It's been a while since I've had a proper holiday. At my old job, I was on a pretty tight budget and this didn't really stretch to exciting holidays abroad. So for the last couple of years, I've stuck to UK based adventures (and some fun adventures I have had). But now I have a better paid job and a bit more job security, the desire to adventure a bit further has been reawakened.
And so, the question of how to do this sustainably has come up.
The destination of my trip was pretty much picked for me, as a couple of friends and I were asked to run some activities at a small event in Spain, near Barcelona. So Spain was selected as the destination for my journey.
How to get there was an obvious question. I made the decision a few years ago not to fly if I can get there feasibly by another method. And this seemed like a good test for that idea. Thank God for Seat61, which is an awesome resource for anyone trying to get anywhere in Europe by train.
The current plan is to road trip it down to Barcelona with some friends, as there'll be 5 of us, and this is actually more environmentally friendly than us all getting the train. It also means we can make a couple of stop offs on the way to see some friends of one of the people on the trip, including a WWOOFing site. We're hoping to leave on the Tuesday, arrive in Barcelona on the Friday then go to the festival until Sunday. The other guys are leaving then to come straight back, but I'm going to hang around for another week or so. The current plan is to spend a couple of days in Barcelona, probably couchsurfing, then head over to Bilbao and the Basque country for a few days, before getting the sleeper train back to Paris, and then the Eurostar to London (then the train to Bristol). I'm pretty excited about the train part of the journey, as I love trains and it seems like the most sustainable way to travel.
I'm excited by the idea of Couchsurfing too, as I've never done it before, and it seems like a good way to see a place properly, especially given that I'll be travelling on my own, as well as an opportunity to meet some interesting people along the way.
Better get booking that train ticket now...
As Seat 61 points out, www.bahn.de is great for planning rail journeys - I used it to get to Oslo and back in '98. It's a pity there's no international ticket office at Temple Meads any more though.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget about ferries - they may be slower, but it's another interesting experience, and a contrast to being cooped up on a train. And Spain's one of the few places that's still got decent sea links to the UK.
Better still, get a train that goes on a ferry :-)
Seat61 is such a lifesaver. Thanks to it we braved a sleeper train to Italy a few years back and it was the most wonderful experience. If only my sister didn't live in the US I'd happily never fly again.
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