22-year-old wants to go to Europe, solo

Dweezil is home safe, tired, and excited about his experience! He ate food for dinner with no blood at all. Maybe the vampires missed him. Thank you for the suppport, everyone!

Yay! Wonderful news. I’m glad it went well and he’s home safe!

Give us the lowdown when you get it. We are curious. May be an inspriration for my daughter to go and me to let her. :wink:

Yay! I hadn’t posted in this thread, but I’ve been lurking. So glad all turned out well.

^^ This

Bloody fantastic, and I’m sure he’ll have lots of tales to tell. I don’t care how old you are, or what your issues might be, the first time travelling out of your comfort zone AND ALONE and you manage to not die is a WIN in my book.

Go Dweezil…you rock dude. :slight_smile:

Another one who has been reading along. I’m so proud of him by association. Not only did he do awesomely, but you guys are amazing for letting him take this on and not helicoptering. Great parenting all around.

Not quite helicoptering, but “large drone”-ing at least.

“CIA-ing”? LOL!

Dweezil rocks!

I guess it’s hereditary. :cool:

One lesson he learned is that a bit more advance planning would have helped - since he spent so much time on trains, a Eurail pass would have saved him money. Eurail, however, is not set up at all for last-minute purchases. I actually contacted them to ask if the passes could be bought in Europe and their response was quite literally “Yeah, somewhere, but we don’t know where”. :dubious::smack:

They did, helpfully, say that they could ship the pass to him somewhere in Europe. Not terribly useful since the first opportunity would be several days after he’d arrived and when he had no idea where he’d be.

All in all, a very behind-the-times process.

I think he also was overly optimistic about train scheduling and connections. But when he realized how much trouble he was having going with his original plans, he was able to be flexible.

So if I recall correctly:
day 1: overnight to London
day 2: train to Paris, overnight there
day 3: TGV to Munich, overnight there
day 3: overnight train to Budapest
Day 4: night in Budapest
Day 5: Overnight train to Bucharest
day 6-8: day train to Galati, 2 nights in Galati
Day 9: Overnight train back to Budapest
Day 10-12: Budapest
Day 13: overnight to Munich
Day 14: day train to Paris, overnight at friend’s place in Paris
Day 15: day train to London, overnight at friend’s place in London
Day 16: flight home

I think he liked Budapest most of all and is most eager to go back there. I’m sorry he didn’t spend more time in London or Paris - did nothing touristy there aside from walking around a bit between trains. OK, he got a selfie at the Arc de Triomphe, and a quick snapshot of Buckingham Palace and the approach to Platform 9 3/4 in London (line was too long to get closer than that).

I think he was a tad disappointed in Galati - most of what he saw was very run-down looking. He noted that its population has actually been decreasing lately (despite being the largest port on the Danube).

If it’s Tuesday it must be Bucharest type tour. Sounds like a great adventure for him.

Budapest is kinda cool. I was there for 2 weeks on a work trip about 15 years ago, so glad he liked it.

Glad it all turned out well!