#ingeneral

Studying Abroad

• You’reprobablydefinitely going to over-pack the first time you leave for a semester. A good rule of thumb for cutting down your luggage is to pack for just two weeks. You’ll usually end up with enough clothes for three, and at that point you’ll hopefully be doing laundry.
  
• Leave behind anything you’ll only wear a few times. Just because you like it doesn’t mean you’ll wear it more overseas than you do in your everyday life stateside.
  
• Your goal is to leave room in your one suitcase to bring back the miscellaneous bullshit you’ll accumulate.
• Bring two pairs of shoes: dress shoes for special occasions and nights out, and everyday shoes, which are going to get beat to hell. I’d recommend leather boots, which generally look stylish enough to wear in a city, but can easily be waterproofed and are fairly comfortable to walk in. If they aren’t, buy inserts. This is so important. Other shoes are at your discretion, but these two are not negotiable.

Shorter Trips

• When it comes down to it, all you need to pack for a short trip are underwear and socks, your passport and wallet, your toothbrush, and your phone. Maybe a rain coat. Anything else, you can live without for a weekend or so. But if you’re missing any of these it’s not going to be a fun time. Trust me on this one.
• Don’t bring your laptop anywhere, unless you’re settling in for daily life at the destination. For short trips, they’re useless: heavy, easily breakable, large, and easy targets for thieves. If you have a smartphone, use that instead. Even if you’re on airplane mode the entire time you’re in Europe, free Wi-Fi is easy to find. 
  

In General

• Buy a little padlock. You can get sets of two in Walmart for about five dollars, each lock a bit larger than a thumbnail. Keep them with you in your purse or coat. You can use them to lock your backpack in a crowd, or your checked bag on a flight, or your purse, or your hostel locker.
  
• If you use purses or messenger bags, bring a bag with a strap long enough to wear across your chest rather than over one shoulder. Make sure the strap is too thick to be easily cut or snapped by someone sprinting past you. Your bag should be sealed with a zipper, not a flap: nothing a thief could slip their hand into while you were distracted. If there are vulnerable external pockets, only keep things in them that no one will want to steal, like pennies, pens, and tampons.
• Unless you’re going to Northern Europe in winter you don’t need to bring a very heavy coat. It will become dead weight as soon as the weather changes. In most of Europe, a pea coat and scarf over a few layers will keep you warm and remain useful for longer. Check average monthly temperatures for the region if you’re unsure. You should also bring a raincoat, ideally one that folds up very small.
  

Places of Worship

• In Europe the cathedrals, mosques, basilicas, etc. are often the most beautiful buildings in the city. I am less familiar the attitudes of non-Christian places of worship towards visitors, but you should definitely go into every cathedral you see. They’re like little jewelry boxes.
• Be respectful, first and foremost. It’s someone else’s place of worship first, and a tourist attraction second.
  
• Make sure your shoulders and knees are covered. If you’re wearing a tank top or clothing above the knee, you will be denied entrance to many churches.
  
• If you’re a woman and you’re going to be visiting any mosques (i.e. in Istanbul), pack a scarf to wear over your hair for the visit.
• Churches are beautiful, tranquil places to sit down and have a breather away from the noise of the city, out of the sun or rain or wind. Just be quiet and respectful.
  
• Attending a service in another language can be really interesting, although you should check beforehand to make sure you’d be welcome.

Christmas Markets

• In late November through Christmas, there’s a Christmas market in just about every European city.
  
• The one in Strasbourg is the most famous, but they’re all amazing.
  
• Drink hot mulled wine, which I think is most accurately described by the amazing mollyhall as something that “sounds terrible but it tastes like being kissed RIGHT on the mouth by dionysus. right on the mouth, i swear to god”. There’s nothing I can say that explains it any better than that.
  
• Eat whatever the local holiday food is. Without fail it will be sweet and hot and probably a bit greasy.
  
• Ride the winter Ferris wheel if they have one! Carpe the hell out of that Diem.
  

 Student Discounts

• An enormous number of attractions, museums, and even bars have student discounts.
  
• Even if you’re not technically an EU student, or even a student at all, a relatively recent-looking and not obviously expired student ID card will help you shave money off admission fares and the like. For example, the Acropolis in Athens is free for students.
  
• It’s always worth a shot.

Walking Tours

• Pretty much every city has free walking tours. The quality varies, but it’s a good way to get oriented in a new city, learn a bit of history, hear some local jokes and folklore, and get some context for major tourist attractions.
• To find them, ask at your hostel or Google it. They usually begin in public squares or hostel lobbies, and take an hour or two.
  
• It’s polite to tip the guide, but if you can’t swing the €5 or so at least tell them you appreciated it. They usually understand if you can’t afford a tip; you’re taking a free tour, after all. You’re clearly not rolling in cash.

Street Performers

• Almost always worth stopping for. Follow the music. You’re on vacation and if you want to stand in one place and watch an old man play an accordion for thirty minutes, the rest of the world can be damned.
  
• If you give them money, make sure you’re not tossing out €1-2 coins accidentally. As someone who hurled about €7 of pocket change at a startled and joyous musician my first weekend in France, this is an easy and unfortunate mistake for Americans to make.
  
• On the subject of spare change, keep all the euro pennies separate, because they’re virtually worthless but there’s always a fountain to throw coins into for luck.
  

Viewpoints

• Even if you don’t have a head for heights, I think one of the best things to do in a city is to find high ground. It could be a bell tower or a ferris wheel or just a normal hill, but seeing a city from above is always beautiful, and a great way to mentally orient yourself in a new place.

Phones

• What you do about your phone depends on how long you’re there.
• For short trips, just keep your phone on airplane mode. You’ll have Wi-Fi often enough to check in, and you don’t want to pay roaming fees.
• If you’re in Europe for longer than a week or two, you have two options. The first is to get a new European SIM card. I don’t know much about this, or about how it works country to country, but I do have some friends who really wanted to be able to use their iPhone like a phone rather than a glorified iPod, and that seemed to work for them.
• The second option is to keep your smartphone on airplane mode and use it when you have Wi-Fi, and to buy a second phone for emergency calls and texting European friends. A cheap flip phone won’t put you back much; you can load it up with a few euros and use it for whatever your airplane-mode smartphone can’t do.
• A third option is to download an app like Whatsapp or Viber, which lets you call or text other users of the app for free, as long as you both have Wi-Fi (Thanks, aknowledgeseeker!)
  

Wi-fi

• It’s pretty easy to find free Wi-Fi in most European cities. Some places to find it on the go:
• Private shuttles, and many public buses
  
• Cafés
  
• Libraries (you can almost always print things at libraries too, for just a few cents a page)
• Obviously, internet cafés (another place to print things)
• Airports
• Wherever you’re staying: hostels, Airbnbs, couchsurfing hosts. It’s extremely rare these days to find accommodation that doesn’t offer it.
• City centers: some cities, such as Florence, are beginning to offer a free wifi connection throughout the historical center. All you need to access it is an email.
  

Banks/Money

• Accessing money abroad can be irritating. I don’t have to tell you this, probably.
  
• If you’re on a short trip, just withdraw cash from ATMS and stick to that. Some banks, like Bangor Savings, will refund international ATM fees if the machine puts them through separately.
• Some places won’t accept US cards without chips; cash is the most likely to be accepted, and in some countries preferred.  
• If you’re in Europe for a longer period of time, look into bank accounts. Many countries won’t allow you to open a bank account until you’ve lived there for a certain number of months, but if you’re studying abroad, your host university might have an agreement worked out with a local bank.
• If you can open an account, keep in mind when moving money into it that many banks charge a fee for sending and receiving wire transfers. Depending on the cost, you might be better off withdrawing cash from an ATM and depositing that.
• Tell your home bank where you’re going so they don’t shut off your card.
• If you get a local bank card, tell that bank where you’re going if you plan to leave the country. A debit card it preferable to cash, but only if it works.

Maps

• Your options are physical and electronic maps. Use them both.
• You can get physical maps for free in airports, hostels, and tourist information centers. They’ll be pretty shitty, to be honest. They’ll probably have blocky illustrations of tourist hot spots which may or may not be facing in the right direction. A lot of small streets will be left nameless or not included at all. Nevertheless, these are good for orienting yourself, keeping as souvenirs, and jabbing a finger at when you need directions and can’t speak a language.
  
• My favorite thing about physical maps is that other people can write all over them. I have a map of Rome where the Vatican is covered up by a drunk Texan’s directions to a gellateria you can’t find on google maps. That shit’s worth more than gold.
• My favorite phone map is an offline app called Free City Maps/City maps 2 Go, which allows you to download a complete map of a city or region. It comes with information about most of the shops and attractions, shows you where in the city you are at all times whether or not you have service/WiFi, and gives you distances between your current location and wherever you want to go. Uses significantly less battery life than Google Maps, doesn’t disappear when you close the app, and also lets you drop stars everywhere in the city you want to go or remember. My favorite part of the app is that it lets you add notes to your stars, so you can remind yourself that this is where you got the killer gelato, for example.
  
• If the above isn’t an option, but you have a smartphone and Google Maps, load a map of the city while you have Wi-Fi. Load the entire city, zooming in until all the streets have names, and leave the app open (battery permitting). Once you leave Wi-Fi, you can’t load any more of the map, but the blue dot that is you will move around the map to show where you are. I believe this is because of satellites and GPS, but my grasp of technology is admittedly shaky. Regardless, you’ll be able to see exactly where you are and often which direction you’re facing.
• If you load Google Maps, drop pins or add stars to locations you want to visit, to tell more easily if you’re in the right area and going the right direction. It makes finding specific small businesses easier.
  

Currencyand Cash

• You’re going to have more types of currency than is convenient or useful.
• You’re always going to lose out in the conversion. Even if the rates favor you, the commission that moneychangers charge will not. Because of this, try not to convert the same money multiple times. Fortunately, in the Eurozone, you don’t nee to worry so much about this.
• You can always find currency exchanges in airports, and generally in city centers. If you have rarer currency, like Icelandic Krona, airports are more likely to accept it.
• Keep the smallest, virtually worthless coins in a separate pocket to throw into fountains for good luck.
  

Crime

• Don’t ever keep valuables in your back pockets. Because your front pockets probably aren’t sealed I’d say avoid that too. Same goes for open coat pockets, especially because they’re not up against your skin. Try to keep valuables in a safe purse, or in the inside pocket of a coat.
• Be extremely wary in crowds, where you’re being jostled around and might not feel someone getting at your belongings.
• Be cautious at street performances and other situations that may be intended to distract you.
• Probably goes without saying, but never leave your bag unattended.
• If you travel alone, have a fuck-off walk. Look like you know where you’re going and have people waiting for you. You’re much more likely to be targeted if you seem uncertain, lost, or just uncomfortable.
• If you know a language that’s rarely spoken in the area you’re visiting, you can use that to dodge out of conversations with particularly insistent hawkers. It doesn’t take much Swedish for them to realize they can’t communicate with you.

In general

• This is terrible advice, but especially for short trips, remember: you don’t have to be healthy, you just shouldn’t be hungry.
• Cook for yourself. Make sure your accommodation has a kitchen you can use. You’ll save so much money.
• Pasta and rice are very cheap, very filling, and travel well. Both can be fancied up with whatever sauces or vegetables you can afford. Canned beans are cheap, good protein.
  
• For food during the day, or if you’re staying somewhere you can’t cook, bread is easy to find in corner stores, very inexpensive, often vegan, and goes well with just about everything (cheese or sausage and a bottle of wine is a proper picnic). Try to buy small baguettes; large ones go stale before you can finish them. Cereal bars are also filling and easy to travel with.
• Apples and bananas travel well, last a while, and can be taken anywhere. You’ll see a lot of small fruit stores open in the early morning. In the spring, at least in Athens and Lisbon, you can find strawberry vendors selling the bruised strawberries for €1/kilo.
• Tap water is almost always safe to drink in Europe. In several cities, there are public drinking fountains in the streets that draw on the fresh springs below the city. Rome in particular has a lot of these. Put your finger over the mouth of the spigot to make it come out the small hole on the top like a drinking fountain.
  
• Many couchsurfing hosts will feed you at least one meal, although they’re not in any way obligated to.
  
• Many hostels have a free food bin full of things previous residents have left behind. You can find a lot of pasta and rice, usually some condiments and spices, and often treats like cookies. Some hostels also offer free breakfasts or evening snacks. If you can, hoard that shit. It literally kept me alive the week I went to Ireland and forgot to bring any money with me.
  
• If you’re vegetarian or vegan, cooking for yourself is going to be the easiest way to make sure everything you’re eating is safe. Most food packaging in Europe bolds the ingredients that could be allergens, such as milk and eggs, making it easy to scan for things you can’t eat even with the language barriers.

Eating Out

• Even if you can’t afford it often, try the local food wherever you go. It’s such a huge part of every culture. For the widest spread of traditional foods, I’d recommend that at the very least you try a street food, a pastry, and a drink. Sweet or savory, snack or meal, coffee or tea or alcohol: doesn’t matter. Do some research and figure out what seems worth the money.
• If you want a proper restaurant experience, many restaurants in the center offer fixed-price menus. For €10-20, you pick an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert from about half a dozen options each, and enjoy a pretty fancy, decent-quality meal for not too much money.
• It can be difficult to find restaurants that are specifically vegan or vegetarian, but in many countries there are vegan or vegetarian options available. In Italy, for example, you can order pizza marinara, which is pizza without cheese: just flatbread and tomato sauce and whatever other toppings you want. With a bit of research you should be able to figure out some options to look for in most cities.
• In many countries, sitting down at a restaurant or café costs twice what it would if you got your food or drink to go, or ate at the counter.