You can explore the beauties of Montenegro on your own too
Planning a vacation without a travel agency, i.e., having decided that independent travel is much more interesting and cheaper, you shouldn't fixate on your own country – fortunately, having obtained a Schengen visa, you can easily travel through most of old Europe without experiencing problems at customs and checkpoints. What should preparation for the trip include?
First of all – find a phrase book. Yes, electronic translators of the kind that can translate speech online (remember the TV series «All or Nothing» where one of the characters communicated quite decently in Danish using just such a miracle of technology) are really useful. However, a paper phrase book will suffice. English, French, German – the standard set for Europe.
Let's also take care of the visa. A Schengen visa comes in different types. For example, a "limited" version of this European visa allows travel only within one country – the one that issued the visa. It's better, if you want to go on an independent trip, to spend the money on a full Schengen visa.
As for choosing a country, there can be only one piece of advice: the less often a country appears in the news, the better. Of course, for example, independent vacation in Montenegro is not forbidden – although it once had a bad reputation, now the tourism industry is actively developing there, and finding accommodation is easy and simple – villas on the Adriatic coast have become much cheaper lately.
Having chosen a country, try to gather as much information about it as possible. Moreover, if possible, this information should always be at hand – maps, bus schedules, addresses of hostels or guesthouses, phone numbers – from places to stay to the consulate, where you should turn for help if needed.
Choosing a country also involves developing an itinerary – the more interesting it is, the more sights we visit, the more successful the trip will be. After all, regardless of whether we are planning an independent vacation in Montenegro, Croatia, Austria, or Germany, we want to prove that our own intelligence is much more useful in organizing a tour than the standard offers from tour operators.
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