Don't Plan Your Travels

Not planning is a wonderful thing. When you arrive in Zurich at 9 pm, too late to get to your friend's small German town on the train, and without a hostel reservation, be grateful for lovely airport information ladies like Irene. Because if the least expensive room available in Zurich is 99 Euros (cyclists' convention taking all the cheap rooms), when you tell Irene you're going to Uberlingen, she will call her B&B-owning cousin in Romanshof (on the way, where the trains still run). When that's also full, she will find you a youth hostel in Kreuzlingen, just across the lake from Uberlingen (what does "lingen mean, anyway?), and print you the train schedule to get there. And happily, for my wallet, the hostel cost less Swiss francs than the taxi from the train station to get there at 11 pm. The hostel is in a park by the lake, but since no one is at the reception late, I camped out on a couch in the hostel lounge, after a much-needed shower (ugh, Dubai). In the morning, when I explained to the man at reception where I'd slept, I guess he took pity on me, and only charged me for the hostel breakfast I'd eaten. It is still possible to stay somewhere in Europe for $10 a night!