Europe in under 30 pounds.

I was recently blessed with an interruption in my employment and found myself with about four months of free time before starting my new gig in July. After the obligatory six weeks of taking full advantage of my zero daily responsibility I thought it might be a good idea to take a trip abroad and do something memorable with my time.

Originally I had found the company Do Castaway (http://www.docastaway.com) which allows you to rent an entire desert island for as little as $60 a day. While having an entire land mass all to myself sounds incredible I felt it probably didn't warrant more than a week of my time which I could easily cough up during times when the weather would be better in that region.

It was then suggested by a friend that I backpack around Europe. I traveled to Germany 13 years ago for three weeks as part of a student exchange program which was a blast and vowed I would return to Europe "soon". So keeping my promise I have purchased airfare to Europe and have picked Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, and Venice as primary destinations. Now to make it interesting....

My father has been raving about "ultralight backpacking" over the past three years. If you're unfamiliar with the term, you're not alone. Luckily ultralight backpacking is pretty self-explanatory, it's backpacking with the absolute minimum gear for survival. This usually involves things like sleeping on the ground with blankets without a tent, using an umbrella instead of traditional rain gear, and cooking over a fire instead of a camping stove. If "ultralight backpacking" sounds like "backpacking for the homeless" well, you aren't too far off.

Crossing the streams: I'll be in Europe, alone, and will be traveling by foot, bicycle and train so the need to be super mobile is incredibly important; I want to be able to quickly gather my things and be able to move on to my next destination without hassle or expense. I'm also looking for a challenge and the most obvious one given my desire to be mobile is to see what I can get by without and keep my belongings to about 25 pounds.

Airfare purchased, challenged declared, blog created. Lets see where this goes....

 

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