Planning a solo trip to Europe for the first time – all that went in it for me | Switzerland & Italy

Hello!!! I hope everyone is doing alright. I took my first solo trip this year to Switzerland, Italy and Malta and learned a bunch in the process of planning it. This video covers all that and a little more 😀
I stayed in hostels for the first time and that was great but this video would’ve gotten too long, so I’ll just be making another one on it.
I had all the questions I answered in this so I really hope it helps you too 🙂

Some time stampssss : take ur choice :

00:00 – Intro n stuffs
02:02 – Creating an organiser excel sheet before beginning anything
02:25 – Choosing your countries (realistically)
03:55 – What should you be starting with??!! order of things
04:52 – Best months to travel in (cheaper + less crowded)
05:30 – Planning inter country travel
06:18 – What needs to be booked in advance
06:45 – Planning inter city travel (booking trains+ buses + youth rates)
07:05 – Do you need an interrail pass?
07:35 – Budgeting ( food + accommodation)
09:26 – Best way to do sightseeing (airbnb experiences + getyourguide.com)
10:10 – Do you need to buy tours? ( Paid tours vs audio tours)
10:35 – Which attractions to book in advance (keeping holidays in mind)
11:08 – City discount cards ( Zurich card, Firenze card)
11:43 – Safety measures I took (pickpocketing in Italy + keeping passport safe + things I bought)
15:17 – Remember to chill

Oh oh oh my goodness so a few weeks ago I did something interesting I went for my first solo trip I went to Switzerland Italy and Malta Malta was not so solo so I’m just going to leave that out of this video for now um this was something I

Had wanted to do since 2021 I have sheets and sheets of resources in my Google documents and I’m like okay take this bus and random it club together random countries club together it never really happened until this I was like you know what I really really want to go

And I’m going to make it happen so when it was an actual thing that was uh in the foreseeable future there was there was suddenly a lot more facets to it going into it I was very pumped like how hard can it be get your stuff together

You know where you want to go and you go alone and that’s how you do your solo trip alone you just go but as a female traveling alone for the first time I’m somebody who gets anxious traveling alone in my hometown as well where I

Have a lot of people so going so far alone that time all this was not striking me while planning I thought that I’ve not figured it out right now but whenever I do I will make a video about it for people like me who want a

Plan a trip but don’t know where to start I did not go for a pre-made planner trip I wanted to do everything from scratch and I’m also somebody who uh likes to plan at least a little in advance I need to know what I’m going to

Go there and do especially if I’m alone if I was going with somebody I think I would still be a lot more relaxed and you can figure it out as the day comes come back in one piece It’s been a weeks so I think I’m a credible source for all

You first timers out there accommodation I stayed in hostels throughout my trip and I think I’ll be making a different video on that cuz I have a lot to say about that too because I stayed in hostiles for the first time and it was an experience in itself so I’ll mainly

Be talking about planning a trip to Europe with my experiences cuz that’s the only trip I’ve planned like where to start from transport in these cities budgeting safety measures all of the stuff that was useful to me uh I’ll be putting time stamps below so you all can

See and pick whichever topic is relevant to you all okay so let’s start first thing I have a Excel sheet for myself like a master Excel sheet I would really recommend having an Excel sheet when you begin planning so all your information is not scattered everywhere and start making categories especially for

Budgeting bring on interesting blog links that you find itary combinations all of that stuff it just help you keep all of it together and you can have like one place to refer to while you um do your research okay so the first thing is going to be if you’re planning a trip to

Europe it’s a whole continent and there are so many countries limit the countries don’t try to do 10 countries in 10 days I thought you know what I’m going so far let me do as many countries as I can and you seen people do this stuff like backpacking um Europe and

Just going from country to Country in the beginning I had planned Switzerland Italy Spain Portugal Malta it was the logistical nightmare 3 weeks into my planning I realized this is not working out I don’t try to do 10 countries in 10 days it sounds great on paper it’s not

Practical you’re not going to get to enjoy anything so basically after breaking my head for days and speaking to a lot of friends that I’m going to have to leave out Spain and Portugal out of my itinary and just focus on three countries it felt like you know I’m

Going for a month but I’m only covering three countries it is okay it is fine because each country has so much to it once you go there you’re like okay there is a lot to see and I will not be doing Justice to any of it you will come back

Again it’s not a marathon um I was referring to make my trip Ian I was referring to travel bloggers blogs all of them had such elaborate tinies you’re moving around in a group and you want to skim country want to touch touch touch go to the major monuments and leave

Leave leave it I would not and that’s the that’s the best part about taking a trip alone you don’t have to do the mainstream stuff you can choose and pick what you feel like doing and I would suggest for two weeks do a maximum of two or three countries if you’re feeling

Super adventurous but not more than that it’s not a marathon you will come back enjoy the countries you’re in the next thing is something I really face trouble in the correct order to plan the stuff in um so for me because I was staying alone and I decided I want to stay in

Hostiles this time the place I was staying in was extremely important so I had researched on the hostiles first thing and I was like okay these are the hostiles are like now I was seeing which countries they were in and I was like hm it’s kind of getting a little convoluted

Cuz I was ending up with countries I was not very excited about and I was like am I doing something wrong here um the correct order honestly would be to understand firstly what kind of stuff you are into and what kind of stuff you would like to go for whether it’s a

Beach thing whether it’s more historic I stuff choose a country and then check out the neighboring countries so accommodation comes in the very end I think it was a struggle for me to understand that I will find accommodation it it was taking Center Stage for me that I need to know where

I’m staying first I need to be in a safe environment because you will find good accommodation in every place so you don’t have to worry about that it comes in the very end next this one’s important so choose the months that you’re going in very wisely summer

Months in Europe are July and August which is also the months kids have vacation and all families are there the best season to travel is the shoulder months which is basically um May June September October so I went in September I went for the entirety of September

Also because there was a very bad heat wave in July and August check the weather at the places you’re going in the end I was very happy that I didn’t end up going in those months I ended up going in September the rates are much calmer uh the Crowds Are Much lesser and

You’re going to have more or less the same experience so I think I’ve already covered this don’t make very extensive travel plans when you’re planning a trip and trying to understand prices you go on these um domestic flights and the prices are going to be so less oh my God

I can travel from your to your at €0 that’s such a crazy steal but no you’re going to have luggage because you’re traveling from so far and with that the prices are going to double and triple all your travel plans are going to fall apart that happened with me towards the

Middle of my planning when I was like okay let me start booking the flights now I don’t expect that when I’m when I add my luggage the prices are going to change so so drastically and like I said I had a very big breakdown moment in the

Middle of my planning and I was like everything I know is falling apart choose trains as much as you can don’t make very extensive travel plans with flights and all of that unless it’s absolutely necessary and saves a lot of time choose trains the next thing is Advanced bookings I cannot stress on

This enough book your flights firstly in advance your main flights your hometown to your first country flights book them in advance I wasted a lot of time in that I was like you know what let me understand where I’m going first after this country where I’m going to be going

And then I’ll book my flight tickets the flight tickets rocketed the flights that I originally wanted I didn’t get that anymore I had to choose another at that point I did not have a choice because the rest of it was already planned so yeah 100% choose your book your flight

Tickets and Advance don’t ignore inter city travel in your mind it’s very easy because you’re sitting here places that are like 100 200 km away from each other you as soon as you have Clarity book your train ticket they have youth rates if you qualify as a youth and all of the

Stu that’s very beneficial you save a lot of money and you can just take advantage of that instead of waiting for the last minute another thing I was very mesmerized by the concept of inter check if it makes sense for you it did not end up making sense for me when I calculated

The costs they have specific one country passes and a group of country passes just make your itary and check it’s actually a leg up on booking the train tickets and flight tickets individually after my itary was in place I calculated all the journeys I was going to make and

It seemed like booking the tickets on my own was more cost effective than uh going for an inter rail par as much as it seemed like the best option budgeting okay budgeting really depends from person to person and I tried keeping my cost as low as I could without

Compromising on safety because I was traveling alone hostiles were the best option for me I’m also the kind of person who avoids thinking about money and confronting costs and stuff like that even though I I know that I’m going to have expenditure in the near future

Until it’s staring at me right in the face and I wish I had done that earlier in the planning because I had to make some pretty major changes in the last minute after you’ve chosen your countries and stuff do a quick money check uh see if it’s fitting in your

Budget and start making changes accordingly on a day on average I spent $25 for food I had an upper limit on the amount I spent on each meal so for breakfast it would just be a croissant or um some fruits and then for lunch and

Dinner it would be Max € for a meal so I met this girl in one hostel and she told me that she has a traditional meal from every city that she went to and I was like yeah that’s that sounds actually a good idea so I started doing that too so

Every city I went to I did have um a proper traditional meal so that would get a little expensive but that would be fine because Switzerland was really expensive when it came to food uh Supermarket bought meals were coming up to 13 Franks which is a lot switzland

Was extremely expensive so just know that when you go like everything about it is expensive uh Italy was still good cuz you could could get like you could get a nice pizza for 67 so that was good accommodation varies from country to country but Western Europe is generally

More expensive so you can expect to spend around like 440 to 50 north or south of that figure one important tip would be um don’t buy water don’t buy water for Switzerland or Italy carry a foldable water bottle they have all these fountains everywhere with drinking water so you don’t really need

To buy water when you start buying water it’s expensive sightseeing this is this is this is fun so if you want to have like cool and different experiences uh you don’t want to just go to museums and see historical places go on getyou guide.com and Airbnb experiences that’s

Where um to get inspiration also for the kind of offbeat stuff that you can do in these places though you don’t want to buy that experience you can just get inspiration they have some really cool stuff like a farm stay then just a just like a sunset cycling across a city I

Saw an experience that spoke about paranormal activities in Rome and a walk talk about that there are food walks and all of that stuff which is super fun so yeah getyou guide.com and Airbnb especially Airbnb experiences has some really good stuff and you should you should definitely check it out for tours

And stuff I chose to take tours for mainly one two main things like visiting the colosium cuz these tickets get sold out I don’t think the general public ever has a chance to even buy these so you need to you end up going for a group

Tour only but otherwise I chose to go ahead with audio tours but you can just soak in the wi too and just chill and you don’t need a audio guide I really thought it was a little overrated because another thing if you really want to see some of the main stuff like the

Doo in Florence book the tickets in advance they get complete they get sold out like please check which days is what open on the stuff that you want to see and plan accordingly some of these things were shut on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday in Florence I just

Had four days there and I want to see like three things and they were all shut on different days just check the days it’ll make your planning easier last minute you’re not going to be disappointed because the lines can be really long if you don’t book your

Tickets in advance the lines can go up for like 2 and 1 half 3 hours another thing is so each city has its own uh cards like a discount card that lets you uh you know do a specific amount of travel and uh lets you see these Place

Some places at a discounted price like there’s a Zurich card in Zurich which was not very useful for me so I didn’t end up taking it but uh you can check if it’s useful to you Florence had the fen card uh which let you see around 66

Museums I was not that into it and I just wanted to see like two three of the main stuffs so I didn’t end up taking that card you can basically check these cards out just know that they are there and you can check it out when you’re planning before you plan your stuff

Safety my favorite part so a week before I left all of these videos started showing up on my feed and my friends started showing me these videos my mom sent me these videos of pick pockets in Italy it was really bad like I saw some some people crying saying that they lost

A lot of their valuable belongings because they were stolen and all of that stuff and I was scared like I don’t know why I’m going here but it was too late for me to change my plans at that point a lot of a lot of things had been

Worked uh but then and I realized now I’m not going to be changing my plans so like I’m going to have to be smart about it I went a little overboard on making sure that I had everything around me at all times I just say there are a lot of

Big Pockets a lot of them there are a lot of scams that go on the front of your eyes also but it’s not as bad it’s made out to be if you have your wits about you if you’re keeping your stuff close to your body you’re not like an

Idiot carrying a bag that has like without a zip and just on one shoulder and your backpacks without locks on them but if you are careful enough with all these things and um no one’s really going to mug you no one’s really going to mug you in broad daylight just some

Stuff that I took with myself I took an air attack so that my family could know where I was at all times um I took an extra phone because I I had heard a lot of times that people got their phones still being without a phone so far from

Home is probably one of my worst nightmares and I did not want to ever find myself in that situation so I did carry an extra phone just in case just just in case and nothing happen so it was okay it was always in my bag though

This is a nice tip like U for a phone so basically I got a phone charm because your phone in your hand is unattended and anybody can pull it out so I got a phone charm it was always around my hand and it just made me feel safe probably

Somebody tried had tried to pull it it would have broken but nobody tried to pull it so I was safe but it didn’t make me feel safe your passport and stuff and like your credit cards your money at least have something on you at all times

Right so um I got this body purse kind of thing which was supposed to be like around your waist and under your T-shirt I did not wear it on all days because I did not carry my passport with me on all days but um this was basically for when

I’m I was traveling in trains with all my luggage about me when I couldn’t afford to just pay a lot of attention on one specific belonging I had a lot of stuff with me this was this used to be under my t-shirt and it was it really

Freed up a lot of Mind space I used to keep my passport in this I used to keep my credit card in this and I used to keep my lose money also in this just keep like 20 or30 in a very accessible pocket somebody wants to stal find stay

Take my 20 30 what you do traveling alone and you go to like a beach or something um one of my main concerns was where am I going to keep my phone when am I going to keep my money cuz I’m not going to come without any of it I got

This um bag from Amazon it’s like a waterproof bag that you put around you can keep your phone in it you can go in the sea it had another thing in it this was very helpful and then you’re narrowing down on your cities and you’re narrowing down on your neighborhoods go

On Reddit look at the general safety of the area of the neighborhood see um and understand if it is a place that you would want to be in that you would want to stay in I when I was planning Italy I originally had Venice Milan Florence

Room on my list but I ended up canceling out Venice because the area MRE I think it was called I read a lot of comments about it being unsafe and then I just don’t take that risk it’s not worth it for Milan I have just generally heard

That it’s an extremely unsafe place um so naturally that that went off my list to Rome was also supposed to be full of Pick Pockets but you know what I was ready with all my gar lastly I think don’t plan too much if you’re anything

Like me don’t plan too much so if I usually when I go out I always have like a balancing force with me somebody who is um more chill and more relaxed uh I was I was alone I was with all the voices in my head uh don’t plan too much

Best moments I think from my trip were floating in the sea just going swimming in the sea eating my sandwich at the beach sitting next to strangers because when you’re alone a lot of times they make you sit on tables with people already that other people who are alone

So you end up talking to them just nice conversations I had in the hostels stuff I could not possibly plan and I would be more relaxed when I’m planning my next trip I would be more relaxed during the duration of it if there’s anything specific or if you have any question you

Can always ask me in the comments I hope this helped I really hope this helped and I will see you all in the next video