Just below the map is a link to a great new feature offered in Google Maps and shows the major cities we plan to visit. Also, below that, I will keep a tally of my expenses throughout the trip and post the numbers in a graph in the sidebar.

I am trying to make this blog as useful as possible for people who are planning on or want to go backpacking around Europe. Any suggestions on what to add to this blog would be greatly appreciated. Until next time, cheers!