I decided a long time ago that when I finally finished studying, I’d take a trip around Europe to make the most of the free time I have before I start working.
I start my training contract at the law firm on 6th August and so have around a month to travel. Too little time to have a decent holiday in Asia or the USA, long enough for Europe…so I designed my own ‘Grand Tour’.
I will be Interrailing around Europe from Wednesday 2nd July for 27 days and this is my route plus a fairly random collection of thoughts:

Geneva, CH
Bellinzona, CH
Venice, IT
Vienna, AT
Bratislava, SK,
Prague, CZ
Berlin, DE
Amsterdam, NL

The only non-train journey will be my flight home to London from Amsterdam with Easyjet.
I’ll use Eurostar to Paris and then the TGV onwards to Geneva.
I have booked a sleeper train between Venice and Vienna.
I will be seeing friends in Geneva, Venice, Vienna and Bratislava, but otherwise travelling on my own.

Accommodation is entirely in youth hostels, which are cheap and easy to book online.

I’m taking one large Berghaus rucksack with a smaller Deuter daysack stowed inside. Clothing has been easy and I’ve made numerous purchases from the Craghoppers range, as they are light, easy to wash, quick drying and many have inbuilt SPF ratings!

My final issue is a technological one. I will be taking my Blackberry Curve/8300 with me and have paid for a European unlimited data plan for the month (~£23.00). I’ll carry around a small 8mp Olympus digital camera and have 2 2Gb xD cards for it. I’m hoping to drop into internet cafes and/or friends houses to upload my photos directly to Flickr, but am also taking a sturdy OCZ Rally 8Gb USB memory stick for simple offline transfers if I fill up my xD cards.

I’ve tried numerous mapping sites, many “Web 2.0″ style travel planning tools and none have been entirely satisfactory. Unfortunately my Blackberry does NOT have GPS built in (unlike the latest models) so my desire to geotag my photos has hit a stumbling block. I’m debating splashing out £25 on a GPS receiver so I can make notes of locations in the Google Maps for Blackberry application but this is a less than ideal solution. Any suggestions are most welcome!

Another problem with international travel, especially backpacking, is financial arrangements. UK banks, and especially the major high street banks (excluding Nationwide) are terrible at adding on extra/inflated charges to overseas transactions. Therefore, I have opened an offshore Euro-denominated account with debit card, so the majority of my transactions will now attract no charge at all….much preferable to carrying around large amounts of cash or traveller cheques.

Finally, here is the link to a rough route plan in Google Maps: Grand Tour Map