Exploring With A Flexible Itinerary

In the summer of 2020, my wife and I were in a unique situation – as Americans living in Europe during the pandemic, we had access to the continent otherwise closed to outside travelers at the time. We knew we had to take advantage of this opportunity to see some of the most visited destinations without crowds and with low prices.

We settled on the Greek Islands, many of which are overrun by tourists during the peak travel months. But which ones, exactly? We just couldn’t decide… so we didn’t, and we set off with a flexible itinerary.

We decided it would be a spontaneous vacation, starting in Athens and ending wherever we ended up. We would decide each day what to do and where to go next.

The result was the adventure of a lifetime, seeing amazing different places on the spur of the moment, making it even more exciting than usual. You’d think there would be some stress with making such spontaneous travel plans, but we found that if done properly, you can minimize that.

And while the summer of 2020 was a special situation with the whole worldwide-pandemic-tourism-shutdown thing, making your travel plans as you go was such a great experience that I’ve done it several times since. I’ve learned that flexible travel in Europe is unique.

The continent is easy to get around, as it’s extremely well-connected with reliable, inexpensive transport and full of tourist-friendly places that you can hop to on a whim. As more and more travelers get interested in this type of trip, I thought I’d share my experiences to help others save money, travel with ease, and, most of all, enjoy the journey.

Choices: Where to Start, Regions, and Potential Destinations

The whole point of spontaneous travel is to avoid planning your route and destinations in advance. But you’ll have to start somewhere in Europe, and if you don’t want to spend an arm and a leg, you probably shouldn’t just show up at the airport and buy a flight ticket to a random city. That component, at a minimum, should be planned beforehand.

It’s also not a bad idea to base that starting destination on general regions and potential places that you may want to visit. For example, if you want to hop around the warm and sunny destinations of the Mediterranean, it probably…