Visit Europe!

As a student, there are plenty of opportunities to travel and broaden your cultural horizons. Student work programs are frequently available between one country and another and the costs of a trip are often subsidized by universities and other institutions. Availing of cheap international student flights let you travel and broaden your horizons despite your limited student budget.

How the International Student Identity Card Helps you get Cheap International Student Flights

The International Student Identity Card (ISIC) is an internationally recognized student ID card; the only one of its kind. At about £9 sterling in the UK, it costs US $22 but the hike in price is because it comes with medical insurance for the American student.

Signing up for the ISIC means that you’re a member of a club of nearly five million students an avail of cheap international student flights at a flash of the card.

A network of student services that are both affordable and specialized are available to the ISIC holder. However, even those who are not full time students can benefit from discounts through the International Youth Travel Card (IYTC) and the International Teacher Identity Card (ITIC) for those under twenty-six.

With the ISIC identification, you are recognized as a student. You have access to some 1,200 cheap international student flights, domestic flights, ferry journeys, bus rides, and numerous other discounts.

You also get to stay at discounted rates in many youth hostels and hotels around the world. Thousands of discounts can be had globally on museum entrance fees and admission to cultural sites and events, as well as entertainment attractions and venues.

Cheap International Student Flights: Why not Work to Pay off the Costs of Travel?

Let’s face it: Fuel costs are rising, making the possibilities of travel less and less attractive. They are prohibitively expensive, even with discounted air fares and cheap international student flights. However, many countries run programs with other countries allowing students to visit and work. If you live in Pittsburgh and you want to visit somewhere like Europe, why not apply for a student work visa and e-mail your résumé to your intended destinations?

Europe is a one-stop region where you can find and visit amazing prehistoric and historic sites. While working in one country, you can save up and then visit other countries using cheap flights that cost a fraction of the transatlantic air fare. Ancient cultures are represented by landmark sites everywhere on the continent from Italy and Greece to Britain and Ireland.

Student programs will offer far more details rather than merely where to get your discounted cheap international student flights. You will be given advice on where to go at night (and more importantly, where not to go!). You will be told which parts of the country it is easier to find work. You can also get advice on accommodation and employment, making getting a job and a place to stay very easy. You’ll also receive information on the cultural differences and the beliefs and traditions of the various nations so you don’t make any embarrassing cultural gaffes.

In working in somewhere like Europe, you can learn about the culture from the inside out, rather than just the outside in, as a tourist would.

Being a student in the UK can be more difficult than people realise. After all, with mounting student debt, all those essays and exams, and the issue of finding a graduate job afterwards, your life can get somewhat emotionally and financially stressful. However, one of the main luxuries afforded to students – a luxury that is rarely available again in life until retirement – is the benefit of long holidays. If you’re a student, it’s important to take advantage of your holidays and take the opportunity to travel while you can.

It’s all too easy to spend those long summer holidays at home, working during the day and catching up with old friends and family at night. However, if you spend the first half of your holiday working solidly and saving up your hard-earned cash, the best reward possible will be to spend the second half of your vacation travelling abroad – and the number of opportunities available to you are endless. For instance, you could take a six week backpacking holiday in India, China or South East Asia to discover some of the world’s most exotic and historic locations.

Alternatively, take some time out to travel around the United States. While taking a holiday in the USA is guaranteed to strain your finances more than a holiday in a developing country might, there are various ways you can save money. For example, if you choose to travel by coach during your American summer vacation, you could save a lot of money and limit your carbon footprints by not taking a flight. A coach journey from New York to Chicago might seem like a long and daunting prospect, but you’ll also be able to see much more of the country than you’d otherwise be able to.

Even if you feel you can’t afford to take such long haul trips, rest assured you’ll still be able to travel. Flights and trains to Europe can be expensive, if you don’t book early enough, but many coach providers provide services to the continent for much cheaper fares. This way, you’ll be able to get to Paris, Berlin or any other top destination in Europe conveniently and easily, while giving yourself the luxury of being able to survey the European countryside while you travel.

Or why not take the coach to one of many top destinations in the UK for a weekend trip that won’t break the bank. For instance, if you’re at university in Leeds and you’re planning to visit a friend in Cornwall, you’ll be able to take the coach to the sunny south-east with no problem at all. Or, opt for overnight coach travel from London to Edinburgh on a Friday night; you’ll arrive in Scotland’s stunning capital bright and early on Saturday morning, ready for a top-class weekend before having to return to your classes on Monday morning. Moreover, many UK coach travel providers offer student or young person’s discounts.

So, wherever you’re planning to travel to, rest assured that coach travel is likely to be your cheapest option. Just don’t forget to put those long holidays to good use while they last!

For the fortunate few, life isn’t complete without a backpacking trip through Europe. This right of passage is believed to further the maturation process of college students, according to sociologists. Of course, others have opined that copious amounts of alcohol, sun and Amsterdam have something to do with it. Regardless of your purpose, you still have to figure out what to take.

Backpack – Getting In Touch With Your Inner Mule

Obviously, the first critical item is your backpack. While one doesn’t need to buy the $10,000 Himalaya Turbo Pack, you should also avoid the $12 blue light special. So, how do you pick a happy middle ground?

The best method for picking a backpack involves three phone books. Select/swipe/borrow three yellow page books from neighbors/friends/enemies and hit your local sporting goods store. With the books, head to the backpackapalozza section of the store and pick out a few sturdy/cool/outrageous rigs. Stuff the phone books in, adjust the straps and go for a walk. Now break out into a run to simulate future dashes for trains/ ferries/ toilets and make the sales people nervous. These steps should quickly reveal the perfect pack.

Now, you may have read other publications suggesting highly technical ways to select a backpack. Trust me, until you have run for the last ferry from Italy to Greece, you have no idea how to pick a pack. The three phone book test solves this nicely.

What To Take

There are a few mantras that every person should chant before packing for Europe. These chants were developed originally by the little known, Oh-My-Back Monks of Southeast Asia. The “OMB” Monks were known for traveling half way too far off cities, turning around, returning home and then traveling the full way to said cities. Religious experts opined as to the deep metaphysical meaning of such trips. They were later embarrassed when the monks revealed the back and forth nature of the trips was due to forgetting something, often whether they had turned off the iron. Nonetheless, such chants have become the guiding light of experienced backpackers.

Let us slowly and clearly chant together,

“I will pack only that which will not result in me being hunched over like a Sherpa.”

“Remember, I can pick it [(lower voice) toothpaste, book, soap] up over there.”

“I will not stuff thy pack to the point of bursting, for thy damn zippers always break/get snagged/refuse to work.”

“I will learn humility through wearing incredibly wrinkled clothes and shall not bring an iron.”

“I shall bring only one guide book, not one for each country that I MIGHT see.”

“I accept that I will come home wearing something I didn’t take and will have lost/traded/burned much of what I did take.”

For female travelers and, okay, the occasional male,

“I will not bring high heels or a gaggle of make-up.”

Admittedly, chanting these mantras will not bringing you immediate enlightenment. Fret, not. You can always throw items away or send them home in a box to your parents/friends/parole officer. For the resourceful backpacker, it is not unheard of to send particularly smelly/discolored/toxic clothing to an ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend/little brother. Follow these practical guidelines and you will soon happily be speaking in a loud voice to make foreigners understand you.

The Evidence

This is the hard part for most travelers to wrap their minds around. You will forget those special moments of your trip when you met the hunk Sven or babe Svenetta from Sweden and had a romantic evening/danced the night away/got arrested in Ios/Ibiza/the airport. Maybe not immediately, but you will eventually forget.

You will also forget or lose the contact information of people you meet, despite meticulously writing it down on the back of a coaster/napkin/your hand in a bar/poetry reading/jail at three in the morning. Surprisingly, said coaster/napkin/hand often survive the night/day/weekend and get deposited in your already trashed backpack. Of course, their presence is often forgotten when you later put a Oktoberfest mug/wet towel/toothbrush in. The extra padding at the bottom of your pack is specifically designed to deal with the decomposing result. Still, the information is gone and so is your future with Sven/Svenetta.

To properly record the magical moments of your trip, you must take a diary or journal. Don’t worry, you can burn it later before you get married/your parents get nosey/you have kids. You want a journal in a water/beer/sweat resistant case. Of course, I prefer a Nomad Travel Journal, but just make sure you take something. When you have some extra time in the bus/train/jail cell, you can record how you got there and the people you met.

Trust me, when you, Sven/Svenetta and your nine children are sitting on the porch 10 years later, you will greatly enjoy reading your journal. Of course, that assumes you didn’t burn.

It has been a time-honored tradition for the North American university grad to leave his sheltered nest and seek the unknown in a distant land.

Unfortunately, tradition also lends way to cliché.

The early twenties, book smart grad are filled with an ambition to add some life experience to his new set of professional letters. He sits in a dockside café eating hometown food with French provincial names as he writes into a leather-bound booklet some deep insights that he assumes are original. He dreams of having a torrid love affair with some local peasant girl but settles instead for swapping email addresses with some Canadians doing the exact same thing. As entertaining as this prospect seems, it was not my wish. I wanted to carve out my own adventure, and in Europe there is no better way than by train.

The European rail system has been for years second-to-none for accessibility, comfort, and, with Rail Europe, affordability. There are a variety of Rail Europe passes for different prices that can get you anywhere you wish in little time and from city center to city center. North Americans must purchase the Rail Europe tickets before departing Europe (you can’t get them in Europe) and well in advance of their trip, and in certain countries the passes are valid on ferries and riverboats. The passes are easy to use and, if taken advantage of fully, are cheaper than most other forms of transportation. Best of all is that trains can get you to remote areas that you would otherwise miss. For the budget-minded the night excursions or hotel trains save you hotel rooms so that you awake the next day in a new country!

Copenhagen —

I landed in Copenhagen and got immediately roped into the standard tourist sites — Tivoli Gardens, the Royal Palace, etc.

I saw an incredible exhibit of Danish design at the National Art (Kunst) Gallery, and I took a bike ride through an area called Christiania, an area started by a group of Danes in the 1960s looking for free love, free drugs, and free rent, and it hasn’t changed much since. I was here when I was thirteen years old, staying with a cousin. Since, the government has made an attempt to clean up Christiania by taking out most of the drugs but the general atmosphere remains. Old military buildings painted in bright colors are home to all sorts of the local free thinkers from vagrants to artists to very accomplished architects. The tour ended at the National Library, also called the “Diamond” because of its seemingly transparently beautiful aesthetics. It is a remarkable example of the old world class of a European city (half of the building is the original building of the National Library) and the clean lines and simple concepts of modern Danish design that act to seemingly tell a story with nothing but light.

Munich —

As wonderful of a city as Copenhagen is, the tourist route begins to lose its luster and the rails are calling me East. I’ve been to Germany before so I wasn’t interested in staying for too long, but the food and beer would be a shame to miss — yet another perk of train travel. Local trains can always be caught if you simply feel like ending up in a small town outside Munich, ordering a heaping lunch and a few giant steins of local brew and making your way out the same day. Needless to say, between Frankfurt and the Hungarian border I was full, comfortably brewed-up, and happy as the beautiful sites of central Europe flew by.

As can be expected, this type of life can take its toll on a person’s ability to remain conscious. By chance, when my body and mind were screaming for sleep, I happened upon a rather quiet train car. In fact, at one point a person was asked to keep the noise down behind me. I thought there was going to be some sort of movie starting that necessitated such silent attention until I realized that some of the train cars are specifically designated for the lazy kind of traveler that I felt like being. They are quiet cars and I will snore my praises of them for years to come.

Budapest —

A city full of history, incredible architecture, and beautiful women. As you walk around the city you get a definite stench of the former socialist society coupled with an obvious existence of capitalist growth. The city sits on the banks of the Danube. The Pest side is where you would find a much more built-up city center with malls and shopping areas, not to mention the late night venues. You can imagine my desire to visit the other side of the river.

The other side of the river is the Buda part of the city (are you picking up on the basis of the name yet?). A little quieter and lush, Buda contains some beautiful homes and sites. The Gelhert Hill, marked by a statue that can be reached by hiking paths, offers an incredible view of the city. I was lucky enough to meet a lovely local named Janka and I was invited to a dinner party. Hungarians are often seen as slightly less personable than some western European counterparts. This can be chalked up to a very dry sense of humor. I can attest, however, that this is not the case at all. After a great, home-cooked meal and a few cocktails in a quaint apartment in the hills filled with great people, including Zigga (who I knew for a few days and offered me a lift to the train station), and of course the beautiful Janka; I would say that kindness and generosity are staples in the social diet of Hungarians. They also have an uncanny ability to have a good time

How to Choose Where to Stay

How to Choose Where to Stay In an effort to offset the cost of a pricey city, rather than just turning up, realizing that all the cheap places in town are full, and having to stay somewhere that’s out of your price range, do your research and contact the hotels you’re interested in staying at in advance. And do your research on CheapOair, where you’ll find lots of search results of hotels within your price range.

1. The additional bonus of research from a budgeting point of view is that the more hotels, B&B’s and hostels you research and book before you leave; the easier it is to budget while you’re actually on vacation. Take your booking confirmation out and add up EXACTLY how much you’ll owe when you get there, and how much you’ll have left to spend.

2. From a financial point of view, it’s important that you also check out which hotels and hostels provide sheets and towels because some don’t. Perks, such as free internet access, and complementary breakfast are common and can come in handy, too. It may not sound like much, but a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, or a couple of slices of toast and jam and a coffee can really set you up for the day, and save you quite a few bucks.

Sightseeing

Another way, in which you can find your money quickly disappearing on your travels, is through sightseeing. Monuments, art galleries, museums and tours can be quite pricey. We’re obviously not suggesting that you shouldn’t sightsee and enjoy as much culture as you can on your travels because you should. Planning what you see in advance can help you budget your trip.

• For example, ask yourself if you really want to pay “X” amount of dollars to see a collection of obscure Byzantine artworks. If not, don’t bother, and save your money for the things you really do want to see and do. You’re not obliged to visit every attraction in the city you visit.

• Another good tip is to track down small museums, galleries and historical sites, the ones tucked away on a side street where you have to ring a bell, or call out for a curator to come scuttling out. They’re often equally interesting, and quite often, free.

Some Things to Consider When Traveling

Getting around as inexpensively as possible, especially for students is to find out the cheapest forms of transportation at your chosen destination BEFORE your arrival.

1. Don’t forget your student ID card, this can save you a lot of money and alleviate the some of the expenses associated with travel and daily transport. Additionally, you’ll benefit from a host of savings and student discounts available all around the globe. In the long run, the savings can be huge.

2. In addition to a student card, a rail card can really reduce your travel expenses if you’re traveling in one geographical area, like the United States, say, or Europe. Apart from giving you freedom to travel around your chosen area, this is also a great savings.

Another important thing you must remember to do is research, research, research. It’s not just flights that have fluctuating costs day-to-day and week-to-week, buses and trains do, too. Additionally, by doing your homework, you’ll find lots of deals and special offers for all sorts of forms of transportation.

Stay Healthy

Traveling with care also means taking care of you. Make your health a priority at all times. A few wise steps can go a long way:

• Make sure your routine vaccinations are up to date.
• Consult with a doctor who specializes in travel medicine to ensure you get the appropriate shots and vaccinations before you travel.
• If you are currently on medication remember to bring along an extra supply.
• If you wear glasses, be sure to bring an extra pair.
• If you take medication according to a strict time schedule, i.e., insulin, find out from your doctor how to adjust your schedule.
• Bring a basic first aid kit with medicines as prescribed by your doctor.

There is one thing in common about student travelers, no matter where you come from, students’ budgets are limited. If you don’t manage your money well, you’ll have a propensity to over-spend. To avoid ending up in trouble during your vacation and racking up unnecessary debt, plan and budget your trip carefully before you take off for your adventure.