Young In Europe: Travel Guides For Backpackers, By Backpackers

June 4th, 2007 by Pia Taylor

We’re always searching for new and interesting non-traditional guides to destinations. Part of the reason we changed to what is primarily a blog format a year ago is that it is, by nature, current and relevant – essential for the on-the-road traveller.

Anyone who’s ever travelled using a traditional guide book will know that, no matter how good it may be (or claim to be), there will always be information that is out of date.

Hostels that were supposed to be there, now closed down, which you of course find out at the very last most inconvenient moment (leading to much cussing on your behalf).

The time that it takes to research for, compile and ultimately print a new edition of a guidebook (never mind getting it to the shelves) often can’t keep pace with the world’s swift pace.

But the internet can. It has the ability to be current and entirely relevant. It has the potential to allow for immediate feedback and comment from the travel community, thus giving the information more credibility (or not, as the case may be).

This is why we’re so keen on downloadable travel guides like those provided by ArrivalGuides and the fantastic South-East-Asian focused Travelfish.org

These guides are written by locals, and updated by locals, in close to real-time (certainly closer than a printed edition would be). Spot a mistake, if there is one, and you can immediately alert the publishers and the file can be updated, just like that.

You can print them out, if you want to, or just download them to your ipod, if you have one. Simple, accessible, generally free (hallelujah!) and fast.

Well, we’ve now discovered another internet guide that we think has quite a bit of potential, an interactive destination guide called: Young In Europe.

The idea here is that this is an online travel guide to Europe for young people, students and backpackers…written by the people it is for – that’s you.

It’s quirky and fun, and the activities for each location are broken into the rather unconventional categories of ‘Spare Time’, ‘Dinner Time’, ‘Party Time’ ‘Bed Time’ and, wait for it, ‘Hammer Time’ (uh huh, you read that right).

We think it’s a great idea, and potentially a fantastic travel resource. It depends on the contributions of all of you travellers out there, though, so we hope that y’all will head over and sign up forthwith!

Travel resources backpackers might find useful:
SkyScanner – compares prices of low-cost airlines in Europe.
Cheap Hostels – find and book your hostels online, choose from over 12,000 worldwide!

Travel Insurance – instant, cheap travel insurance for backpackers
Travel newsletter – sign up for our free monthly travel newsletter ‘From The Road’

Posted in Backpackers Bookmarks, Destinations, General Travel, Travel Guides, Travel Tools

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