My Solo Travel Experience in Europe: Routine, Mistakes, and Recommendations

In this post, I recount my experience of traveling solo in Europe for 3 months and also share recommendations based on my mistakes.

This post serves as a preview of everything my journey encompassed, and in future occasions, I will dig deeper into each topic.

During the first month, I requested time off from the company I work for. The countries I visited during this part of my trip were Spain, France, and Italy. I stayed in each city for 3 to 5 days during this period.

When I arrived in Munich on a Monday, I started working from 4 PM to 1 AM at the hostel receptions where I stayed. Regarding this, I can say that it was not easy to adapt since those hours are usually the most social moments in hostels. Groups of friends gather to share stories (without lowering their voices), people want to get to know each other, and conversations can be heard everywhere. Additionally, there are people checking-in who also speak loudly. Typically, hostels also organize social events that take place from 7 to 9 PM.

During the time I was working, I stayed in each destination for 4 to 10 days.

Between 9 PM and 1 AM, people are usually drunk and talk even louder.

On the other hand, the chairs I worked on were not comfortable at all. Working throughout the day was exhausting for my back and hands, as the workstations were not ergonomic.

Regarding food, what my team considered lunch, I took as dinner. This was sometimes challenging since I only had an hour to go out and order food at a restaurant, cook, or buy something to eat. Sometimes I went to fast food restaurants like McDonald's (if they were available). Other times, I bought food and cooked it inside the hostel (although not all hostels have a kitchen). On some occasions, I would go out at 9 PM to look for food, and if I couldn't find anything that night, I wouldn't eat. Initially, this was difficult, but gradually, when it happened, I simply skipped that meal.

In each city, there are usually bookstores, remote workspaces, and public libraries. The problem is that these places are only open during European working hours, so they close after 6 PM, which didn't suit me.

Moreover, I couldn't work flexibly in my hours since for the project I'm working on, we use Pair Programming. I had to constantly communicate with my partner about what I was doing, meet up, share knowledge, and synchronize a lunch hour.

The last hours were always the most challenging to work. Several hostels closed some areas at midnight and promoted silence to avoid waking up other guests. In other hostels, it was the complete opposite as they started playing loud music in the bar around 11 PM, when my workspace was very close.

After 1 AM, I would go to my shared room. Usually, everyone was already asleep, and silence prevailed. I would arrive, store my belongings in drawers or lockers, lock them, and go to sleep (you'll gradually realize through my posts that I didn't sleep in some cities). After approximately 8 hours of sleep, I would wake up, get ready, and head out to explore the cities. Sometimes the plan was to visit museums, art exhibitions, tourist spots, go out on the streets to take photos, or go hiking in nature. Other times, when I got tired of planning, I simply sat alone in a park all day to appreciate nature and meditate. Sometimes I even danced alone in public spaces, put on my headphones, and began to feel the music I was listening to, making an effort to express what I felt in that moment or what was going through my mind.

Some days were exclusively dedicated to organizing myself within the hostel. I arranged most of the train journeys to arrive 1 or 2 hours before my work hours, so I could concentrate the next day on arranging my belongings in the limited space of the bed and lockers, and get to know the people I shared the space with.

Finally, after walking, exploring, and having lunch, I would return to my hostel at 3 PM. I would take out the necessary tools to work from my room and start my workday.

As a conclusion, I would like to make the following recommendations:

• Uninstall social media as they take up your time and energy (unless you want to upload photos for pleasure, as I used to do).
• Carry a padlock for lockers as hostels usually rent them for around 5 euros.
• Think about how often you will wash your clothes, as it can be expensive and sometimes complicated. I will delve deeper into this later.
• Plan your hostels in advance as several of them don't have remote workspaces or their Wi-Fi doesn't work well.
• Don't overplan your day-to-day activities. It's okay to rest for a day, and you shouldn't push yourself more than necessary to meet that schedule, as it's physically and mentally exhausting.
• To reduce expenses, visit local supermarkets (Carrefour, Coop, Rema 1000, Shop & Go, among others). These supermarkets sell sandwiches for less than 7 euros, and other times you can buy ingredients and cook for yourself. There are also fast-food restaurants, but be careful with the food you consume. The priority is to maintain a balanced diet for health reasons.
• Personally, I believe that getting 8 hours of sleep is the most important. That's what kept me energized all the time.
• To discover places you can visit, you can ask any search engine or use apps like Facebook Events or CouchSurfing to check for events.
• If you are working, I recommend staying in each city for at least one full week. If you change destinations quickly, like I did, there may be cities where you have little time to connect with people, their culture, and the place.
• For traveling within Europe, I 100% recommend buying a train ticket with Interrail or Eurail. It's more economical than paying for flights, and personally, I prefer trains as they have no luggage restrictions and are much more comfortable. You just need to arrive at the train station on time and board the train.

What works for me may not work for others. The above are a set of recommendations based on what I experienced and the mistakes from which I learned.