First, let me explain what I’m basing this post on. In the summer of 2017 we put together a 15-day Interrail trip, and I came back having spent a total of just €25, all in. I’ll try to write up how that happened.
The Interrail Ticket — TAÇ Sponsorship
Our first step in this Interrail journey came in early 2017 with a contest run by the TAÇ company: “Why do you want to go on Interrail?” The contest was essentially asking what kind of dream you had for Interrail. You’d write up your reason for going, the names of two friends and submit. I mentioned the Kars & Eastern Express trip we’d done before and said in my application “I want to put together a cinematic video like that.” Five months later an email landed: we’d won 1st place. That’s roughly where our story really started.
Our Kars & Eastern Express video:
Thanks to that first place, we won a 1st-class three-person 15-day GlobalPass — i.e. 15 days, 5 travel days by train. That meant the in-Europe travel cost was completely covered. Big thanks to TAÇ for that.
Free Plane Tickets — Pegasus Sponsorship
Sponsorship for the plane tickets came together really fast. Huge thanks to Mehmet Nane, the CEO of Pegasus, who had given his business card to my friends after a talk he gave at the Microsoft summer intern programme “Open Academy” in summer 2016. Here’s how it happened: I got his email address and wrote, “We make videos. If we did a video about you, would you sponsor us?” Within half an hour he forwarded me to the person responsible, and within a day we had three Istanbul → Rome tickets and three Hamburg → Istanbul return tickets booked. That’s the fastest sponsorship I’ve ever seen.
One more thing about the Pegasus sponsorship. Right when I was about to fly to Hamburg, the G20 summit was being held there and things had gone really chaotic — riots, burning, all of it. I jumped onto the Pegasus site — less than 24 hours to the flight — and looked at whether I could change the ticket to Stuttgart. Naturally there was a hefty change fee. I thought I’d try my luck and emailed the contact at Pegasus: “Could we possibly switch the ticket to Stuttgart?” Within 30 minutes they came back and changed it. Massive thanks again to that person and to Mehmet Nane for such a great sponsorship.
Interrail Vlogs
The Interrail vlog series we made is 6 videos. You can watch the full playlist on YouTube here.
Out-of-Pocket
What I spent: I took €300 in cash and another €300-ish on my card. After the trip I stopped by my relatives and only then headed back to Istanbul. I had €25 left at the end — but my relatives slipped me enough pocket money that I came home with what I’d started with. Call it “nephew sponsorship”, I guess. I can’t thank them enough; they hosted me brilliantly, fed me, took me out, the works.
So that’s the story of a €25 tour of Europe.
