In 1975, before my 18th birthday and well before my university debut, I somehow accumulated enough money to buy a round trip ticket to Paris, where I began a five-month odyssey traveling in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and the Soviet Union. I am shocked to face the fact that 2025 will be my trek’s 50th anniversary. This appalling disappearance of time in my brief life has forced me to a decision. Next year, as far as reasonable, I will repeat the trip.
Money will be a pressing matter, for I find that I am not much better off financially now than I was then. I remember the costs: $308 for a round trip flight New York City to Paris, $250 for a two-month unlimited, second-class student EuroRail pass, $60 for a week’s unlimited BritRail pass, and $210 (room, board and all transport) for two weeks in the Soviet Union, which one had to pay in advance to Intourist, the only Soviet travel organization that handled U.S. visitors. I remember nervously mailing my new passport to the Soviet embassy in D.C., which visitors had to do to obtain a visa, where we would forevermore be enshrined in KGB data, and likely FBI as well.
For spending money I brought $800 in traveler’s checks, a system I have always liked but which technology has all but done away with. Even now I am impressed by my courage. Do the math: $800 for 137 days (the Soviet trip was paid) meant a budget of $5.84/day, for shelter, food, local transport like buses, entrance fees to museums, and any other expenses I might encounter, not to mention money for emergencies, of which I had several.
My mother fretted her hands something fierce at the airport gate, but to her credit never once spoke against my trip, nor played up its dangers.
I also bought small excursions beforehand – the EuroRail pass was not valid in East Germany, Poland, all the Eastern Bloc – so I got train tickets such as Hanover, West Germany to West Berlin.
And that was my budget.
In March of that year, I was off. My mother fretted her hands something fierce at the airport gate, but to her credit never once spoke against my trip, nor played up its dangers. She had been a wild young woman once and knew any disapprobation would fall on deaf ears.
I am struck by how little trouble I encountered at first, especially since I was technically underage at the beginning of this venture, but not once was I questioned. I was big and tall and no one seemed to care.
I survived by an old cliché – my wits. Hostel dorm rooms, usually 25 to 50¢ a night, were often too expensive for me. Sometimes I took overnight trains, free on my pass, for a place to sleep. On a city’s outskirts, I might ask a farmer permission to spread my sleeping bag. It was a different world then.
I kept a daily budget diary, carrying over pennies I saved from one day to the next. I remember how proud I was that in my first week in Paris I spent an average of $1.85/day. I couldn’t tell you how I managed that.
My itinerary was a loop of sorts. Though I landed on a foggy Paris morning, I left that same evening, severely jet-lagged, on an overnight train to London. I decided my first foray into overseas territory should have people I could speak with and I knew no French. And yes, back then they put train cars on ferries, now gone. My return Channel crossing was by hydrofoil, also now gone.
So it began – England, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, West Germany, East Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and back to Denmark for my flight to Leningrad. More than once I should have been killed in Algeria and Tunisia. In Luxemburg I had everything, money and passport, stolen. I spent three nights freezing in a tent at the Arctic Circle, Narvik, Norway, watching brilliant northern lights and subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches and flat Coca-Cola.
Oh, to be young.
I don’t think the trip I contemplate will match that old journey precisely. After all, since then I’ve traveled more than 900,000 miles and experience will tell. With few exceptions, English trains are now a disaster. I really don’t have any reason to revisit Algeria and Tunisia, and anyway, the chances of dying there haven’t diminished much.
In Luxemburg I had everything, money and passport, stolen. I spent three nights freezing in a tent at the Arctic Circle, Narvik, Norway, watching brilliant northern lights and subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches and flat Coca-Cola.
Some new costs shock me. Today a March round trip flight New York to Paris is $480. A two-month Global Eurail Pass (as they are now called) includes more countries, 33, and costs $682. Adjusted for inflation, these prices are staggering bargains.
On the other hand, I won’t stay in dorm rooms anymore, or sleep next to airport runways for that matter (yeah I did that), and hostel private rooms can run $30 to $70 a night!
Well, I figure I have about seven months to plan.
Also, I would be less than honest with myself if I didn’t face a hard fact about this trip. Even now I miss my wife and to do all this alone will perhaps be the most challenging aspect of the journey. On the first trip I had a large pack on my back. Now I carry memories, and they may prove the heavier. Still, I think I will do it.
I know I will not duplicate another of the great successes of my maiden voyage. I won’t even try. Upon my return to America, I brought home $172.35. From the great distance of time I applaud that kid, frugal and wise, ingenious really. I will need his help this time.
A common question is, if you could meet yourself as a young person, what wisdom would you offer yourself? Me? I’d spend more time listening than talking. Maybe in part this is what my redo is about. He was a pretty clever guy, that kid. I’ve never given him enough credit for that.
It’s time I started.
