About your request, more information needed: What are your vacation goals and constraints? E.g., do you want to visit touristy things (historical sites, museums, etc.)? Do you want to visit as many different countries as possible? Are you against any particular sort of sleeping arrangement, for example, hostels or couch surfing? Or is money not an issue compared to privacy and comfort?
About your specific situation, because I’m nosy: Which math conferences are you attending? Are you presenting?
I am attending a summer school in Sardinia and a conference in Benasque. I am not presenting.
I am interested in visiting multiple countries, and doing touristy things, but I’m not certain that those would be the MOST interesting things, so I’m interested in a brainstorm of things to do.
I had planned to stay at hostels, as money is a small issue and I’m not a big stickler for beds. I’d also prefer to meet people and do things together with them. Couch surfing would be better in every respect, except that I don’t know anyone who lives in Europe and I’m not sure how comfortable I am sleeping in a stranger’s house.
How long are you staying? If your journey begins and ends with those two events, and if you play on having any rest at all (i.e. you don’t hate beaches and nature), a relatively direct road trip (recommended by train) along the Mediterranean coast Sardinia → central Italy → northern Italy → southern France → Catalonia could easily fill three weeks, and in July half of Europe moves there anyway, so you’ll have no trouble meeting Brits and Germans. You could fit in one or two short visits by low-cost airflight to out-of-the-way destinations, but that’s about it. Unless you seriously doubt you’ll ever return to Europe again, I wouldn’t try to squeeze in stuff like “two days in Paris” or “one day in Vienna”, you’ll just whet your appetite (and waste half as much time travelling as you would visiting).
Hostels are fine; get a Hostelling International membership and rely on it, if a hostel is affiliated with them it’s almost guaranteed to not be too bad.
On a separate note, I hope this is not the only place where you’re asking for advice. LW is a relatively small community, and for this type of advice it doesn’t offer huge benefits over places like Reddit (where ‘travel advice’ threads are insanely common on near every European subreddit).
About your request, more information needed: What are your vacation goals and constraints? E.g., do you want to visit touristy things (historical sites, museums, etc.)? Do you want to visit as many different countries as possible? Are you against any particular sort of sleeping arrangement, for example, hostels or couch surfing? Or is money not an issue compared to privacy and comfort?
About your specific situation, because I’m nosy: Which math conferences are you attending? Are you presenting?
I am attending a summer school in Sardinia and a conference in Benasque. I am not presenting.
I am interested in visiting multiple countries, and doing touristy things, but I’m not certain that those would be the MOST interesting things, so I’m interested in a brainstorm of things to do.
I had planned to stay at hostels, as money is a small issue and I’m not a big stickler for beds. I’d also prefer to meet people and do things together with them. Couch surfing would be better in every respect, except that I don’t know anyone who lives in Europe and I’m not sure how comfortable I am sleeping in a stranger’s house.
How long are you staying? If your journey begins and ends with those two events, and if you play on having any rest at all (i.e. you don’t hate beaches and nature), a relatively direct road trip (recommended by train) along the Mediterranean coast Sardinia → central Italy → northern Italy → southern France → Catalonia could easily fill three weeks, and in July half of Europe moves there anyway, so you’ll have no trouble meeting Brits and Germans. You could fit in one or two short visits by low-cost airflight to out-of-the-way destinations, but that’s about it. Unless you seriously doubt you’ll ever return to Europe again, I wouldn’t try to squeeze in stuff like “two days in Paris” or “one day in Vienna”, you’ll just whet your appetite (and waste half as much time travelling as you would visiting).
Hostels are fine; get a Hostelling International membership and rely on it, if a hostel is affiliated with them it’s almost guaranteed to not be too bad.
On a separate note, I hope this is not the only place where you’re asking for advice. LW is a relatively small community, and for this type of advice it doesn’t offer huge benefits over places like Reddit (where ‘travel advice’ threads are insanely common on near every European subreddit).