The Backpacking Largesse Denounces England

[Ed. Note: This is Part Two in the L’s ongoing endorsement of backpacking through Europe.  Just not all of Europe.]

If you’ve been following along, you should have your Eurail pass by now, so I’ll skip over that part.  If you’ve really been following along, then you know that we got a question last time about whether or not to use an actual backpack to go backpacking.  So I can see we’re pretty much starting from scratch here.

Yes, you bring a backpack.  Do you think I’d use a lazy gerund like “backpacking” if it was also a misnomer?  Please.  Get a backpack.  In fact, get two.  A big one and a normal one.  Sometimes they come together as a set, in which the smaller of the two is irritatingly referred to as a “daypack”.  As words go, “daypack” is a little dainty for my tastes, but just get one.  You lug the big one when you go from city to city, and you use the small one when you go trolling for weed sightseeing.  Now let’s go someplace…

The Wandering Largesse Endorses Backpacking Through Europe (Pt. 1)

[Ed. Note: This is the first feature in what will be an ongoing, albeit irregular, travel series here at The Largesse.  The Largesse’s travel correspondent, Stankonia, is often traveling—he’s way more worldly than you—so be patient.  Some of the places he goes to don’t have the Googles yet.]

If one were to write a travel blog for the likes of you, the typical Largesse reader, it’d be helpful to know more about you, and specifically what kind of traveling you are likely to do.  Unfortunately, the readership of the Largesse defies categorization (unless you count “needy” as a category, in which case it completely fies categorization).  So we’ll start by assuming a few things:  You are an American, you’ve got at least a little discretionary income, and you’re between the ages of 20 and 40.  In other words, you’re old enough that you can plan your own travel and drink (at least in Europe, anyway), but you’re young enough that you can still have a lot of those drinks without worrying about your incontinence flaring up.