Pizza on Thanksgiving

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday and ate lots and lots of food! Personally I celebrated Thanksgiving with some delicious Italian food. I am sad to be leaving my new wonderful friends in Geneva, but I am very excited to be moving on to Paris in a couple of hours!

I have been very fortunate to save a lot of money on this trip by so far having friends and a free place to stay. However, I have had to pay much more money in other ways. For the average person who does a backpacking trip around Europe, the Eurail pass is the way to go. For a relatively good price you can get unlimited train travel around Europe for a month. This is by far the most popular thing to do, and I have found myself to be the only backpacker I have met to be without this pass.

I did not purchase this pass for one reason. I am traveling very slow and without a plan. Next Thursday will be exactly one month since I have left the United States. I will have only made it through several countries at this point (Italy, Switzerland, France, and a brief layover in Ireland). Whereas other people I have met have been to many countries in the month and are going home. For example: Spain, England, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and perhaps more. For these people the rail pass makes a lot of sense as you get to see many places for relatively little cost. For me, I see less places for more cost. Its exactly how I want it. I would rather spend 2 weeks experiencing Paris, than two weeks rushing through 5 countries. I don't want to experience the "If its Tuesday we must be in Belgium" phenomenon.

I get even more especially hurt on prices because I have no plan of action. I am going to try to at least plan maybe a week ahead, as I found out the hard way that prices for trains and planes can double in a few short days. Still though, I like not having a plan. I like being open for any opportunity that may arise. I like the idea of wandering with a purpose.