EUROPEAN TRAVEL TIPS
Provided by Mike Adams, Adams Technologies, Inc., Boulder, CO, USA

Editor’s note: This year’s Annual Meeting is scheduled for November 16-18 in Interlaken, Switzerland. To make it easy for inexperienced travelers to join us, various Board members have offered to provide you with simplified travel tips.

Traveling in Europe these days is not much different from traveling in the US, except for the language differences. Many people traveling to an unfamiliar place choose to first join a tour to get familiar with the country or countries, and then strike out on their own after they have some experience. In my experience, tours are too restrictive, and they insulate you from the best thing about travel—getting to know the people.

Planes, trains and automobiles
You have several options getting from place to place, with cheap air flights, trains and rental cars. Some of the low-cost airlines serving Europe are:

• easyJet http://www.easyjet.com
• Ryanair http://www.ryanair.com
• Virgin Express http://www.virgin-express.com

Another good resource for budget airlines is: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/flights.htm

In many cases, the distance between cities in different countries is shorter than the distance between cities in neighboring states here in the US. For example, it’s only two hours to drive between Stuttgart, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland.

In most European countries, the main traffic signs are symbols instead of text, and it is a good idea to get familiar with the traffic signs before driving there. A good resource for getting familiar with these signs is: http://www.ideamerge.com/motoeuropa/roadsigns

All the western European countries honor US driver’s licenses, but if you want to go the extra mile, you can get an International Driver’s Permit. The IDP is available from your local American Automobile Association (AAA) for $10.00. You need two passport-type photos (most AAA offices will take the photos for a fee) and a valid US driver’s license: http://www.aaa.com/vacation/idpf.html

Most of the US-based rental car companies have offices or partners with offices throughout Europe. Driving is not difficult in most European countries, and planning a trip is simple. You can go to Mapquest: http://www.mapquest.comand get driving directions with an estimate of the time required to drive between two addresses. For Example, Mapquest tells me that a drive from the Frankfurt, Germany airport to Interlaken would take 4 hours and 17 minutes. I could break up the drive, do some sightseeing and stay in a hotel in Strasbourg, (A city technically in France, but actually on the border of France and Germany) and drive two and a half hours each of two days.

Tripadvisor lists 48 attractions that I could choose from, and lists 89 hotels with traveler ratings and comments: http://www.tripadvisor.com

If I would rather stay in a bed and breakfast, I could visit: http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/europe.html

If you are adventurous, you may not want to make any plans at all, simply drive from place to place, and look for a place to stay at the end of the day. In the German speaking countries, you could simply look for a conventional hotel in the city center, or better yet, look for a sign or banner on the front of a building or at an intersection that says “Zimmer” or “Zimmer Frei.” The literal translation of zimmer frei is room free. Don’t get your hopes up, the word “free” in this context means “available.” You still have to pay for the room, usually in cash. However, these rooms can be a great value! They often have private bathrooms with a shower, and they are typically in private homes.

My wife and I were traveling in Austria and found a room in an Austrian farmhouse owned by the Ostheimers. They had outfitted the entire top floor with guest rooms and a breakfast room. The view of the Austrian Alps from our balcony was gorgeous! Mrs. Ostheimer had several children, and the oldest, a teenage daughter, had moved into a room on the guest floor because of the expanding family. At breakfast, my wife Ellen and Mrs. Ostheimer had a pleasant chat in limited English and German, until Mrs. Ostheimer excused herself and slipped into the daughter’s room, being very careful not to open the door too wide. When she returned, she seemed embarrassed, and said in limited English, “Cows in the room” Ellen asked her what she meant in German, and she explained that the inside of her daughter’s room looked like the barn. We all laughed and Ellen and I assured her that with three daughters of our own, we understood. Just goes to show that some things are universal.

If I decided I wanted to take a train from Frankfurt to Interlaken, I could visit the Deutsche Bahn website, do a station-to-station search, and get a timetable to plan my trip:
http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en

Rick Steves has a good guide to using the Deutsche Bahn website:
http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/db_tips.htm

You might even decide to go RVing! You could rent a motorhome or campervan and stay in campgrounds during your visit:
http://www.ideamerge.com/index.html

If you want to tour castles, a great reference is:
http://great-castles.com/index.html

If you are into hiking, a great reference is:
http://www.traildatabase.org

Each country in Europe has a tourist office. To find the office for a specific country, go to the worldwide directory of tourist offices:
http://www.towd.com/

If you have trouble deciding where to go in Europe, a wealth of good ideas for tourism is on Rick Steves’ website. Rick is a travel writer and host of the PBS show “Travels in Europe”:
http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/plan_menu.htm

He has great travel ideas and itineraries for most of the European countries. A few of the choices on the site are:

• Festivals in Germany
• Three Top Rhineland Castles
• Back Doors: Rothenburg and the Romantic Road
• Florence: Planning Your Time
• Tuscan Hilltowns

For those who are first-time travelers to Europe, and for those who have traveled there before on a tour, my advice would be go for it! Be adventurous! Take a risk! Strike out on your own! If you do, you might just enjoy it, and you might get to know the people in the area.