GirlsGetaway is delighted to introduce an ongoing travel series by Sarah Emery, a university student with an insatiable lust for travel. She recently returned from a long term backpacking trip through Europe with two of her girlfriends and has agreed to share tales of her adventures with our readers. Here’s the third story in our series: Sarah Travels on a Budget. To check out other stories in the series click here.

SO Elsingør is a little village, about a 45 minute train ride north of Copenhagen. The reason it is amazing and exciting is because there is a BIG AMAZING castle there, called Kronborg. You may remember Kronborg as the castle where Shakespeare’s play HAMLET took place. Yes people, ELSINORE IS REAL. AND I WENT THERE. It was amazing.

Anyway, we checked out the train ticket prices and figured HA, to heck with that, we’ll just bike! I checked it out on google maps – pretty easy to navigate, just stick by the coast all the way north until the coast ends. Google maps also said it would take about 2 hours to bike there (THIS WAS A LIE). We figured 2 hours wasn’t so bad, we biked for hours and hours at time when we were exploring Copenhagen.

The only day we could really do this trip was Friday – we already had a bunch of other plans. When we got up and set off the weather was not great – cold and overcast. However, it hadn’t started raining yet, and we held out hope that the skies would clear up. The first hour or so of the ride was pretty enjoyable. It was cold, grey, and windy, but biking right next to the ocean was fun, and the cute little houses in the Copenhagen suburbs were fun to see. We stopped a couple times, still enjoying ourselves.

Then the weather took a turn for the worse. It started to rain. It was really windy (biking in this kind of wind makes you feel like you’re biking uphill, even if you are ACTUALLY biking downhill.) We hit the two hour mark, and by the looks of the map we were still less than halfway there. But we were stuck – we’d already started, we didn’t think we could take our bikes on the train, and we were unwilling to give up. Sometimes stubbornness is a REALLY NOT FUN thing.

By the 3 hour mark it had started to rain HARD. Of course neither of us had brought rain coats (or jackets of any kind). We had treated this trip as one of our little Copenhagen rides from my apartment to the grocery store – we didn’t even bring water. We were completely unprepared. Also, as we got further and further from Copenhagen, the landscape started getting hillier and hillier. Soon we weren’t just battling the wind and the rain, but hills that were practically MOUNTAINS.

I feel like this was the main failure of the trip – we were seeing parts of Denmark that I’d never seen before. Adorable hamlets, vast fields, gorgeous green mossy forests, windswept beaches – and both Carly and I were too blinded by our misery to take ANY of it in. We just plodded along, concentrating only on arriving at our destination in one piece (and trying really hard not to think about how we were going to get home).

We hit hour 4, and the distance we still had to go seemed VAST. We FINALLY came across a little collection of shops – we stopped at a café (SOAKING WET) for a snack and a rest. I bought a chocolate milk, I think Carly had a muffin. And then we soldiered on.

Hour 5 hit and FINALLY. We could SEE THE CASTLE. That last five minute bike ride up the huge castle road was the most excruciating of all. I almost died. I was on the verge of DEATH. BUT WE ARRIVED! We we SO exhausted. And now it was time to explore the castle – we were both only half alive at this point, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. The best part (in my opinion, not Carly’s) was the SUPER AWESOME CREEPY TUNNELS under the castle. You get to just wander around all by yourself, in these crazy ancient terrifying haunted tunnels of darkness and DEATH. They don’t even have electric lights, just gas lanterns. AMAZING. Carly was terrified OUT OF HER MIND.

We took the train back. Bikes are allowed.

GirlsGetaway is delighted to introduce an ongoing travel series by Sarah Emery, a university student with an insatiable lust for travel. She recently returned from a long term backpacking trip through Europe with two of her girlfriends and has agreed to share tales of her adventures with our readers. Here’s the second story in our series: Sarah Travels on a Budget. To check out other stories in the series click here.

In these first couple of articles I’m going to give an overview of what Carly and I got up to Copenhagen, Denmark. It was just the two of us until we met up with Winna, the third member of our travel group, later in Europe.

First on our Agenda: Exploring Copenhagen on a Bike

Copenhagen is the land of biking, and public transportation is really expensive, so renting a bike was super convenient. It was a great deal too, $50 for an entire week. We spent a lot of our time in the city just biking around admiring the sights – Strøget, the Rundetaårn, Amalienbourg Palace, the Marble Church, various galleries and museums, all that stuff.

One of the greatest bike trips we had was late in the evening of one of the first days Carly was here. Summer days in Copenhagen are really long – by the time June 21st comes along, Copenhagen gets up to 20 hours of sunlight per day. The sun was setting, and we were biking around the twisted, cobbled streets of downtown. We didn’t know where we were, and we didn’t care. We just turned down whichever teensy little street caught our fancy, stumbling across beautiful little squares and watching as the city turned purple and the lights got all twinkly. Beautiful.

Bakken Sucks but We Loved Tivoli

Tivoli is a beautiful amusement park, the second oldest in the world (the first oldest amusement park in the world is also in Denmark – it’s called Bakken, and we went there, and it really sucked). We came in the late afternoon and stayed until well after it got dark. The rides are not really the main attraction at Tivoli – they’re SUPER expensive, for one thing.

Mostly it was just the atmosphere that we were after – the whole park is covered in these old cool twinkly lights and big beautiful gardens. We just wandered around. We happened upon this children’s area, which amused us to NO END. It was like a fake pirate ship thing, and we went in and frolicked and injured ourselves. Also we found this big wide expanse of open space, with these huge spotlights that would change colors. We took several pictures here.

Nyhavn + Beer = Magic

One of the things to do in Copenhagen is to sit by Nyhavn in the evening and have a beer. Nyhavn is the medieval harbor in the main downtown core of Copenhagen. If you’ve ever seen pictures of Copenhagen, Nyhavn is probably what you’ve seen – rows of beautiful, brightly colored old houses right next to an ancient canal. The harbor is so old, modern boats can’t fit in there. So only antique boats are allowed, which just adds to the greatness of it.

We had our one traditional Danish meal at a restaurant right on the canal, and we sat outside. Afterwards, we found a spot along the water, polished off a couple beers, and sat and talked while the sun set. ‘Twas magical.

GirlsGetaway is delighted to introduce an ongoing travel series by Sarah Emery, a university student with an insatiable lust for travel. She recently returned from a long term backpacking trip through Europe with two of her girlfriends and has agreed to share tales of her adventures with our readers. Here’s the first story in our series: Sarah Travels on a Budget.

I recently spent two wonderful months backpacking across Europe with my best friends. We’re still friends and one of the ways we managed this was by living with some hard and fast rules, what we called our “13 Rules to Survive By When Traveling with Friends.” I’d like to share how we ended up planning and organizing this huge trip, and our girlfriend rules of the road.

First of all, let me make introductions: I’m Sarah, and during my third year of studying graphic design, I decided to take advantage of my school’s exchange program, setting off to spend a winter semester at the Danish Design School in Copenhagen, Denmark. My two best friends and I had always dreamed about traveling across the world together and with me already in Copenhagen, we decided to live our dream and spend the summer backpacking through Europe. Winna (pronounced Ween-ah) was in her third year of studying french, and Carly had just been accepted to an architecture school. We were terrified, none of us had much travel experience, but we were also determined, this was the perfect and maybe last opportunity for us to take a summer off to do some hard core traveling.

First we figured out timing and where exactly we wanted to go. This took a long time, and we all had to compromise and give up on some major dream destinations just to make our (VERY tight) schedule work. Next, we all researched hostels, and then reserved our rooms online. Finally, we figured out transportation; Carly and Winna bought their plane tickets (I was already in Copenhagen by this point), and we all bought Eurail passes.

Carly, Winna and I decided early on that we needed some rules and guidelines to help us on our trip. Our main challenges were staying on budget, keeping on track with our tight schedules, and not killing each other. Some of these rules were unspoken, and some we were more relaxed about than others. But they were all important, and we needed them all:

1. There are two kinds of schedules. For smaller cities, we spend 2 days (and three nights) there, no more. For larger cities, we spend 3 days (and 4 nights), no more.
2. Train days are days that are spent traveling from city to city. Some days we would spend 16 straight hours traveling; other days would be just one hour. Regardless of how much time it takes to get somewhere, train days are always just train days, and are not included in the amount of time allotted to see each city. In other words: no half days.
3. We only stay in hostels, and only in hostels that cost less than $30/night.
4. We buy all our own food and cook for ourselves. EXCEPT: for each city we visit, we can go out to one restaurant to experience the local cuisine.
5. We make an effort to go to markets rather than grocery stores, and try to buy only local produce whenever possible.
6. Fully experiencing each city is the overarching goal of the trip. However, exceptions can be made; there are lots of different ways to fully experience a city. Museums are good, but must be balanced with other activities. Spending all day in a museum is NOT fully experiencing a city.
7. Stay together, protect each other, watch each other’s stuff, and stay safe.
8. No petty arguments, no fighting, no snarkiness, no grudges. Stay calm and reasonable. Traveling is stressful and we WILL have bad days. If you can sense someone is having a bad day, do your best to make it better. If they are being bitchy and grumpy, do your best to LET IT GO. For one day soon YOU will be the bitchy and grumpy one, and you must hope that on that day, they will also let it go.
9. The goal is to spend no more than $50, or €30, per day.
10. Walk everywhere. There is literally no better way to see and experience a city than to walk. Public transportation is also allowed, but only in certain circumstances (in keeping with rule #9). No taxis.
11. Take lots of pictures, and then put away your camera. Never let picture-taking take precedence over having fun.
12. Upon arriving in a new city, the first thing we do is always just get out and explore. Just wander around aimlessly. This is usually closely followed by the second most important thing: GET FOOD.
13. Map reading: Carly does one day, I do the next day, etc. (Winna did not do much map reading). If we get lost, we all put our heads together. If one person is just not having a good day, the other person will take over.

So those are some of the main do’s and dont’s that we followed. This list helped us survive the trip, have fun and remain best of friends. How about you? If you have any other tips to share or if you have your own commandments of traveling together, please leave a comment below so we can learn from each other and make our travels with friends fun and exciting!

None other than the Huffington Post has recently named Toronto as the new capital of cool. In an article posted on the web’s most popular online newspaper, Lauri Lyons wrote, “Toronto is the hot new destination for all things crazy, sexy, cool.”

GirlsGetaway asked, “What’s so cool about Toronto?” We decided to find out, and share with you, what we consider to be Toronto’s newest hippest districts:

Distillery District

A new, up and coming area of Toronto is the Distillery District. The Distillery District is the site of the defunct Gooderham and Worts whiskey distillery. This national Historic Site has kept and restored much of its beautiful architecture and cobblestone streets and now has the largest and best-preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture in North America.

It has recently been named the ‘hippest address in town’ by Toronto Life magazine. The Distillery District’s mission is to develop the area as Canada’s premier arts, culture and heritage precinct. It houses some of the city’s best restaurants, local artists, crafts, galleries, and music.

Where to Shop

SOMA Chocolates
We consider SOMA to be THE best chocolate shop in the city. If you worship chocolate this is the store for you. The tiny (but charming) café has a large glass wall that allows customers to watch as professional chocolate makers produce chocolate heaven right from the bean. Our favorite is the Cherry Bomb truffle but the Mayan hot chocolate is to die for!

Bergo
Featuring the creations of internationally recognized designers and architects, such as Phillippe Starck, Frank Gehry, Karim Rashid and Michael Graves, Bergo is a mecca of industrial design. Everything in this store is perfection in design from ice cube trays to fireplaces.

Distill
With its mandate to show emerging Canadian artists/craftspeople/designers, Distill is one of the best spots in Toronto to find unique, locally and responsibly handmade works, including ceramics, glass, textiles, paintings, jewelry, fashion and accessories. Our favorite find: The subway bracelet. This awesome piece of Leslie Jones jewelery is inspired by Toronto’s subway stations.

Where to Eat

Mill Street Brewery Pub
Voted the best brew pub in Ontario in 2010, this casual and fun spot boasts an impressive inhouse brewery. Try Mill Street Pub’s famous nachos or lobster grilled cheese and of course a pint of Tankhouse Pale Ale.

Brick Street Bakery
The Brick Street Bakery doesn’t have inside seating but don’t let that stop you from trying out some their yummy treats. Best bets are: Boxing Day sandwich, sheppard’s pie, curried sweet potato soup, eccles… I could go on all day!

When to Play

Summertime is the best time to head over the Distillery District; you can stroll through the cobblestone streets and check out the many outdoor booths selling all sorts of cool and unusual items all made by local artisans.

The Distillery District also hosts tons of great festivals and events throughout the summer. Here’s what’s happening this fall in the District:

September 24 – 26 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm
October 1 – 3 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm
October 2nd Nuit Blanche
October 8 – 10 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm
October 15 – 17 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm
October 22 – 24 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm
October 29 – 31 Distillery Art Market 11am to 6pm

Kensington Market

Kensington Market is not as shiny and polished as the Distillery District but it has a neat gritty feel to it, sort of an old hippy vibe. The small cluttered streets are filled with everything from little cafes, old European fruit and food markets to some of the funkiest retro clothes stores around. If you’re looking for great eating and some exciting (if slightly eccentric) shopping, Kensington Market is your best bet.

Where to Shop

Blue Banana
Kensington’s Blue Banana Market claims to turn “seen it, have it, bored with it” into “love it, want it, gotta get it”

We agree!

This market-style shop features one-of-a-kind items from more than 150 local artists. A trip to the Blue Banana is guaranteed fun, with its two floors of quirky, cool, kitschy and hip clothing, furniture, jewelry and art, the store is full of things we can’t imagine not having.

Courage My Love
A long-time favorite shop of retro shoppers in Toronto, Courage My Love has been a Kensington fixture since 1975. This boutique is a gem, vibrant with quirky, vintage and fun fashions. If you’re ever in need of vintage gloves in shocking pink, a piil box hat, or a go-go dress, you’ll find it here. Our favorite find: an entire wall of buttons, who knew buttons could be used as wall art?

Where to Eat

Supermarket
Asian fusion cuisine. I know… been there, done that, but mix in some Kensington grunge and funky fun like Chatroulette Bingo and this place rocks! Don’t forget to order the OMG so good banana spring rolls dipped in chocolate sauce.

Grilled Cheese
Mmm, melted cheese heaven! What could be better than an entire menu composed almost entirely of grilled cheese sandwiches? Our pick: Grilled Motzy with fiore de latte, basil pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. 66 1/2 Nassau St (647) 347-7062

When to Play

During the summer, on the last Sunday of each month, the market streets are closed to car traffic and fill up with people, music and dance. Organized by the residents and business owners of Kensington, Pedestrian Sundays is a giant neighborhood block party and the entire world is invited to join in on the fun.

Accommodation
Obviously, being students, we’re travelling on a budget. We knew from the beginning that this would mean taking advantage of the many youth hostels scattered around Europe. To book our hostels, we used three different hostelling websites: hostelbookers.com, hostelworld.com, and hihostels.com. Of these three websites, I would recommend hostelbookers.com. It doesn’t charge a booking fee (as hostelworld.com does) and you don’t need to have a Hostelling International membership (which is required for hihostels.com).

The reviews of other hostel-goers are the best way to gauge whether you really are getting value for your money. We’re paying an average of about $25/night. The prices really vary though – our hostel in Venice is $40/night, and our hostel in Rome is $15/night. It depends on where you go, and how much comfort you’re willing to sacrifice. I would also recommend that you try to book your hostels as far in advance as possible. We found that prices for rooms went up significantly in price every day.

Your Backpack
First and foremost you need a good backpack! In terms of size, I wouldn’t recommend getting anything bigger than 60 Litres, and nothing smaller than 45 Litres. My pack is 55 Litres, and it fits an incredible amount of stuff.

Also, don’t be distracted by the pretty colours and fancy materials of some of the packs on offer. Not only will they be hugely expensive, they will be an irresistible temptation for thieves. A plain, ordinary looking pack is the best way to go. Be sure to buy a waterproof cover for your pack, as very, very few packs are waterproof (they’re usually just water-resistant). Also make sure that your pack has places to put locks (there are usually metal loops on the zippers specifically for this purpose).

A great kind of pack to buy is one that has a detachable daypack. Mine zips up the front, so you can leave all your clothes and stuff in the main part of the pack at the hostel, and just take the daypack with you on your day-to-day wanderings.

In terms of price, I wouldn’t pay more than $200. The prices tend to go up past $300, but you can get a perfectly good pack for about $100.

What to Bring
PACK LIGHT! JUST DO IT! I know it’s easier said than done, but you’re going to be responsible for carrying every single thing you bring, usually for a long period of time. When you really think about it, some stuff just isn’t worth it.

Here’s a list of the stuff that I brought with me:

Toiletries
• soap
• shampoo
• conditioner
• deodorant
• toothpaste
• toothbrush
• Dental floss
• Contact lenses + solution (if you need it)
• Pads/tampons
• Hairbrush
• Mirror

I brought little travel versions of everything, and managed to make it all fit into a nice small toiletries bag. DON’T BRING ridiculous things like cans of hairspray or hair dryers. I know you want to look your best for all the gorgeous European people you’re going to meet, but that’s just not going to happen. No one looks their best when they’re travelling, not even those gorgeous Europeans!

Clothes
• 2-3 comfy T-shirts for everyday wear
• A pair of long pants (like jeans)
• A pair of capris or shorts
• A nice looking skirt
• A nice shirt (for fancy restaurants, if that’s a possibility)
• A warm, light sweater or jacket
• A rain jacket
• 3-4 pairs of underwear
• at least 2 comfortable bras
• 3-4 pairs of socks
• pajamas
• a bathing suit

Don’t bring too many clothes. They’re HEAVY! It’s much smarter to just wash your clothes every couple of days instead of lugging around a different outfit for every day of the week. And really, no one is going to notice that you’re wearing the same shirt you wore two days ago.

Other Stuff
• Big padlocks (or combination locks) – for lockers and hostel room doors (which sometimes don’t lock)
• Small padlocks (or combo locks) – for your backpack
• A sleeping sac – sometimes sheets at hostels cost extra, and usually they aren’t so clean. The best kind of sleeping sac is silk – very lightweight, warm but breathable, rolls up really small.
• Travel towel – they roll up really small, but are very absorbent.
• Water bottle – will save you money on bottled water. The tap water in the vast majority of European countries is safe to drink.
• An iPod – as long as you’re really careful with it and won’t freak out if it gets stolen, iPods can be really handy. If you have an iPod touch, it can be used as an alarm clock, a currency converter, a guidebook, a translator, and a way to pass the time. All in a teensy, light little package.
• Power adapters
• Camera
• Travel speakers – so you can plug in your iPod and annoy everyone in your hostel room with your music
• A money belt – put all your important stuff (passport, plane ticket, credit cards) as well as the majority of your cash in your money belt, and then wear it under your clothes to prevent theft. Only take out the money that you need for the day, and never take out your money belt in public.
• A first aid kit – you can get cheap, prepackaged, tiny first aid kits, or you can put together your own.
• All-in-one liquid soap – I found this stuff that you can use to wash EVERYTHING. You can use it as shampoo, toothpaste, laundry detergent, dish soap, EVERYTHING. Very handy.
• Flip-flops – for general walking around as well as for use in hostel showers. Trust me, you’ll need them. Unless you think foot fungus sounds like a good time.
• A little travel sewing kit
• Good, comfortable walking shoes – hiking boots are completely unnecessary (unless you’re planning on doing a lot of hiking.) I just brought my normal every day sneakers. But make sure that your shoes are nicely broken in before you start walking around. Also, blisters are kind of inevitable regardless of how expensive and comfortable your shoes are. Just make sure that blister-alleviation stuff is in your medical kit.
• Sunscreen + hats – sunburns are not fun
• A compass – helps with map directions etc.
• A swiss army knife – for overall handiness
• A spork or something of that nature – most of your food will probably be hunks of cheese and bread that you bought from the local market. This is one of the best ways to save money (restaurants are REALLY EXPENSIVE).
• A little flashlight
• A little travel umbrella

Here’s a couple of videos that also have lots of great packing info for us girls!