A Hacker’s Travel Guide To Europe

This summer, I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine from Chicago turned up at one of the hacker camps I attended. A few days of hanging out in the sun ensued, doing cool hacker camp stuff, drinking unusual beverages, and generally having fun. It strikes me as a shame that this is such a rare occurrence, and since Hackaday is an American organisation and I am in a sense writing from its European outpost, I should do what I can to encourage my other friends from the USA and other parts of the world to visit. So here I’m trying to write a hacker’s guide to visiting Europe, in the hope that I’ll see more of you at future camps and other events.

It’s Intimidating. But Don’t Worry.

First of all, I know that it’s intimidating to travel to an unfamiliar place where the language and customs may be different. I’m from England, which sits on a small island in the North Atlantic, and believe it or not it’s intimidating for us to start traveling too. It involves leaving the safety of home and crossing the sea whether by flight, ferry, or tunnel, and that lies outside one’s regular comfort zone.

Americans live in a country that’s almost a continent in its own right, so you can satisfy your travel lust without leaving home. Thus of course the idea of landing in Germany or the Netherlands is intimidating. But transatlantic flights are surprisingly cheap in the scheme of international travel because of intense competition, so I’m here to reassure you that you can travel my continent ‘s hacker community without either feeling out of your depth, or breaking the bank.

What About The Language Barrier?

Let’s start with the language. I’m a British English speaker, je parle Francais, een beetje Nederlands, and ein bischien Deutsch. (Ed note: errors left intact for authenticity.) The fact is though, while it’s nice to try my halting Dutch to buy a portion of haring en uitjes, the truth is I rarely find myself completely lost in my travels through the hacker community on just my native language. It may annoy the French to call English a lingua franca, but if you’re an Anglophone you’ve lucked out in having the international glue language at your fingertips. It’s the default translation when traveling, in major cities you will usually find people who speak it when you need to. Meanwhile we’re lucky enough that there are few cities which don’t have some form of hackerspace, so you can usually find someone friendly with local knowledge if you need a bit of advice.

So It’s Not As Scary As You Think, But Why Come Here?

From here in Europe we look over the Atlantic at events like Def Con with some envy, but the fact is that Americans do things a little differently from us. Those events are expensive, while for us a summer hacker event is a community led affair in a field with camping thrown in. Some of the tickets are a few hundred dollars, but that’s it, no hotels, just camping in a field with five thousand other hackers.

Even better, the smaller events are cheaper, and often have much more charm as they aren’t so overwhelming. I can afford to do more than one, because they don’t cost an outrageous amount, and if I work out my timing I can even travel from one to the next without needing anywhere to stay over, instead helping with set-up and teardown. Add to that those hundreds of hackerspaces in cities only a relatively short distance apart, and there’s a lot to see.

Getting Around Needn’t Bankrupt You

One of the great holidays of the world remains the Great North American Road Trip. Grab a car with a couple of friends, and head out across the wide open spaces on the roads less traveled. Eat at Mom-n-Pop roadside diners in flyspeck towns, and enjoy what the continent has to offer under that endless sky. But while hire cars and gasoline may be cheap in the USA, long distance driving is tedious, so Americans prefer to fly.

Europe is different, hire cars are expensive, gasoline is eye-wateringly expensive, and while budget flights can be cheap, they really are a royal pain in the ass. Fortunately our continent is still cris-crossed by an extensive passenger rail network, and while individual tickets can be expensive there’s a very handy hack that makes them a great choice for a tourist. It’s called the eurail pass, originally designed for young people but now available for all ages, and it offers universal access for visitors to the whole continent’s rail network.

Taking a train from Paris to Copenhagen is simply a case of punching the journey into the app, and doing it with 180 mph high-speed trains instead of slower regional trains usually only takes a few Euros extra booking fee. If you’ve ever wondered how I write about events all over Europe for Hackaday I can reveal that there’s no diamond-encrusted expense account, instead I use the domestic European version of this pass. It’s that good.

Where To Stay

If you are coming over for a hacker camp, there’s your campsite and event all rolled into one, but outside the camps there are still some affordable options. Starting with camping, for us it’s not the backwoods facilities of a trailhead camping spot but in most cases a commercial camp site. For not a huge a mount of money you’ll get toilets and showers along with your pitch, and even a 230V CEE-form power hook-up if you’re prepared to pay extra.

I’ve written Hackaday articles in more than one camp site in my time. Then if you have a eurail pass it’s worth noting that Europe has a night train network. If it’s a conventional sit-up train you might not have the most comfortable night, but for the extra cost of a sleeper berth you can swallow up the journey in comfort and have the day to do more interesting stuff. Then as everywhere it’s easy to find a hotel, I tend to aim for non-tourist-destination train stops and find a two-star room for about 50 to 70 Euros when I need one. And after a few nights camping and night training, you will need one. Finally as you wander around our continent’s hackerspaces you may find the occasional offer of a sofa for the night, but remember that most European houses are tiny and the etiquette around staying over may be a little different. Only expect to stay for a while and use someone’s place as a base if they really know you.

Day To Day

It’s possible to exist in many European cities using small-denomination cash in whatever the local currency is, and shopping in ancient markets for exotic ingredients. It’s fun, even. But Europeans shop at the same shops and supermarkets as anyone else, and your Mastercard will work here too.

Look out for budget supermarkets, Aldi, Lidl, or Netto if you’re on a shoestring, and Primark if you’re in need of clothing. Meanwhile eating out can be expensive, and we don’t have a tradition of eating out for breakfast. We have McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC here just like anywhere else, but seek out the local fast food, it’s worth it.

European Hackerspaces

Wrapping it up, if you’re an American you may not be used to most hackerspaces only being a few tens of miles from each other. As a member of several European spaces it’s great to have international visitors drop by, so please, check out online when you go somewhere, find the space, and give them a shout. I have drunk Club-Mate and eaten a variety of delicacies while sitting on shabby sofas in the company of my peers continent-wide, and if you’re One of Us and looking to get to know a country there’s no better way.

So. The Hackaday Tourist Guide has spoken, are we going to see you at a European event next summer?

Header: NASA, public domain.