3 Months is a long time in many ways – to travel exclusively with one person, to be disconnected from all you know, to be eating differently, to not have a spot to call home where you can count on the mattress and the shower facilities.  You’ll have to survive a certain amount of shock.  If you go for 3 weeks, it’s not such a big deal – the end of your journey seems more reachable – but longer trips are more personally challenging and worthwhile if you’re up to them.  A mostly positive 2-3 month trip will depend a lot on how you adjust to your new nomad lifestyle, and while it’s certainly realistic for many, it isn’t for others.  I’d suggest talking a bit more with people who have done longer journies the first time out – people you might know – to see how they handled it. 

Money is of course very important.  Ireland, the UK, metropolitan France, and the big Italian destinations can be hugely pricey, and you’re planning your trip during the more expensive high season.  Don’t set the dates on your non-refundable round-trip ticket until you’ve penciled in the costs pretty accurately.

The places you mention seem like good targets for anyone but especially good for a first-timer.

There are lots of guidebooks to consult for visits to major sights and cities.  But if you go for a long trip, you might also look into renting a small apartment for a week at a time in one or two different smaller places.  This is a nice way to go if you want some downtime for biking or hiking around, or just relaxing, and if you want to save a little money.  I rented a nice studio apartment w/ balcony in a tidy little unknown Bavarian village a couple of years ago for less than 30 Euros/night for 3 people – we did daytrips from there to Nuremberg and Rothenburg and fixed light meals at “home” – sort of became part of the neighborhood fabric for a while.  A lot of farming families keep guests in small apartments as added income – a good way to meet the locals.  Have a look at www.bensbauernhof.com for ideas if you’re curious.

Good luck with your planning.

         Thanks a lot for the input, the reason I asked was because I was a little wary of the long time frame. Though I do enjoy travel, as I said before I am a little limited in my experiance and as such I don’t really know how I will  cope with being away from home for so long.
 
        As far as planning for the high-tourist time of year I guess i wasn’t really clear on that, we would be starting our trip in about september so I don’t know what prices would be like then, but one would assume they would be lowering?

       Also I think the main draw of such an extended time frame was that is would give us more of an oppourtunity to immerse ourselves in local culture. and with friends and family overseas a week in germany with my uncle, and perhaps a week with my travel buddies “sister” in england would perhaps settle us a bit more. I imagine it would be comforting to have people you are familiar with show you around and explain things a bit. However that being said the idea of renting an apartment on our own, as you suggested, is rather inviting in itself.

       I seem to be hearing a lot about round-trip tickets, however I thought it might be a bit more suitable to save enough money to cover the cost of a ticket home in a bank account or on a credit card so as to have that flexibility of being able to return home at my leisure. Is this a wise idea, or a bit foolish and idealistic?

 (as far as getting sick of my travel buddy in such a long time frame we have been inseperable for the past two years so I can’t really imagine that, though it is always something to think about.)

Hannabel, where are you from?  What country?  You said you have some minimal travel experience.  Where to?  Have you ever left your country?

That’s great that you have people to see – and starting in September is great (I assumed you were leaving right after graduating in May or June) for both weather and budget reasons.  Fall is festival time – wine fests, beer fests, sausage fests, Volksfests.  Suggest you schedule Germany sometime between mid-September and mid-October and see if you can get your uncle to take you to Bad Dürkheim (near Mannheim), Canstatt (near Stuttgart), the Rhine villages (near Koblenz) or Munich (Oktoberfest), depending on where he lives.  If you end up in Germany at the end of your trip in November or December, check out the open-air Christmas markets – they’re all over (Nuremberg and Stuttgart are the better known ones, but almost all are fun.)

luv_the_beach: I am from the west coast of canada (B.C.) and the farthest from home I have been was New York for a week, I have also been to california (smaller towns, no so much the “tourist” type areas) But I am going to mexico with family for two weeks this november, so that should be intersting to see how I will take to the difference in cultures (we are renting an apartment rather than doing the resort/hotel thing)

Russ: The german festivals you mentioned sound amazing, especally the christmas markets, my family has had a huge thing for traditional german christmases since I can remember so that would be really interesting to me. I might have to think about starting our jouney in greece and moving through italy, france, the Isles and then down in to germany for december.

Where in Mexico?  A resort?  Or an actual town/city?  If you’re there during the first few days of November, during the Day of the Dead festivals, that should be a really neat experience for you.

Even within your own country: have you ever been to Québec?  It’s all Canada, but the language in Québec (French) is different from British Columbia (English).  Just curious if you’ve ever been immersed in a language other than English.
 
I think you’ll be fine in Europe. [] Just take into consideration the details Russ has brought up.

 Unfortunatley I have not been able to travel to an entirely non-english speaking area but when we travel to mexico in november we will be staying in an apartment complex in zihuatanejo, rather than at a resort, so I will certainly be able to experience being away from everything familiar (aside from family) which is exciting. 

just a thought why not do one of the 4 week contiki tours, you will see a lot (if you stay sober) and with the other 2 months you can go back to places you liked and explore them further.

   @Kiwirob how expensive are the tours and will they take you to multiple countries because most tours I looked at before were country specific.

Hannabel have a look at this webpage http://ie.contiki.com/tours/europe it will tell you everything you need to know, the tours last up to 45 days, they go to multiple countries and they are usually pretty good value for money.