Weekend Backpacking in Europe

Written by Danny Hsiao, Foster undergraduate

I wasn’t thinking about traveling too much when I first arrived in Pamplona until I met a few friends who are really big on travelling. After I got to know them and talked to them more, I realized that it might be a good opportunity for me to travel at least some part of Europe. I am originally from Taiwan and study in Seattle, which are both really far from Europe. So I figured that this would be the best time for me to travel in Europe with a lowest cost because I don’t have any work obligation except some school work and I can design my own schedule to meet my travel needs. That’s how I came up with the idea of weekend backpacker.

I ended up having a three and a half day weekend for every week, which is perfect for my weekend travel plan. So about the second week of school, a few friends and I started traveling during the weekend. We first went to Switzerland, because the air ticket was really cheap at that time, then southern Spain, the UK, central Spain, Portugal, some other parts of Spain, and even North Africa—a territory of Spain that we figure would be cool to tell other people about having been there in Africa. The way we travel wasn’t very luxurious as we had to control the cost in order to be able to afford the next trip. To do so, we rode the cheapest transportation, slept in the creepiest hostels, and walked, with a backpack of all the travel essentials, for miles and miles, to save cost and see more, which were very interesting travel memories! We have slept in the cold, hard airport floor with a sleeping bag; we have been lost in the valley of the Alps in Switzerland to try to find the hotel we book; we had encounter numerous pickpockets, thieves, and even burglars on the way; we had seen a pregnant mother with two babies crying for help with translation. Each of the incidents provided opportunity for us to learn from the real world and strengthen our minds to deal with futures difficulties.

Besides those, we have also seen beautiful things. We have seen the last sunset of Europe in Portugal with some hot fresh Portuguese egg tarts; we have seen the snowy Matterhorn and heard the sound a glacier makes; we have seen the majestic Arabic palace called the La Alhambra where the Spanish queen started the plan to reunite the Catholic Spain; we have also seen the mind-purifying trumpet salute in London tower to the soldiers who died when fighting for the British Queen. These are some unforgettable memories!