With a four-week-long Easter break from my academic program in Cambridge, England, I decided to toss some essentials into my backpack and head for "the Continent". A simple search on the internet yielded a cheap flight from London's Stansted Airport to Berlin. A few days later I was standing in front of a German immigration officer in Berlin's Airport, holding my Chinese passport and other travel documents. With a "bang" of his stamp on my Schengen visa, I was free to roam much of Europe.

　　Backpacking through different countries, extremely popular among young Westerners, is still not common among Asia's young people. Westerners have long enjoyed exploring the "mysterious Orient", but few of us in the Orient have had a real taste of the "mysterious Occident". I'm not going to speculate on what underlies this peculiar phenomenon. Instead, let me just explain how one 21-year-old Chinese student managed to have a wonderful time backpacking solo in Europe.

　　First things first: I needed cash, but not the yuan in my Bank of China account or the dollars in my US account. How to get euros? I found an ATM machine, inserted my bank card, and in a few moments I had euro bills in my wallet. The international financial system has made it quite convenient for travelers to get local money. Any Chinese with an internationally recognized debit card (e.g. VISA, MasterCard) can get euros from European ATMs at the current exchange rate -- better than the rates at the local bureauxdechange! And it doesn't matter if your savings back home are in yuan.

　　Mention traveling overseas to us Chinese and one intimidating question always pops into our heads: "What about language?" This can be even scarier when we think of Europe, where almost every country has its own language -- Dutch, Czech, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and so many others. But have no fear: if you possess good English skills, you can get around quite easily. Many signs and most travel documents in Europe come with English translations, and Europeans are getting increasingly good at English. Furthermore, many European languages share key words. For example, when you need to use the toilet, in France you look for "toilette", in Germany "Toilette", in Italy "toletta" and in Portugal "toalete". That being said, knowing a bit of the local language will certainly help; locals appreciate your effort to say even such simple things as "bonjour" ("hello" in French) , "grazie" ("thanks" in Italian) or "entschuldigung" ("sorry/excuse me" in German).

　　Unfortunately, sometimes you won't have the words you need. Does that mean the end of the conversation? No. Even when you have exhausted all your verbal resources, you still have one last and often quite amusing tool -- body language. After seeing the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining bit of the Berlin Wall, I sat down in a small restaurant underneath an S-Bahn station. The people in the restaurant spoke almost no English and their German had an odd accent, so I didn't talk much when I entered. I saw that "Ente" appeared many times on the menu, but I'd never learned that word in my German classes at Yale, so I asked the waiter what "Ente" was. He scratched his head and looked desperately around for some help, but the people behind the counter both shrugged and shook their heads. Just as I was about to say "Never mind," he started making a "quack-quack" sound while shaking his hips. A duck, of course! His pantomime conveyed the meaning of Ente very effectively, but at the same time it had a magical ice-breaking effect and made the eating environment much livelier.

　　To travel light, I tried to avoid packing anything heavy, but one weighty item I always carried with me -- a guidebook. I got most of my destination, hostel and transportation info from the book Let'sGo--Europe. Also popular among backpackers are the guidebooks in theLonelyPlanet series. These books have maps of every place with important tourist sites, and they provide abundant information on hostels, hotels, restaurants, pubs, etc., so the traveler never lacks options. They also contain detailed maps of public transportation, bus and train schedules, prices and the time needed to get between places, thus enabling you to make a good itinerary. Some guidebooks also have arrangements with local hostels and restaurants. Just flash your guidebook at the counter and you get a discount. During my stay in Salzburg, Austria, I saved 4 euros per day on my hostel and got 10% off in a restaurant where I had dinner -- all because I owned a copy ofLet'sGo. Good guidebooks list prices for almost everything, which helps in making budgets. Many guidebooks sponsor helpful websites where travelers report current prices and offer opinions on hostels and restaurants. So by all means, do yourself a favor and pick up a good up-to-date guidebook before you go!