br6711

Helllllllo everybody!! haha. I wanted to take a second to introduce myself.. I'm Will, a 20 year old in need of some adventure! I have a good thing going, but wow am I bored with school. Currently, I'm planning to take a year off school (next year) and live/travel/and (maybe) study in Europe. I'm very excited about it and excited about this forum cause no one I know would touch this with a 10 foot pole. I'm ready to paraglide Baba Dag, eat jellied eel in London, party in Amsterdam, go to Oktoberfest, go to Carnival in Rio, run with the bulls in Spain, and relax in Mykonos! Just to name a few.. So thanks for having me!

Elizabeth

welcome to tpunk! sounds like an awesome plan you have! where are you going to school now?

mish99

Welcome!!!

simply_angelic

Hey! Welcome to the boards!

I did the exact same thing last year and spent 5 months in Africa. Best decision of my life. I was feeling frustrated with school and not sure if it was for me or what I wanted to do when I got out of it so I volunteered in south africa doing something that I always thought I wanted to do but never knew if I'd like it because I's never tried it (conservation wildlife). Now I have so much more drive to be in school and it is soooo much better. Not to mention that I'm practically the most bad-ass girl in town having gone to the DRC (lol except that nobody actually seems to know how bad ass that is around here...).

A word of advice though...a lot of people take a year off and never want to go back. I say do something that inspires you to go back AS WELL AS traveling to your hearts content. It will make you feel better about school in the long run, trust me. Good luck!

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~Laura
GO CANADA!!!!

If you walk backwards, you'll find out that you can go forward and people won't know if you're coming or going.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

Countries I've Visited: Austria, Botswana, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy. Malawi, Mexico, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, UK, Vatican City, Zambia

raoulduke

Welcome to TPunk!

Running of the bulls is insane. If you're looking for a thrill I'd also recommend the cheese rolling in Gloucester.

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One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die -HST

marc873

Welcome to the boards, Any itenarary ideas?

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When an adventure ends you can never go back, never relive it, never hope to feel the same emotion. The secret is to not try and go back but to keep searching for new adventure....

br6711

thanks everybody! I'm still working on specifics.. I'm wondering if I should initially just take a 4-5 week backpack-ish excursion to familiarize myself with the whole experience. Note this would NOT take the place of living over there! It's just with financing it and everything, I can plan on going this summer in which I may not be able to make such definite plans with everything going on. And no, this isn't an excuse to put it off to another date as I WILL still pursue this. Anyways, I have a contact in London so I thought I could call that home base and take it from there (why i say backpack-ish).. I can go and stay there and then take many smaller backpack trips! Most likely cheaper too...
So what's a good fat number for a budget to finance the whole thing say(backpacking), 6-7 months in advance? $10... $10,000,000...?? I'm sure they vary widely so we'll say 4 weeks of active traveling and I want to pursue a lot of activities.. i.e. scuba diving, paragliding, skydiving, stuff like that.. so, shoot!

Elizabeth

Unless your contact is gonna be your sugar mamma or sugar daddy, I don't think you save a lot of money by staying in London. Ryanairs and EasyJets aren't always cheap plus figure in the cost of commute to and fro the airports. It adds up.

I'm more of a stroll around the city type of traveler rather than activities, but my budget including hostel for western europe is 60-75 dollars a day. For central I'd say 40 dollars a day.

br6711

Well he'd be picking me up from the airport and taking me there and such. And his place is free so... pretty good deal. As far as activities go, I'm somewhere in between on the spectrum. I want to stroll around the cities and be leisurely but I also want to do some memorable stuff (as if the trip won't be memorable). How far in advance do you all book your spot in the hostel? As great as it would be to not have an itinerary, I think I would maybe be sleeping on the streets a few nights.