The festivals
Whether it’s cheese rolling in Gloucestershire, Glastonbury, or La Tomitina’s giant tomato fight, you don’t need to tell a local to pick a day in the year to get excited about: they are way ahead of you. Europe, steeped in a love of history and traditions, does festival days (and weeks) like no other. Every town and city seems to have something they need to shout about, preferably with special food, drinks and dancing thrown in too.
Stop whining about the expense
Water turns to wine in Europe: I’ll easily send back the standard 3 euro water in favour of a 2 euro glass of plonk easily. Europe can be cheap, you just have to be smart. Yep, the rules of supply and demand mean you might pay more for a room to sleep in. But even notoriously costly Switzerland can offer value in a private Swiss Youth Hostel dorm. Embrace supermarkets: the European ones are comparatively cheaper than ones back home.
Speaking of food
This deserves its own list. Goulash, gouda, nougat and gnocchi. And that’s just the last trip across the channel. Europeans might be rigid in their food rules, but the pay-off is worth it.
The ease of getting from A to B
The transport options to get around cities or all the way to the smallest outpost are world-beating. Towns with only a few hundred people are usually still served by integrated train and bus networks. Worries about parking, traffic and loony drivers are left behind as you glide along the railways of Europe.
… and travel is cheap
In New Zealand, there are (sadly) families who turn their backs on exploring our beautiful country simply because it is cheaper to take the kids to Raro for a week. In Europe, not only is it easy to get from A to B, it is cheap. Why? Competition. In EnZed, we have a duopoly on many travel routes and Email if you have a travel issue you’d like Josh Martin, a London-based travel journalist, to write about.