Pisa Cathedral, Italy. Photo by Joy from ItalyShoppe.

So you’ve got your tickets booked: you’re going to Europe! It’s your first trip to the Old World, but you’re psyched about seeing the Eiffel Tower, taking a gondola on the canals of Venice and strolling through the cobbled streets of Prague.

But the hardest part about planning a trip isn’t figuring out where you want to go – it’s the details. You need to work out how to get from place to place, how much you should budget per day, what the visa requirements are, or which airlines you should use. And that’s just the start of it.

If you’ve never planned a trip before, this can be a difficult and discouraging process. At this point, some people buy into a package vacation. It’s the easy way out. But you want to do things your way, as an independent traveller.

Travelling Europe is a guide for people who need help figuring out the nitty gritty details of travelling around Europe. It’s not going to tell you where you should go – though there is a section about unusual European destinations you should consider visiting. Instead, this guide answers the questions most commonly asked by first-time travellers:

• How can I research my trip?
• Can I afford it?
• What are the visa requirements for visiting Europe?
• Can I work in Europe?
• Can I teach English to fund my travels?
• Where should I stay?
• How should I get around?
• How can I research transport?
• Should I get a Eurail pass?
• What should I look for in a budget airline?
• Should I learn another language? Which ones?
• What to try? Can I drink the water?

There are also handy sections about solo female travel, family travel and travelling as a couple.

The guide is written by Craig Martin, whose blog/podcast Indie Travel Podcast is a featured blog on TravelBlogs. One of the great advantages of Travelling Europe is it’s based on real, first-hand experiences. Craig and his wife Linda made their way around Europe on a shoestring budget from March 2006 to October 2008, so you know they know what they’re talking about. And because he couldn’t write with much authority about solo female travel or family travel, Craig pulled in two great guest writers who do know about those topics.

There are two versions of the guide: the written, pdf version and the audio version. Personally, I prefer reading, and the ebook is well written, designed professionally and looks good printed off. But if you’re not the reading type, you can load the guide onto your iPod and listen to it on the way to work.

Whichever you choose, the guide comes with free updates for life and a full money back guarantee: “Our Indie Travel Guarantee promises that you’ll find this useful and learn some tricks that you didn’t know before. If you don’t think that’s the case then we’ll refund your money. It’s that simple.”

At $5.95 for the e-book, this is an absolutely bargain. If you choose to go for both the e-book and audio version, it’s only $9.95.

Buy the eBook, audio book or both now: Travelling Europe

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Other E-Books written by travel bloggers:

• The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself by Chris Guillebeau
• The Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfares by Chris Guillebeau
• How to Find Cheap Airline Tickets by Elizabeth Sanberg

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | Travelling Europe: Indie Travel Guide (Review) | 2 comments |
Post categories: Book Reviews
Post tags: budget travel, Europe, independent travel, travel ebooks, travel guide