But just devouring fat historical novels about 18th century Scotland and France wouldn't prepare me for modern day Europe. I soon became very familiar with the 914 category of the Dewey Decimal system. (Geography of & travel in Europe for those of you who may not be up on their Deweys). I started with First-Time Europe , a Rough Guide book. It was a great introduction to the intricacies of this brand new subject - budget European travel. It wasn't long after that we first heard of Rick Steves from some travel veterans. The budget traveler's guru, Rick Steves publishes guide books, and appears in a series of travel programs - "Travels in Europe". Weeknights at 7:30 soon became Rick Steves time. Settle into the couch, tune into PBS, and let the fun begin. When reading all his books, I could almost hear Rick, in his northern accent, advising me about the perils of the Louvre.

Of course, the web was the ultimate resource. I could spend hours poring over the discussion boards at eurotrip.com. I don't think there's anything that you cannot find in there somewhere. I spent even more time, at first though, plotting out our journey on RailEurope.com. They have a searchable database of destinations, and I delighted in the ability to plan out my routes from one city to the next, picking and discarding routes as I thought of a better way to do it. Printouts from this site quickly increased the growing piles of paper strewn about my apartment.

I signed up for fare watcher type email alerts from everyone from Expedia to Travelocity and all the airlines in between. Just getting across the Atlantic is the biggest piece of the budget pie, and I wanted to get the best deal we could. We finally chose Delta. After weeks of monitoring the prices on delta.com, we finally headed down to the airport to the point of no return. We purchased our nonrefundable nonreturnable tickets. $1800 poorer and clutching our tickets madly, I hopped across the parking lot chanting "We got our tickets - we're really going!" (Later that night I woke up in a frenzy at the realization that I am going to actually put my body on an airplane and fly across the ocean).

Had we known then that by April we'd be sweating it, praying Delta wouldn't strike, I believe we would have gone with another airline, regardless of whether they offered that oh so convenient overnight direct flight from Cinci to London.

Choosing our accommodations - where to lay our weary heads at night - was another series of big decisions. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot in the name of the Budget, like private bathrooms and no AC. But I have to insist that I sleep in a room with my husband, not a dorm full of girls in bunk beds. This limited our budget options when it came to hostels. I can't imagine having to make these kind of decisions 10 or even five years ago, before the proliferation of information on the web. But by consulting our good friend Rick Steves' books, searching eurotrip,checking a few other guidebooks,and following everything up online, we finally found decent places to stay in every city. Not everything fell within our budget - London is the most expensive, but the cheaper places like Inverness and Gimmewald balance it out. (Side rant- We didn't get Gimmewald as cheaply as we originally planned. We booked two beds in an 8 person room at a bed and breakfast months and months ahead of time. When I emailed in January to reconfirm, I was informed that there were no accommodations for us after all, for they had booked a large group. Gee. Thanks Pension Gimmelwald. .)

About a dozen books and a hundred websites later, we were ready to order our railpasses. To get all the free goodies (books, videos, maps, etc) we went through Rick Steves, and ordered the Eurail Selectpass Saver for 5 travel days on the "continent" and the Britrail Classic Pass for 8 consecutive days in Britain. For getting around in London, we got the London Visitor Travelcard. Once we get to Paris, we'll pick up the Carte Orange travel pass and the Paris Museum card. The museum card gets us into everything from the Louvre and Orsay to Versailles and the Sewer Tour. (Yes, they are evidently very proud of their sewer system in Paris). Although I'm in general anti-tour bus, we also got some vouchers for a Guide Friday tour of Stonehenge. Shortly after they arrived, Hoof and Mouth broke out in Britain, effectively shutting down attractions like Stonehenge.

Books... what a market. Millions and millions of people visit Britain and the Continent every year, some without guidebooks, winging it, others dining only at Frommer recommended establishments. I myself must have read every book at my local library. Let's Go, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Fodor, Frommer, even the "Complete Idiots Guide". We settled on the Rick Steves guides. I may be sorry after a few days of lugging around a backpack that weighs in at 20% of my body weight, but we are taking the following arsenal:Rick Steves Paris 2001, Rick Steves Rome, Rick Steves' Italian Phrase Book & Dictionary and Rick Steves' London 2001 . Oh, and (who else) Rick Steves' Italian Phrase Book & Dictionary and Rick Steves' French Phrase Book & DictionaryAlso a The Mini Rough Guide to Edinburgh, a London A-Z map, and a really cool book I ordered from Booktailor.com. Just like it sounds, you tailor your book to your liking. You choose the cities, you choose the topics, and you choose the pages. You pay by the page, they print it and ship it the next day.

To be continued...