Thinking about making Amsterdam my first solo trip overseas
Hey, r/solotravel! I just joined this sub not too long ago in order to learn as much as I can before going solo. I've already got a plan in mind and am looking more for feedback than open-ended advice, but any tips are appreciated!
To give some background, I should say that while this will be my first completely solo trip I'm no stranger to traveling, nor will it be my first time abroad. I fly and drive a cargo van across the country solo for work every year, and I've been to 5 countries in Europe, Alaska, Hawaii and Mexico, many times when it was just me and one other friend. However, I've never actually gone alone before, nor have I ever travelled just for the sake of traveling and experiencing other cultures to broaden my own horizons, so in my mind at least this is a huge step up.
Without going into too much detail, I recently have found myself in a position where I am able to actually budget for travel, enough for $4,000 per trip or $2400-$3000 per year, depending on how much I can afford to put away each month. I figure that's enough to get me most places I want to go, with an average of at least one trip per year. My overall goal is to work my way up to some more "advanced" locations, but I figured I'd start with something easy, so Amsterdam seemed the obvious choice. It's a place I've never been and is different enough from where I live to feel like I'm not at home, has a ton to see and do, and seems to pack everything I love about Europe into one place.
My plan is to stay somewhere that I can have a room to myself the first night in order to recover from jetlag and orient myself a bit before switching to a hostel for the rest of my time, which I'm thinking will be just over a week. I'm kind of a social person but also somewhat shy about meeting people, so I figure a hostel will be my best way to make new acquaintances and maybe even friends (eventually). As for my day-to-day, I'm thinking about just making a list of things I want to see and reserving the ones that make sense (so I don't have to wait in big lines), and just letting the rest of my schedule be flexible.
The last time I was in Europe it seemed like the best way to get local currency was with a debit card via an ATM, but that was well over a decade ago and I have no idea if that is still true or not. I plan on having 2 credit cards besides my debit card (one of which is for clothes shopping only, which I'm treating as a separate budget from travel), and plan on keeping up to 200 Euros on me at all times, but no more than that. I'll have an emergency credit card as well as my passport and some extra cash hidden away in a security belt under my shirt, and the rest will be in my wallet, which I plan to keep secure in pockets with buttons, velcro or zippers.
One of the main reasons I'm traveling will be for photography, so I'll have my DSLR with me in this bag at all times, or I'll keep it locked in a locker at the hostel. I'm debating bringing my laptop with me so I have a way to work on the photos while I'm there, but I haven't decided yet whether that's a good idea. If I do, it also fits in the bag I linked.
So that's my basic plan in a nutshell. How does it look to you more experienced solo adventurers?
Submitted October 22, 2017 at 10:35PM by AdventureBum http://ift.tt/2zGDiEd
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