Viaggiare in Europa con lo zaino in spalla nel 1997 significava viaggiare con mappe cartacee, un pass Eurorail e una copia di Let’s Go Europe.

I did actually do exactly that in 1997 with a group of 8 friends and it was a fucking awesome time.
I still to this day think that it was the best experience I had in my life.

It was just the perfect travel adventure, just a bunch of 18-19 year olds traveling everywhere with no set structure or plan, it was glorious.

I saw and did everything.

Hanging out in Amsterdam doing “drugs” but also went to THAT museum.
Met a bunch of Brazilians who taught us how to cook, swam in the Atlantic, cleaned toilets in Northern France in exchange for free accommodation. Traveled all over France for basically no reason because it was actually pretty boring.

Visited Pompeii, and St. Peters. St. Peters is so impressive and unless you’ve experienced it in person, there is really no way to properly convey what it is like. And I’m an atheist. If you chose to visit, make sure that adhere to the required clothing standards. This isn’t a joke. If you don’t meet the criteria, you are just not getting in.

Visited many Italian cities riddled with crime, talked to exchange students who taught us about life in their home countries. Swam in the ionian sea, got stung by a dozen sea urchins because I decided that because I could hold my breath for a “long time” it wouldn’t be a big deal to swim into that underwater cave.
Got attacked by a COCK (think chicken) the size of a dog while on a greek island. We got there on a freighter that mainly took on interrail travelers. So many people from different european countries backpacking.

Had to be abstinent for weeks and when my girlfriend and I had a moment to ourselves we fucked like animals for exactly 11 seconds until we both orgasmed.

So many other things….

Like that time I met a Japanese woman who wanted to visit Rome on the same train as I was on and we were just able to have proper conversation with someone from the other side of the planet.

Also, as a teenager having to juggle and negotiate in and with multiple languages while being on your own for the first time in your life was also exciting. We all spoke multiple languages but it was still part of the adventure being somewhere, where you couldn’t be quite sure if you could be understood or understand the locals at any given time.

Although, to be perfectly honest, the only time this was really a problem was in France where everybody refused to speak English and only one of our group was proper fluent in French, and in Italy where everybody suddenly forgot that they could easily understand Spanish and in Greece where people spontaneously forgot that they understood English while five minutes earlier they did understand it and were able to speak it but when the it somehow became inconvenient to them five minutes later.

In summary, it was a month of true freedom. In hindsight, it feels like this was the way we are supposed to be as a species.

There was so much more, please make sure that you allow your children to experience that.

There was so much more…

Edit: some grammar and just overall corrections.