Public Transpo Overload
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Landing in a new city is complicated enough with new buildings, winding streets with strange names, and tiny little free maps that are missing 90% of the pertinent information for navigating a city. Now let's add a million different forms of public transportation and it feels almost impossible.
As a backpacker, public transportation is your best friend. It may not be the fastest but it is definitely the cheapest. The busses in Thailand are old pick up trucks with a seemingly unstable roof and a plywood bench for you to sit on. You hop in and head to a beach for 20 Thai Bhar or $0.50. It might sound unsafe but it is an incredible experience.
It is normal to have busses and maybe a metro in large cities but on top of it they add trams? I'm not a walking GPS but I can get myself around until you add in the tram.
They basically run the same route of the busses but they don't stop and they can't ever change their route. On top of all of that they are so quiet if you don't look left and right before crossing the street you could get run over.
Pulling up to Zagreb, Croatia we realized we were about three miles away from our hostel and had to get on my favorite thing ever, (not) the tram. After two minutes of searching and an unsuccessful attempt at validating our tickets an announcement came over the speakers in Croatian. The tram stopped and everyone got off. Confused, we also excited the tram and were left standing on a very narrow street whose name I couldn't even attempt to pronounce. Ten minutes later another tram -- with no number on it -- pulled up so we hopped on hoping we would end up in the right direction. St. Christopher was looking out for us because we somehow made it to our destination.
I may not like the tram but I have to say, having a bajillion forms of public transportation means you are never stranded anywhere. Most cities have an all inclusive pass you can buy meaning one ticket for the bus, tram, and metro.
A nice life hack for you is Google Maps. The new offline version is free, tracks your location, and gives you the times of all public transportation options from trams to trains.
Moving through Europe is made easy by public Transpo. You can catch a train for a low cost to anywhere you can think of. And if you can't find a train I'm sure there is a bus, tram, or metro that will get you there. Hell, I'd probably go as far as calling RyanAir public transportation and no one can deny 15€ flights.
