1943…lovely trip across Sicily up italy and into Berlin. Not many tourists. Except for people shooting at me it was a great trip

Hey Jason — would you please cool it with the advertising in your signature?? It’s a violation of our advertising policy and I’m voting to have you banned if you don’t comply with policy.

I still remember the 1st — I was 16 and I probably remember that trip better than some of the other 9. Everything was dirt cheap compared to the US and WWII damage was still evident almost everywhere — 20 some years after Finnegan

I was 16, too.
It was 1971, I got lost in the Tower of London (don’t ask) and some Beefeater guys helped me find my way.

One week through England and Wales. I wouldn’t drink American beer when I came back.

I think majority of the people have started there first trip in between 15-16. At this age there is some kind of attraction towards new places, people ( i mean girls for me )and some kind of excitment.

Cil – You still seems to be sweet 16.

My first trip abroad I don’t remember, probably the Netherlands when I was a baby.

My first solo trip was in 1999, to Berlin.

First multiple-country trip was a year later, one month in Poland, Germany, Czech Rep and Slovakia.

Jayson—what a nice thing to say.
Seraphim
You kept on traveling and never looked back!
You have been to many, many places since then, and still so young.

I was 6 years old, it was 1987, going to Europe with my family to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.

1999, Iberia, Italy, Greece Czech Republic…. wonderful. I has a tiny little map printout with a diagonal line running across Europe. That was the planning, just winged the rest
and the winging it is what made it interesting and really eventful.

Best advice I’d give anybody is don’t plan too much, have an arrival point and a departure point, let the wind, beer and the people you meet take you the rest of the way. Sometimes booking and planning before you travel can be more expensive than finding your bed for the night on the day. Cheapest accomo I got was getting off the ferry in Lisbon at 6PM and driving round Corfu on scooters looking for somewhere in the sun
Most expensive was the prearranged Prague pension my friend booked up on another trip and the freaky one running by the addams family in Madrid (again, which he booked)

See a pattern emerging ??

My first trip to Europe was when I was 19. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but it was in December of 2001, when flights were extremely cheap due to 9/11, so I canceled my Caribbean cruise I had booked for 7 days and took advantage of the low air fares. That was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, although let me tell you, my mom nearly had a heart attack as she was certain my plane would be hijacked by terrorists or someone would murder me in my travels LOL. Oh mom’s….you gotta love them. I got a round trip ticket (after taxes) from LAX to Paris for 500 bucks. It took me two hours to figure out how to exit CDG airport, but after that I had an amazing experience! I was in Paris for New Years when they switched over from the Franc to the Euro, and let me tell you, THEY WERE NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT! As a California native, I witnessed for the first time a sureral New Years celebration. The French people were extremely friendly (as has always been my experience despite the common stereotypes I heard about the French growing up ) and the countdown to the new year was as I expected….until after the countdown ended. There was about 4 seconds of total calm and quiet….and then all hell broke loose as folks began throwing stuff at the cops, flipping the cop cars over, and basically rioting through the streets. It was almost a celebratory riot, nothing I felt unsafe at….but still quite a shocker Back then the Euro was worth exactly 1 US dollar, so i actually managed to travel for almost a month on my tiny budget of 500 bucks. It was an amazing trip (Paris to Amsterdam to Berlin to Dresden to Munich to Paris again, because I liked it so much I gave up Switzerland to spend a few more days there). It was also during this trip that I became insanely jealous at the Canadians and Australians, as I found many Canadians/Australians who told me it was normal for them to take a year or so to travel after graduating from school and before entering University. I came back home with the conviction (which I still hold) that if most Americans (or any country for that matter) took a year (or even a few moths!) to travel outside of the US before entering College, the country would be a much better place and the countrymen would be much more enlightened.

What a adventurous trip scott.mcafee@gm. It sounds smart that u preferred flights due to 9/11.

Mine was two months after Sept 11. The plane was almost empty. All drinks were free on the plane so when the stewardess asked what I wanted I said, “One of those, and one of those, and…..”

Went on a cruise aged 13, (years ago) to norway denmark and holland – never been on a ship before.
memories are the beautiful fjords of norway and nearly leaving a girl behind because we couldn’t get her out the sweet shop, she just kept buying sweets so we left for the ship which nearly sailed without her.
The danish people being so very friendly and the silver jewelery so cheap while the ice creams were so expensive.
The lock system entering holland waters and all the bicycles being used on the roads.
On the way home being in a 9 force gale with the ship going side to side while having a disco on deck with ‘Don’t rock the boat’ and ‘when will I see you again’ playing whilst water came through the portholes and flooded the dormitory.
Sadly none of the 6 rolls of film developed apart from 4 pictures of sea lions because there was something wrong with the camera I had borrowed from my Grandad.

good one

I just happened upon this thread and have to post my first experience. My first trip to Europe changed who I was and the goals I set for myself. I know that sounds corny, but I was very young and Europe made such a lasting impression on me. I was 14 years old for my first trip in 1978. It was a 6-week school-sponsored trip. We flew into Madrid and out of London. I had never been on an airplane before and I was very homesick for the first few days away from my parents. I recall lying in bed crying the first few nights of the trip. Once I got over the homesickness, I had a blast. Many of the kids on the trip were older and more experienced than me, so they were ready to party. I had been so sheltered that I was completely clueless. By the time the trip was over, I had been to the bullfights in Madrid, was blessed by the Pope in Rome, had my first taste of alcohol and a major hangover in Florence, slid down into the salt mines at Hallein in Austria, had my first real kiss, and saw the stage version of The Rocky Horror Show on King’s Road in London. What an educational summer for a 14 year old! I will never forget it! It opened my eyes to the world beyond my little town in Texas. I love Europe and try to go back every 2 or 3 years—depending on how much money I can scrape together.
Some of you guys mentioned traveling after 9/11: I went to France in Sept 2002 and without really thinking about it, booked my flight home on the 1st anniversary of 9/11. Talk about a ghost town. We flew back in to Newark and the airport was virtually empty. It was very weird.

Great story, giglula.
I know what you mean about scraping together the money.

I guess I’m the n00b My first trip was in 2006 (though, I’ve gone every year since then too!). I was 23, and a friend and I went to Sweden because we’d both always wanted to go there. That was actually when I’d signed up for the first incarnation of this board too, to get tips and everything

It is kind of funny looking back because I’m so comfortable with travelling now, but on my first trip, even using trains seemed like this terribly baffling chore. My friend kind of battled homesickness and travel-partner-disaffection the whole time, but it was certainly a learning experience I’ve benefited from to be sure. The next year I took off by myself and visited parts of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain and Belgium; since then I’ve gone back twice, branching out a little further afield each time (sometimes with a travel buddy, sometimes not) and learning more each time.

And this fall I will be moving to Austria to study for a year (travelling for a month before uni starts, of course ). If it weren’t for taking the plunge on that first trip, I doubt I’d ever have had the cojones to do something like this!

My first Eurotrip was in 2001, I studied in Leuven, Belgium for the summer. We went ALL OVER Belgium for class trips studying flemish art and architecture, we also did weekend trips to Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Aachen also immersed in art, culture, and philosophy. I immediately became a Euro-junkie and would to this day, obsess over my next trip. Since 2001, almost every year I have been to Europe at least once, and now I am even trying to relocate and teach somewhere over there. LOVE IT!

My first trip was to Germany in ’72, I was 3 and barely remember anything. Pretty much the only thing that stands out was my older brother grabbing me and heading off from the airport in my uncle’s Mercedes doing what seemed like light speed on the autobahn. I screamed and cried the whole way scared shitless.

my first trip (without my parents/family) was in high school. I was in some school exchange program that took me and a few students in Cambridge Bay, which is in Nunavut Territories in Northern Canada (just above the Arctic Circle). We spent about one week there in May 1997, temperatures were WAY below 0 Celcius, there was sunshine almost 24h a day and we did a little snowmobile on the arctic ocean (above 6 feet of ice) !

but my first solo backpacking adventure in Europe was only 3 years ago, when i first register this amazing forum. I traveled 3 weeks in Austria, Hungary, Slovenia & Czech Republic. I really got “the itch” and i’ve been backpacking in Europe every summer since …

and i’m already planning my next trip !

My first trip (if you would call it a trip) was in 2001 when I was in third grade. My dad and a German teacher did a teacher exchange, so we traded houses and cars for a year. During this year my family traveled extensively throughout mainly West Europe, We took a few treks up to Sweden to visit my dad’s friend who he met while backpacking in the late 80s. It was a awesome year, and the travel bug really bit me there. We hit the road again in the summer of 09’ when my family spent our three month summer break in Oz with a native couple my parents knew. We spent most of our time on the East Coast, with a week spent in Alice Springs. How many 16 year old kids have done all that?

man, peteop I’m not even that old and you just made me feel that way!! I was in high school in 2001 lol!

Anyway, my first trip to Europe was in 2008, on a study abroad. I studied French in Paris for the month of July through my university and a school they have an agreement with (Institut Catholique de Paris). I was 19 (nearly 20). We went to several places around France: Versailles, Giverny, and Strasbourg. And also took a weekend trip to Amsterdam. It was my first time on a train (a real train, not a subway train, which I had been on before in New York and DC) and I LOVED it. It’s my favorite form of transportation for sure, maybe because it’s the only one that was so smooth I managed not to get motion sick! (I get motion sick on everything that moves, practically, including long-distance car rides, boats, airplanes…)

I want to go back to Europe SO BAD. I loved France alot. I am hoping to be placed as an English teaching assistant there this fall (hear back in 2-3 weeks!!! cross your fingers for me!)
My experience on Bastille Day was crazy in Paris, (600,000 people in a 5 block radius around the Eiffel Tower is insane) but not quite as bad as scott_mcafee’s on NYE 1999/2000, I imagine!

This is a great thread. My first trip was September 2004, when I was 16. I went with my high school field hockey team for a preseason trip to Amsterdam and Germany for 10 days (9 nights). It was fantastic- we got to sight see a lot (Amsterdam; Maastrich; Colgne; Aachen; Rhine River and I think I’m forgetting another place…) and we had 4 training sessions with a Dutch coach and then played 4 games against teams from the Netherlands. After each game we had a chance to talk to the girls on the Dutch teams and it was really interesting learning about their lives…one team invited us out at night (they couldn’t believe the drinking age was 21 in the US) but our coach was like “ummm i don’t think your parents will be very happy with me if I let you go.”

Overall, I LOVED the trip, although the first day was terrible. We were all exhausted from our flight, obviously, and we run around Amsterdam all day, which was a pretty big culture shock. (especially the Red Light District) Then for lunch our coach told us we had a “team-building” activity and we had an hour to get lunch as a group, by ourselves. So we were stuck, 20 girls in a strange city, completely exhausted and needing to find someplace to eat. Of course we went to McDonalds. Then in the afternoon we had an intense practice and I think all of us were wondering why the hell we signed up for the trip in the first place!

The rest of the trip was amazing, though; only the first day was bad. We left Amsterdam after 3 days to sleep in eastern Netherlands for the rest of the trip. I really didn’t care for Amsterdam but perhaps I should take a return trip now that I’ve traveled a bit more. It just seemed like a gross, big city to me. But I absolutely loved Aachen and the Rhine River cruise we did, as well as exploring the caves in Maastrich. We also got to see a professional field hockey tournament which was really cool (and they gave the whole team free polo shirts, which was awesome).

So it was an awesome trip, though I didn’t fall in love with traveling until last winter, when I studied abroad in Rome for 10 weeks and traveled throughout Italy. Now, I can’t wait to go back this summer for an extended backpacking trip!

Kayling- I get REALLY motion sick too- on everything! I’m like a walking dramamine ad. But it’s surprising to me that you didn’t feel sick on trains because I have the opposite experience! Even though I took dramamine for every train ride, I still felt kind of nauseous. (Though not as bad as boats- those are the WORST for me. I refuse to take cruises/ferries). Honestly, I feel the least sick on planes- I can even read (as long as I take the dramamine). Even with dramamine, I can’t read on a train or car without feeling sick. Motion sickness just sucks!

Haha, “walking dramamine ad” describes me perfectly too. I hate boats too!! I had to take a 24hr boat ride last summer in Fiji (to the island we were doing our archaeology field work on) and it was TERRIBLE. Even with the dramamine I felt disgusting the whole time even though I slept like half of it. It had worn off once we got up in the morning and had arrived at the island and I didn’t realize til it was too late so I ended up barfing like 15 minutes before we got off the boat. Airplanes I don’t get too bad on, unless there’s turbulence (even a little shaking though, and I’m done for. I always take dramamine before hand, which helps me sleep on overnighters too)
I will say though, alot of the time I was on trains for a long time (over an hour), I took naps so maybe that is why I didn’t get sick.

Also, I def think you should go back to Amsterdam. I didn’t love it, but I did enjoy the 2 days I spent there. Go to the sexmuseum, it’s freakin hilarious!

Yes! My first trip abroad was when my family and I went to Hong Kong. I was about 5 years old at that time and I remember sitting on that plane figuring out how you put on the seatbelt. You should have seen me looking all curious — I was so cute. LOL.

My first solo backpacking trip (without friends and family) was back in 2004 right after I finished university. I entered a contest giving out free eurailpasses and I found out that I won one right on my birthday. It was probably the best birthday surprise ever! My graduation ceremony was held in the morning and my plane to London was at night so it was a busy day. I was actually more excited for my trip than graduating. It was a 3-month long trip around Europe and I have to say, it is one of the best things I’ve ever did.

That trip actually changed me. While my family traveled a lot (I grew up as an expat kid where I lived in 4 different countries), this kind of traveling — taking local transport, staying at hostels, doing it on your own without a tour guide — was exhilarating. I was hooked! Before I went on that trip, all I wanted was to get a nice-paying job, buy a house, get married, and start a family. After that trip, I started to re-evaluate what I wanted from life and I realized that traveling should be a big part of my life. I then did a similar 2-month solo backpacking trip around Southeast Asia, a 4-week trip around China and Japan, and a 3-month trip in Australia and New Zealand. I am now seriously considering quitting my job to do a 1-year working holiday in either Japan or Australia, and another 2-year working holiday in London, the city I fell in love with. And I figured that’s not enough: after those 2 working holidays, I want to do a RTW (round-the-world) trip where I travel for at least a year, making my way from London to Singapore overland (via Turkey, Iran, India, China, etc.) before finally settling somewhere.

Haha…I graduated in ’01