European Vacay: The Prep

TL;DR: My husband Alberto and I went on our dream European honeymoon for 16 days hitting 9 cities and 2 countries - with just backpacks!

Here are my best tips + tricks for packing, planning and prepping for an adventure of your own! I am no travel expert, just sharing what we learned along the way.

Our itinerary included: Rome, Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, Athens, Santorini and BONUS: London for a few hours.

Every great trip starts with the so not great feat of packing. I felt EXTRA stressed about it because we decided from the beginning we were going to take only backpacks. And that was truly the smartest thing we did. I don’t think we could have gone as many places as we did if we had normal luggage we had to lug around! We saw plenty of couples struggling with their huge suitcases and chuckled to ourselves because we were so glad we didn’t have to deal with that! Early mornings down cobblestone streets, city buses, small trains - you name it, the backpacks were a lifesaver!

And if you think we skimped on packing, think again. I took 9 dresses, a pair of flowy pants, a pair of shorts, 3 tops, 2 swimsuits, 2 pairs of shoes, a robe, a small blow dryer and straightener (that I didn’t use once)... the list goes on. PLUS I was able to bring back a few small gifts and gadgets. It was the size of a normal carry on suitcase and even opened like one on the inside instead of a traditional backpack.

We also took things to do our own hang dry laundry which was fun. I got these travel soap packets and travel clothes line to dry. We only did laundry like this once and then one of our Airbnbs had a washer in it (HUGE SURPRISE PERK).

how did we pack?

Again - I can not reiterate enough - the backpacks were KEY! We researched a ton of them and made sure they were carry on size while still having plenty of room to open up inside. They opened up like suitcases with a big open section on each side with tons of extra pockets. Both of them you could pack in the straps and carry it as a “suitcase” as well, but we always wore them.

This is Alberto’s - more sleek and a little smaller. And this is the one I got!

Inside our backpacks we used these packing cubes from the same company as our backpacks and they were SO helpful in fitting everything! We each got a pack of three that had a big cube, medium cube and small cube. They all expanded to be bigger and we each only used the big and small cubes.

My purse was another awesome find. My mom got a bigger version of this purse when she came to NYC earlier this year, but I opted for a smaller version that wouldn’t be too much of a pain to carry around. The cool thing about this purse is it has little lock clips on every zipper and is “cut” proof so no one could get it off your body! It also has RFID blocking. I kept our passports in here zipped in a pocket and felt great about it.

We also each got these small wallets that were perfect and kept our ids, credit cards and some cash.

HOw did we plan?

We are not fancy flyers (other than our Southwest points which do NOT help us here) so we booked the best deal we could find on Expedia. It was on British Airways flying through London both ways. The London airport is VERY intense. They went through the entirety of both of our bags and had lots of strange rules. But, on the way back, we got a few hours in London which was a bonus perk to us! One more city to explore.

We used tons of public transportation or walked. We only took a cab 1 time and it was for an early morning flight to Athens. We booked our Airbnbs and flights between Italy and Greece before we left, but none of our trains or other transportation until we got there. Once we got to a city we looked up the best transportation or asked our Airbnb hosts. It was always easy to figure out!

We booked 3 excursions (sailboat tour in Santorini, cooking class in Santorini and walking tour in Rome). Everything else we figured out when we got there! We found The Culture Trip pretty helpful in finding cool spots and things not to miss. We also downloaded and used the free Rick Steve’s walking tour app… I will talk more about this later but WOW. It was amazing!

TripAdvisor is HUGE in Europe and places really pride themselves on they’re ratings and reviews. We found most of what we did because of TripAdvisor and the reviews are so, so helpful! I got really into TripAdvisor and started leaving reviews left and right… I now get it.

a few other tips

TAKE GOOD WALKING SHOES! We walked just shy of 150 miles (no joke!). Alberto had a pair of Nike’s and I opted for some leather sandals that I loved. We each only took one other pair of shoes than those for “dress up” and it was perfect!
Before we left we exchanged a few hundred dollars for euros. Other than that, we only had to take cash out one time (and when we did the exchange rate was pretty high). But a lot of places (especially in Italy!) will only take cash because #taxes.
We made copies of our passports, IDs and itinerary and sent them to our parents - just to be safe!
Verizon has a pretty great international phone plan you can use - $10 a day for texting. Although we found wifi almost everywhere.
I got a USB converter with 2 plugs in it that we took which was great until I realized it was ONLY for USBs and I couldn’t plug my hairdryer or straightener into it. WHOOPS! It was kind of nice to not have to worry about my hair though - just let it breathe the European air!
Tipping is strange in Europe. I read 5-10% if they were really good, but it’s not expected. I also read €1 a day for housekeeping and €2-5 per person for tour guides.

European Vacay: The Prep