Advice for backpacking through Europe?

Question

My housemates and I (who live in England) will be backpaking through Mainland Europe starting around April. We've never done this before and I would certainly appreciate any tips/suggestions that you could give us! Thanks in advance :D

Answer 1

Go sit together round a big table and make a list of places you want to see, things you want to do, things you absolutely do NOT want to do and what amount of money you can each put in.

That done, take a map and see if you can fit in all those places with at least a day at each and a day in-between for travel and other things that crop up.
Not hard if you only want to do Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, but knowing people I guess your list will be way to long.
So settle for the places you can agree on, try to keep the list down to 3 per week you travel.
Remember that eastern Europe is cheaper, Scandinavia and Switzerland more expensive.

Also talk about your expectations.
If one in your group thinks about going to all beaches and nothing else, one other dreams about hiking in the mountains and the third want to go to all main museums, while the rest is hoping to visit all pubs and so on, you will not be able to make it work.

Of course, you can and should split up some days, but in general you should want about the same, all want to see the Eiffel tower, all want to go to a small bar in the student quarter or all go to the Louvre (taking Paris as sample.)

Get yourself a Lonely Planet guide for the countries you want to visit, or one of the bigger ones that cover more countries.
In there you will find addresses of hostels and cheaper hotels, places to eat, drink and shop, museums and sights with openingtimes and all will have cost mentioned.

Work out a rough schedule, how much time in each country/town you visit, do you want everything booked or do you want to leave room to change the schedule.
Use a trainplanner like:
http://www.interrailnet.com/2_prepare_your_trip
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm
http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml
Or the bus planners:
http://eurolines.com/ for when you want to use those.
Or use one of the many cheap air tickets sites to see who much it costs to fly.
It might even be cheaper to fly to your first country instead of taking the ferry and train.

April is rather early in the season so you should be alright without reservations, but if you want to go to small or out of the way places phone ahead and see what is open.
And check for national holidays and school holidays in Europe, you can be caught out by those, not being able to get any place to sleep, even less for the whole group together.

This will get you started, use internet to search for info for each place you are interested in, there is a lot on-line.
Guidebooks, also Lonely Planet guides, can be found in most bookshops, libraries and secondhand shops, even in some charity shops.

Answer 2

Try to find information about those places you want to visit. There are some web sites about the cities, what to do, where to go, budgets. etc. just look for them on google. Also check for low cost airlines, like ryan air, easy jet, terminal A, there are many, in some cases you can get really cheap prices and travel more, just be aware that in most cases those flights do not depart from major cities.