Planning Your Trip:

The most important part of your trip is planning you do before you leave. Improper planning can turn a European dream-trip into a nightmare. Plus, a well planned trip is probably going to end up a lot cheaper than one you plan when you step off the plane in London.

Pre-trip is also the best time to figure out and deal with all the logistical nuisances of international travel-- it's a lot easier to get a passport, visa or plane ticket to Europe 6 months before you leave than it is in 6 days.

Good planning doesn't necessarily mean planning a minute-by-minute itinerary for every place you're going to go. In fact, one of the benefits of backpacking is the flexibility it awards you, so you can join up with some other backpackers you met your hostel for a few days, or spend an extra day exploring some beautiful village that your guide book didn't know anything about.

I would advise beginning to think about your trip 6+ months ahead of when you'd like to go. That'll give you enough time to put together a good plan and also score some early-bird discounts.

But if you don't have that kind of time, then here are the things that you should to get on asap:

• Figure out your budget
• Plan a basic itinerary
• Make sure you have all the proper travel documents
• Start looking for Airfare and Rail Passes

Travel Guides:

A good way to start figuring out your trip is to pick up a travel guide. A good travel guide is the backpacker's bible. They'll help you with everything from figuring out where to go, to which bar has the cheapest pint. But there are many travel guides out there, how do you figure out which one is right for you?

Most travel guides are geared towards traditional tourists, ones who need a book for their one week trip to Paris, not the intrepid adventurer, traversing the Carpathians in a sketchy Slovakian bus.

So unless you're sticking to one country, try and find a travel guide that caters to backpackers. Then go to your local bookstore or library and actually take a look at what they're like.

Some things to think about when getting a guide book:

• Is it the most recent edition?
• How specific is the information?
• Does it provide info you can't find elsewhere?
• Does it have a lot of easy to understand maps?