The Build Up

May 14th, 2016


I first started thinking about the feasibility of this trip before the school year had even started. I knew that I wanted to take a summer off from frisbee--something I hadn't done since my freshman year of high school--and do some traveling. The more I thought about what type of traveling I wanted to do, the more I realized that this summer might be one of the last chances I get to spend a large chunk of a summer doing whatever I want. In future years I'll be bogged down by work or school, so I decided that I was going to take full advantage of the time I had left.

So sometime around late July or early August the seedling of an idea to go to Europe was planted. Slowly but surely, that idea became more and more realistic. I found some friends to do portions of the trip with, and I began to find things to do while I was abroad. The first real reservation I made was an impulse buy for a one day ticket to the Tomorrowland music festival in Belgium. From there I booked a 3 night stay at a nearby hostel, thereby solidifying the fact that the trip was actually going to happen.

Soon after that I got confirmation back from Birthright saying that I had been accepted onto their trip, and I was given a departure date: June 26th from JFK Airport in New York. The trip which initially seemed like a far fetched idea was finally coming to fruition.

Now, with only a little over a month before I leave, I am starting to really schedule the rest of my trip. I have checkpoints through August 10th, and have a pretty good idea of where I will be in between those checkpoints.

Here is my itinerary:

June 26th: Leave for Israel!
July 7th: Birthright trip is over. Spend the upcoming weekend in Israel hanging out with Talia, either in Tel Aviv or Haifa. Leave Sunday night for Italy.
July 10th: I have an 18 hour layover in Athens going from Tel Aviv to Rome. Unfortunately the majority of those 18 hours is the middle of the night, so I'm not sure if I'll do anything exciting while I'm there.
July 11th: Meet up with my dad in Rome to see the sights. From there, spend the next few days exploring Italy, doing some hiking/biking.
July 15th: Split paths with the pops. I'll go up to Switzerland and spend a night or two with some family friends there.
July 18th: Take a train to Scotland to meet up with Janny! Spend a few days there seeing the sights and hanging out.
July 20th: Take a train down to the Netherlands, explore Amsterdam and wherever else might seem intriguing at the time.
July 21st: Check into hostel in Antwerp Belgium, a few minute drive from Tomorrowland. Spend the day exploring the city and figuring out transportation to the festival the next morning.
July 22nd: Tomorrowland! Get there as early as possible and leave as late as possible. That ticket wasn't cheap.
July 24th: Leave Belgium, and head east towards Poland, through Germany.
July 25th-August 6th: Spend 2 weeks slowly making my way through Germany via bus, hitting any cities that are suggested along the way (Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin..).
August 6th: Meet up with Goda in Wrocław, Poland for Junior Worlds! Spend the next few days watching some Frisbee and exploring Poland.
August 8th: Take a bus down to Prague with Goda, and spend a few days there. I don't really know what we'll do, but I had a ton of suggestions to go there, so I am.
August 10th-25th: ???. This part of my trip is still not set in stone. Goda and I might go down to Budapest after Prague, but we're not sure if that'll happen yet. I am trying to spend a week or two volunteering somewhere in Spain (partially to help keep costs of the trip down, partially because Spain is awesome), but I haven't found anything that I'd like to do there yet. I have to be back in Tel Aviv for my flight home the morning of August 26th, so I'll probably leave from Europe on the 25th.


I am beyond excited for this trip. I've been a few of the countries I'll be visiting before, but for the most part I'll be traveling into uncharted territories. If any of you have any sort of suggestions of what I should do in any of the places I've mentioned, be sure to let me know!

Thanks for reading,
Ben