[gprsh924]

Originally Posted by Dueller

Yeah, but you've got something else on your side that many of us older guys don't have: TIME

I think that in our culture (i.e., American) we have a distorted view of what travel should be like. People here think you can only take a trip to far off places if they can stay in first class accomodations, eat at the finer restaurants, shop at the best stores, etc. While there is a time and place for that experience, when you are young (or young at heart) you can travel the world on a shoestring. For example, 10 years ago my then gf and I took 3 months off and island hopped on a tight budget down the Carribean chain ending up in Carracas VZ. Starting in St Thomas, USVI we island hopped between Sept and Dec thru 22 different islands. We ate at local places rather than the tourist attractions, found local bars/drank local beer, stayed in safe, clean but modest guest houses/hotels, found innovative ways to get to the next destination (e.g., caught a mail boat from Barbados to St. Vincent for free even tho we had to leave at 4 a.m.), etc. Cost us about $5K each total. For the entire 3 months. Hardly more than what a luxury 10 day cruise would cost.

We met a number of European travelers who traveled in the same way on their typical holidays which last 3-4 weeks...not the rush off for a week and cram a "vacation" in at a resort as most americans do.

The essence of my advice is to be a traveller...not a tourist.

If I were you, I'd start by planning a trip to LeMans next year...find a cheap flight. Backpack. Camp out at the track. Stay in youth hostels. Find some french trim. Carpe Diem

That is awesome. If we get jobs, my friends and I are going to bum around Europe for a couple of weeks before we start. But until I can confirm a source of income, I can't commit any more money to travel right now (already have $2k worth of skiing planned).