Bonjour!

In case you don’t follow me on Instagram (which you should – Wynee’s World ) I traveled to Europe for my 26th birthday this past week. It was marvelous, a dream, and everything I wanted a birthday trip to be. This is my second trip to Europe and my third European country, so I’ve gone through a lot of “firsts” and want to share the wealth with my experiences.

Europe is obviously compromised of different countries, languages, and culture. But overall, the main points I’m going to write about are relevant all across the continent. Let’s get to it.

 

1. Adapters

Voltages/wall sockets in Europe are different than in the Americas. This is going to cause you to have to bring an adapter for your chargers. Keep in mind that although most wall sockets in Europe look the same, some do not. For example the sockets in the U.K won’t be the same as in France. I have an adapter that covers most of Europe (excluding the U.K), but if you want to be on the safe side you can opt for an Universal travel adapter that covers all of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Here’s a couple of links to adapters that are affordable:

Adapter One (most of europe: France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, etc) – this is the one I used for France and the Netherlands.

Adapter Two (universal adapter. covers all continents and 150+ countries.)

Adapter Three (cheaper, only able to charge your phone) – this is the one I used in Spain.

 

2. Military Time

This might not seem like a big deal to most, but it is for me. I have a friend who keeps military time on her phone (I’m convinced she likes to torture herself). I assume that the more used to it you get, the easier it becomes as it does operate on 24 hours, but it’s still not something I’m comfortable with. I kept doubling checking all of our tickets back to our time to make sure I wasn’t arriving late to anything. Just make sure that you’re somewhat aware of what time is what in military. For example, I know 15:00 is 3 o’clock and I end up counting up if the time is later to that lol. I would go even as far as setting your phone to military time.

Besides time, dates are something else you need to pay attention to. Europeans write their dates as DD/MM/YY, unlike Americans where we write it as MM/DD/YY.

 

3. Not Making a Restaurant List

I do not recommend going to Europe and eating at any nilly willy restaurant. We did this probably the last day and a half of our trip because we wanted to spend more time sight seeing & not traveling to certain restaurants. The restaurants that we ended up at were just OKAY if even that (I did end up googling restaurants near us and making sure they had minimum 4 stars on Yelp). They were enough to get me by the day but weren’t that note worthy at all.

The restaurants I spent researching weeks before were so worth it though. Although they had a wait, I truly recommend mapping out a list of places to eat before you end up disappointed. This includes extensive research like yelp comments, articles, Instagram, food shows, etc lol.

 

4. Not Buying Tickets

If you have any attraction on your radar, make sure you buy tickets ahead of time. I made this mistake in Barcelona and was not able to do anything I wanted because I waited until the day of to buy tickets and everything was sold out. Save yourself that stress and buy ahead of time.

 

5. Coin Purse

Fun fact about Euros: their 1 euro and 2 euros are coins. This means that you will be carrying around a lot of coins around and if you’re like me, you’ll be annoyed at all the jingling that will be going on in your pocket. Bring a wallet, purse, or even coin purse that gives you space to carry around all your coins.

 

6. Foreign Transactions

Your bank will probably charge a transaction fee for every time you swipe your debit card overseas. Some credit cards charge a fee as well so just check with your bank before you go. Make sure you call your bank the week of when you leave and let them know that you will be out of town so that they are aware of those international charges and not block your card.

Also, beware that when you do currency exchange – the Euro does weigh more than the American Dollar and you will also be paying the exchanger a cut of the transaction. An example is $50 USD is really about 45-ish Euros (I’m estimating), and then you pay a percentage to the person who is completing the exchange, so your total will not equal to $50 exactly.

 

7. Comfortable Shoes

You will be doing a LOT of walking, a lot. If you go for style make sure your stylish shoe is also comfy. Get some insoles if you need them, because walking will save you money as well as burning all the calories you ate that day from yummy European food. IMO, if you want a cute picture and your shoes don’t match – carry a bag with you around and carry the shoes in it, extra I know but that’s where we’re at as a society haha.

 

8. Wifi

Depending on your cellphone plan you may have a travel pass which allows you to use your phone (with a certain data) for 24 hours for $10.

If you do not choose to do this, here’s how you don’t run up your phone bill:

1. Go to “Settings” –> “Cellular”
2. Turn off “Cellular Data”
3. Go to “Cellular Data Options” –> “Enable LTE” and turn “off”
4. Go back and then click “Roaming” and turn off “Voice Roaming”

Now, you will only be able to use your phone on wifi which is completely free.99. Always remember to ask restaurants, cafes, bars, and clubs what the wifi password is so you can use your phone. I really didn’t use wifi at all during the day because we didn’t go out of our way to get the password and just posted all of my stories to social media when we got back to the hotel room at the end of the night.

 

And that’s my quick list to what you should know on your first trip to Europe. If you have any questions or comments that aren’t answered here, feel free to drop them below!

 

Xoxo,

Wynee

 

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