The summer after I graduated college was the first time in years that I did not have classes, assignments, or an internship hanging over my head. I had a short window of freedom and wanted to make it count. Most of my friends were either starting full-time jobs or staying close to home. I could not shake the idea of going somewhere far away. I did not know where, but I knew it had to be outside the United States and I knew my budget was nowhere near what people usually imagine for an international trip. Still, the thought would not leave me alone, so I started looking for ways to make it happen.
While I was scrolling through flight prices and almost ready to give up, a friend told me about the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard. At that time, they were offering 50,000 miles after making just one purchase. There was no high minimum spend and no complicated list of conditions. I applied, got approved, and bought a pack of gum to trigger the bonus. The card had no annual fee for the first year and I planned to cancel before the $99 renewal.
With those miles in my account, I booked a round trip from Los Angeles to Amsterdam. It cost 20,000 miles to get there and 30,000 to return. When I checked the cash price for the same flights, it was $2,300. That was a number that would have ended the trip before it began. Instead, I paid about $40 in taxes and fees and had a confirmed ticket to Europe.
Landing in Amsterdam for the first time felt surreal. I had never been outside the country, so even the train announcements in another language seemed exciting. From the airport, I bought a $10 ticket into the city center and checked into a hostel that cost €20 a night. It was not fancy, but it had clean beds, lockers, and a kitchen, and it was close to the places I wanted to explore.
I wanted to see more than one city, so I looked into transportation options that would not break the bank. That is when I found the Eurail Global Pass. It allows you to travel in 33 countries with one ticket, and you choose how many travel days you want. I qualified for a youth pass since I was under 28, which came with a discount. On my travel days, I could board trains without buying individual tickets, making it easy to move from one city to the next.
The Eurail pass gave me complete freedom to change my plans whenever I felt like it. I could spend three days in Amsterdam, then head to Paris or Berlin just because I wanted to. The app made it simple to enter my travel days and show the ticket to the conductor. Certain high speed trains required a small seat reservation fee, but it was still much cheaper than paying full price for each trip.
Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash
Hostels kept my accommodation costs low, and every one of them had its own personality. Some had bars and group events, others were quieter and felt almost like staying in someone’s home. I met travelers from all over the world in common areas and kitchens. Sometimes I would run into the same people again in another country later in the trip.
For food, I mixed eating out with grocery store runs. A nice dinner once in a while was part of the experience, but most days I kept it simple with bread, cheese, fruit, and snacks from local markets. That routine kept me from overspending and made it easier to stay on the move.
Travel days had a certain rhythm. I would check out of the hostel in the morning, head to the station, and see what destinations caught my eye. Watching the scenery shift from flat fields to mountains or coastlines was part of the fun. By the end of my trip, I had visited several countries without ever taking another flight.
Looking back, the trip worked because of timing, flexibility, and knowing where to look for the right deals. The AAdvantage Aviator Red card covered my flights for almost nothing. The Eurail pass turned the entire continent into an open map. Staying in hostels and buying groceries kept my daily spending under control. None of it felt like a sacrifice because it all fed into the same goal of seeing as much as possible.
The best part was realizing that trips like this are not as far out of reach as they seem. If you can find the right mix of resources, stay open to changes, and focus on the experiences you care about, you can make something similar happen. It might not look exactly the same for everyone, but the principles are the same.
If you had told me a year before that I would spend a summer moving from city to city in Europe right after graduation, I probably would have laughed. I thought that kind of trip was for people with big savings accounts or family help. Instead, it came together with one well-timed credit card bonus, a smart train pass, and a willingness to make the most of what I had. I came back with stories, photos, and memories that I would never have gotten if I had played it safe and stayed home.
