The Summer Adventures of S-Squared

My cousin, S., is coming to London from San Diego to hang out with yours truly. About a year ago, we sat around and talked about how fun it would be if she could visit this summer so we could travel around Europe together, suitcases in tow, laptop at the ready, seeing all that Europe had to offer. Well, flash-forward 12 months and here we are! S. has booked her flight to London (arriving the 2nd of July!) and we are planning an oh-so-exciting tour of Europe.

My initial idea was to choose 5 -6 places and just fly from destination to destination (courtesy of discount airlines), staying in inexpensive lodging. She mentioned the Eurail pass and I completely disregarded the idea. Now, though… as I calculate flight costs (and the dreaded ‘extra luggage fees’ imposed by easyJet) plus the costs of getting from the airport to the city center, I’m beginning to think that a Eurail pass is just what we need. The Global Pass, which is available at their website, is €429 for a 21 day continuous pass (€535 for one month) and provides access to 21 countries that are part of the scheme. Based on the current exchange rate, that’s roughly $575 for unlimited travel for a 3-week period. Not really all that bad.

The thought of summer travel has gotten me seriously excited. First, instead of being relegated to one major city (e.g. Rome or Barcelona), we can travel to a number of fun cities within a country and spend just a couple of days at each (unless the place calls for more, of course). When you’re spending loads of money flying to a destination, it feels wrong to leave after two days. So, that being the case, we don’t have to decide between Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Florence and Cinque Terra — we can see everything! The same can be said for Spain. Why only visit Barcelona, when there’s Seville, Madrid and San Sebastian to see? Plus this opens up the options of seeing places like Switzerland, Croatia and Austria; places that we may not have specifically chosen to visit, but would be a nice stop along the way, even if just for a day. An added benefit? The time that we’ll be traveling on the train can be spent working on my dissertation — it’s the perfect time to catch up on readings and get some work together!

Eeeee (that’s the 5-year-old in me screaming with excitement)! I can’t believe I didn’t actually give the Eurail pass its fair due before! Considering the great experience I had with Thalys during our trip from Paris to Amsterdam, I should have been first in line for this thing!

How’s this for a plan?

I seriously can’t wait… Is it July yet?