Europe Through the Back Door, 40th edition

Packed with lessons gleaned from more than 40 years of budget travel, Rick answers the questions you have now — and those you wouldn't have asked until faced with them on your trip.

Besides the essential travel-skills tips listed below, Rick also gives a country-by-country rundown of his favorite destinations throughout Europe, and shares some of his most unforgettable experiences.

• Stoke Your Travel Dreams: Inspiration and tips for making the most of your trip
• Budgeting & Planning: Affording your trip, researching your trip, creating an itinerary, and prioritizing your time
• Paper Chase: Travel documents, travel insurance, before-you-go checklist
• Pack Light: Packing 101
• Flying: Booking and taking flights to Europe and within Europe
• Trains, Buses & Boats: Train tickets and rail passes, train stations, tips for a good train ride, and riding long-distance buses and ferries
• Driving & Navigating: Renting a car, alternatives to renting, behind the European wheel, and navigating with mapping apps, GPS, and paper maps
• Money: Strategies for using credit cards, payment apps, and cash, plus tipping
• Sleeping: Finding the right room, reserving a room, having a good hotel stay, bed-and-breakfasts, apartment and other short-term rentals, hostels, staying in European homes, and camping
• Eating: Choosing among and eating in restaurants, cafés, and bars, dealing with dietary restrictions, Europe’s café culture, picnics and other budget options, navigating Europe’s markets and food halls, and tips for food tours
• Staying Connected: Using your mobile device in Europe, using European SIM cards, internet security on the road, how to dial, and sharing your trip via social media, blogs, and journals
• Getting Around in Cities: Using maps and navigation tools, and tips for using subways, buses, taxis, and ride-booking services
• Sightseeing: Strategies and tips for hiring tour guides, taking walking tours, visiting sights, and becoming a "temporary European"
• Outdoor Adventure: Hiking and walking, biking, water fun, other thrills
• Shopping: Where to shop, general tips, and details on VAT refunds, customs, and shipping
• Theft & Scams: Pickpocketing and theft, scams and rip-offs, and coping with lost stuff
• Hurdling the Language Barrier: Tips on creative communication
• Health & Hygiene: Staying healthy, pharmacies, laundry, and European bathrooms
• Let's Travel! Traveling solo, LGBTQ+ travelers, travelers of color, traveling with kids, student travelers, senior travelers, and travelers with limited mobility
• Bus Tours & Cruises
• Perspectives: Broadening your world view through travel, understanding the European Union, and European challenges (and solutions)
• Back Doors: A country-by-country look at Rick's favorite destinations

If one book can make your first trip a success, this is it. Read Europe Through the Back Door before you've even decided when, where, or how you'll travel in Europe!

Even if you're planning a return trip, this book is full of helpful refreshers on how to make the most of every mile, minute, and dollar in Europe. Travel and technology are changing fast — don't rely on old guidebooks! In this edition you'll get Rick's latest tips for finding cheap airfares online, using your smartphone in Europe, top travel apps, digital maps and navigation, using social media, and calling over the internet. This top rated travel skills handbook illustrates all of this advice in eye-catching full color.

John Flinn of the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "Of all the dunderheaded things I did on my first trip to Europe, the dumbest thing was failing to read Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door before I went. Simply put, it's the most valuable tool I've ever found for traveling independently in Europe."

What's the difference between Rick Steves Best of Europe, Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door, and Rick Steves' Europe 101?

• Rick Steves Best of Europe: An honest-to-goodness guidebook, now in gorgeous full color, with all the specifics on sights, hotels, and restaurants for travelers on a whirlwind trip around western Europe (who don't want to buy — or lug — separate guidebooks for every stop on the way)
• Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door: Our essential handbook for how to plan and enjoy a trip to Europe, designed to be read before you go — with in-depth advice on planning, packing, saving money, avoiding lines, staying healthy, leaping the language barrier, finding a bathroom…and lots more
• Rick Steves' Europe 101: Our fun, informative, full-color survey of Europe's art and history — also designed to be read before your trip