The Delights of Europe through the Eyes of a 20-Year-Old Have a Very Long Self-Life

I spend most of my work time addressing the travel needs of adult travelers and marketing to that segment of our traveling population. My son, Andy, who’s running a tour program for students in Europe, does the same–but for the 20-year-old crowd.

I love watching Andy’s promotional video and putting myself in the mindset of a college-age traveler. I’ve been at this for over 30 years now, and it’s inspiring to see the ways things have changed…and the ways they’ve stayed the same. Today there are dirt-cheap plane flights, disposable cellphones, the same coins in nearly everyone’s pockets, bullet trains, hostels serving gourmet tapas, and no need for travelers’ checks. There’s a tunnel under the English Channel, and you can Skype home to Mom for free. Yet the adventure and thrills of good, old-fashioned vagabonding survive.

As a travel writer and teacher, one of my favorite discoveries is that the journal entries I wrote as a scruffy 20-year-old in 1975 still resonate with the generally much-less-scruffy 20-year-old American exploring Europe in 2013. Today the same timeless magic is there…and it’s a lot more convenient and comfortable to find it. As it was for me a generation ago, students are still awakening to the wonders of our world and establishing the parameters of their worldview.

Immerse yourself in a 20-year-old’s wanderlust for 100 seconds and let this video clip connect you with a vivid and people-filled Europe that has nothing to do with a having lots of money. Smiles spring, taste buds pop, sunsets warm, and the world opens up like a Dutch tulip in springtime…even on a student’s budget. Then, in the Comments, share a vivid, perspective-bending experience you had on your student European adventure…perhaps so long ago.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

[pageview width=”600″ height=”349″ url=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/5u3TD-r_rWc”]

Comments

6 Replies to “The Delights of Europe through the Eyes of a 20-Year-Old Have a Very Long Self-Life”

  1. What a beautiful video! I can remember when if I did not buy your DVD’s then it was a matter of getting a glimpse on PBS. We just longed for a look at the new country we were traveling too. I also wish you would address the “cheap airfare”, because believe me I have see anything but that in the last few years, and even if you look at the Helpline this is one of the biggest questions and problems that travelers have. Trying not to spend more on airfare than the whole trip.

  2. Rick, I must say, I really enjoy your blogs and your writing. You definately have a
    Gog-given gift of expression. This entry brought me back to the time when I travelled Europe at the age of eighteen. Memories bubble . . . let’s see . .. to pick just one . ..

    There’s a story which has been requested at family gatherings. Over Christmas break from Bible school, some friends and I travelled around Europe. We went from Spain to Amsterdam and back to tiny Fischbach, Germany.

    In Amsterdam, we spent much time in the train station researching fares to get back to school. However, we did not purchase anything, thinking the price wouldn’t change much. But it did. It went up to 90 euros each, too much for a bunch of broke students to afford.

    Thanks to a well-travelled Canadian friend we met at our hostel, we boarded a Eurostar bus into Germany. However, being pretty ignorant of geography, we went to Hamburg. At this time, one could buy a weekend ticket in Germany and five people could travel for 24 euros for one day. We thought we would definately make it. And we left Amsterdam early in the morning, taking the hostel breakfast in a brown bag.

    However, our journey ended at Stuttgart, for train service ended for the night. We were stuck. One of us called the school and implored the staff to send someone to come pick us up, otherwise we would get back late. But they let us learn our lesson.

    None of us wanted to pay for a half-night in a hostel, and I, myself, was flat broke and couldn’t afford it anyway. So we went to a pub and a few of us ordered food and drinks for a few hours. It was January and not exactly sweltering outside. But my friends felt guilty keeping the place open if we weren’t going to continue to eat or drink something.

    So we left and wandered into the Stuttgart train station. There was a room with a bunch of sad-looking people in varied states of drunkenness sitting together. It was warm, but the stench was more than we could bare; thus, we left. We considered the phone booth (really!) and then someone found a heated stairwell. Sweet! We gathered there and got a little too comfortable, and a little too loud.

    A few of us decided to go find a WC, while I stayed with everyone else. Just then a German guard found us, and started yelling at us in German. The only one who possessed a remote skill in the language, Hanna (it was an English-speaking Bible school), had gone to find a WC. But emotion and some sign language would transcend the barrier. “Raus! Bahnhof!” he demanded, pointing at the train station, probably indicating the drunk room. We tried to explain to no avail not all of us were there, and so we had to leave. Luckily our friends found us.

    Where would we go now? We had seen an open-air hotel lobby, and decided to ask them to allow us to take shelter there. Sleeping in the train station in this weather was just out of the question. Also, we would probably have been kicked out of there, too. I don’t know what Sonilla said, but thankfully, they were convinced to let us sit in their lobby until 4 AM, when the first train to Friedrichshafen would arrive. At 4, we left, catching an even earlier train, making it back by mid-morning.

    Maybe at the time we thought it wasn’t our fault, but it was our fault. Facing the consequences of our actions has caused me to see a glimpse of the real world, in which our foolishness is met with discipline. And in a tiny way, I saw into the plight of people forced onto the streets of the world by more than just foolishness.

  3. Sweet! No compression stockings. No pill bottles. No list of emergency hospitals.

  4. Studying in Germany as an exchange student almost 30 years ago meant three days of actual classroom time and then the other four days of what I refer to as the REAL education….backpacking all over Europe. Those months spent travelling on trains and waking up in a different city to discover, experience and enjoy has definitely been one of the highlights of my life. The freedom to be carefree and wander is something extraordinarily special when you are 20 and discovering the world and yourself in the process. With today’s technology, the world is a bit smaller, and while it may be easier to travel in today’s conditions, if I had the chance I’d do it all over again in the same era that I travelled in back then…when the Berlin Wall was still standing and you could just feel the heightened tension of Berlin, esp. crossing over from Checkpoint Charlie and entering East Berlin; when there was no such thing as cell phones and Internet to rely on. All you had was a well-worn Let’s Go Europe book and recommendations from fellow travelers you met on your journey. The last couple of weeks I was flat out broke. The only thing I had was the use of an unlimited Eurail pass, my flight home, and a few lira with which I bought in Rome the sweetest, juicest peaches I have ever tasted. The most minute details of those travels are still etched vividly in my mind today, yet if you’d ask me to give details five years ago about something here I couldn’t tell you for the life of me……

  5. Interesting that in each of the tour details, it lists arrival airports but not train stations. I guess the discount airlines have replaced trains as the preferred transport for student backpackers.

  6. Jan has nailed it. I was there at the same time. A few years ago I went back to Berlin for the first time since the 70’s. I swear I could feel if not see the ghost of our 19 and 20-year-old selves on the Ku’dam. Watching this video took me right back to it. The drinks, the food, the friendships, the places, the art, the history, the geography, the independent travel with parents thousands of miles away. It was indeed the experience of a lifetime. Please, parents, let your kids have it if you can.

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