[TheBMan]

(09-01-2015 10:16 AM)swuglyfe Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 05:41 PM)TheBMan Wrote:  

I've traveled through Europe and across the USA. My advice would be to buy a one way ticket to Europe and travel that way. Stay in hostels, party with fellow travelers from across the world, and see whats outside of the USA. As long as you stay out of Paris and London for extended periods its probably cheaper. Costs add up quicker in the US because you dont have low cost lodging options (ie hostels). Fortunately gas prices are low so that should help.

On my cross country trip I went from Charleston (recommend) to Tuscaloosa (decent college town). One of my takeaways from driving across the USA is that there is a whole lot of nothing. Just an insane amount of absolutely nothing. There are some cool things to see in the Southwest (national parks). But middle America is a vast wasteland. If you do want to travel across the country and try to bang chicks I'd recommend sticking to the Southern route (Savannah, Florida beach towns, New orleans, Austin, TX, Dallas) and maybe stopping in college towns when you want to break up the drive. But I basically drove from Charleston to Tuscaloosa to Dallas on back to back days and essentially covered about 100 miles. Hung out in Dallas and Austin for a few days, then drove to White Sands, NM (recommend), Grand Canyon, Vegas, and SoCal, then up the coast. Again, all cool things, but if you are traveling solo and staying in hotels you are going to drop alot of cash pretty quickly.

One other point - you will have the opportunity to visit most American cities at some time in the next 10 years of your life - even if its just for a quick weekend getaway. Getting 30 days or more to get over to Europe is probably something you will never have the chance to do again.

Thanks for the questions BMan; I have 2 questions re: your comments.

Firstly, are you recommending the classic "backpack across Europe"? And if so, would you start with Western Europe even though it is more expensive, or EE?

Secondly, on the US front, you would recommend just popping into a town for a weekend by plane and then heading right out again at various points in the future?

Thanks for the feedback.

PS: DV, I haven't been ignoring you; I googled pictures of Kansas country stampede.... holy fuck... fantastic intel.

It kind of depends on what you want to do. The great thing about Europe is that everything is so close together and easily connected by discount airlines, trains, or buses. There are some really amazing cities in Europe that you can see back to back to back. When I traveled I hit Madrid, Barcelona, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Sofia, and Brussels. They were all great cities, some I enjoyed more then others. I was gone a month and could have stayed longer. Prague was my favorite, and it was dirt cheap, so I stayed longer. I took my trip between jobs when I was about 30 so I appreciate it a little more, and was fortunate to have the chance to get away for a month. But if you plan on living your life in the US then you can pretty much check out any city you want over the next 10 or so years by making one or two long weekend trips a year. To get the opportunity to spend that much uninterrupted time in Europe is going to be much harder as you get older.