Creating informal European integration by travelling? Swedish and Finnish travel reminiscences of Interrail travel 1972–1993

ABSTRACT

The Interrail rail ticket offer, created in 1972, established a new travel platform for young people to meet their peers in Europe. This article examines how Interrail youth travel enabled sociable transactions for Swedish and Finnish travellers and how this promoted informal European integration. The article is based on a qualitative analysis and comparison of 40 Finnish and Swedish Interrailers’ interviews about their trips between 1972 and 1993. The travellers recall the position of Sweden and Finland in relation to Europe as dualistic: being both outside and inside Europe. The Nordic countries in the 1970s and 80s were recalled as familiar and clearly distinct from Europe. Informal European integration was advanced; many travellers framed their Interrail trips as a positive, intrinsically European experience. Meeting new people among travellers and local residents was remembered as giving Europe faces and creating a sense of community. Thus, Interrail trips produced ‘lived Europeanness’. The findings also demonstrate that Swedish and Finnish travellers experienced the trip in a very similar fashion. However, the comparison served to reveal the regional differences in relation to the distance of the regions from continental Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Interrail
• youth travel
• informal integration, Europe, tourism history

Introduction

The idea of Interrail was to fraternize. One should be able to travel and see. So it was a positive [matter]. Even if there was no European Union, there was this agreement on train travel.¹

These words of Torsten, a Swede who toured Europe in 1973, reveal the European angle of the Interrail ticket offer introduced in 1972. Richard Ivan Jobs has described the development of youth hostels and rail passes, like Interrail and Eurail, as a ‘networked infrastructure[s] that preceded the formal integration’.² For him, the post-war youth travel helping to shape a new European social space enabling ‘European experiences’.³ Even if the continent-wide political unity was lacking, informal European integration was underway in transnational practices such as travelling: Europe and Europeanness were ‘reproduced’ by sociable transactions in the fluid communities of experience of young Interrailers.⁴ Thus, these shared – or collective – experiences were formed and lived by various individuals and ‘defined both individually and collectively’.⁵

This article examines how Interrail youth travel enabled sociable transactions for Swedish and Finnish travellers and how this was understood to promote informal European integration. The question is answered by analysing interviews with Finnish and Swedish Interrailers of 1972–1993. The travellers’ memories give access to the experiential level of historical events, such as European integration, with special reference to the Northern European perspective.⁶ Furthermore, the reconstructions of the past also reveal something essential about the relationship between the present and the past, and meanings assigned to the past: why are some stories emphasized, and thus meaningful to their tellers, and others not?⁷

By informal integration, I refer to grass-roots level processes of integration without formal guidance, and by sociable transactions, I mean all the interactions that travellers had with each other and local people, i.e. ‘socializing with other Europeans’ as Theresa Kuhn puts it.⁸ By choosing and comparing the reminiscences of Swedish and Finnish travellers, the article provides a Nordic perspective on informal European integration. In this context, I see comparison as a tool to identify the transnational features of Interrail travel but also to find differences and similarities on various levels.⁹ The choice of Finland and Sweden as countries of study also derives from the popularity of Interrail in both these nations which at state level, were contemplating their political and economic position in Europe as members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) but not the European Economic Community (EEC) until joining the European Union in 1995.¹⁰

The Interrail ticket offer was a project of the jubilee of the International Union of Railways (UIC) introduced in 1972. Purchasing the Interrail ticket allowed young¹¹ travellers one month’s unlimited travel in the countries participating in the ticket system. Originally, Interrail was supposed to operate only in 1972, but due to its popularity it became a permanent product, complementing the youth travel scene as its ‘sister ticket’ Eurail had done for overseas travellers since 1959. Interrail was available to many young Europeans and even made it possible to cross the Iron Curtain. Initially, the popularity of the offer was greatest in the Nordic countries regarding the number of tickets sold in relation to the population. The period of the study was selected to cover the first two decades of Interrail, after which its popularity sank due to price increases and the expansion of air travel, and other forms of travel became more important in connecting the young people of Europe.¹²

In the article, I first discuss what is meant by the informal integration of Europe in the context of Interrail. Then, I present the materials and methods used before examining the dimensions of informal European integration in Interrail travel reminiscences in three thematic sections: Firstly, how Nordic travellers generally recall the position of their home countries and regions in Europe; secondly, what constituted travellers’ sociable interactions with other people and shared European experiences during their trip; and thirdly, and more generally, Europe-related meanings that travellers have attached to their trip. Finally, I discuss the importance of the findings.

Informal European integration and Interrail travel

The widespread use of the concept of integration has been criticized. For example, Murray points out that the term has been used to mean everything from the process of integration to Europeanization.¹³ To tackle this challenge, I see the informal integration of Europe as dynamic grass-roots level processes and transnational sociable transactions which have brought the people of the continent closer together but not necessarily under political institutions.¹⁴ As informality is a broad category, various aspects of European integration have been deemed ‘informal’. Roos and van Heumen propose three broad categories entailing informality: ideas, actors and procedures.¹⁵ Interrail intersects all these three categories in relation to European integration, but my emphasis is on the actors. The integrative processes of actors included, for instance, travellers interacting with other travellers and local residents alike in various transnational networks or structures created by the Interrail and Eurail train ticket systems and youth hostel networks.¹⁶

My understanding and way of defining informal integration draws on Karl Deutsch’s transactionalist theory of integration, in which increased transnational interactions of citizens create a sense of community and potential for supranational integration.¹⁷ However, not all transnational interactions are, nor were, conducive to European integration or identity formation. Kuhn argues that purely instrumental forms of interaction, such as cross-border shopping, do not aid these sentiments; sociable interactions are needed instead.¹⁸ These more personal transnational social connections and interactions seemingly affect people’s perceptions of integration by generating feelings of togetherness or community.¹⁹

The importance of these collective sentiments was understood on the institutional level decades ago. The prospects of youth travel in terms of Europeanization were already recognized by the EEC and OECD in the 1960s. Youth travel was deemed significant and a means of reforming the (Western) European social space even if the effects of tourism on improving international understanding have been questioned.²⁰ However, the sentiment of community was acknowledged on a more general level, too. The need for common European togetherness was among the elements for the ‘People’s Europe’ initiative of the EEC from the 1970s that was made official in the 1980s. The ‘idea [of the People’s Europe campaign] was to make Europe present in their [citizens’] everyday lives through tangible benefits, symbols and culture, and through re-constituting them as Union citizens’.²¹ The Interrail ticket was very much such a ‘tangible benefit’ for European youngsters even if it was offered by the collective of European railway companies, not the EEC.

Yet attitudes towards formal European institutions, such as the EEC, and one’s own personal European sentiments did not necessarily correlate. For example, there were individual travellers as well as political movements in the Finnish and Swedish societies of the time fiercely opposed to any formal European integration.²² One might feel European without feeling the need for any formal institutions. Still, a single Interrail trip might have been significant for its participant in enriching their perspective on what is common in Europe and even to ponder their relationship to their personal European identification and integration.²³

Admittedly, this ‘common man’ perspective on informal integration is not a dominant one, rather the opposite. As Roos and van Heumen point out, ‘[l]ittle attention has been dedicated to smaller bodies and agencies, and practically none to societal actors outside the European Union bodies such as the European Council, the Commission and the European Parliament’.²⁴ There are more studies about informality in the politics and governance of the European integration, especially in the context of the European Union. There are also studies about material integration such as transnational infrastructures or informal politics behind the integration.²⁵

There are two important points concerning European integration and informality. First, European integration should not be seen anachronistically as a teleological process leading to the formation of the current European Union even if it was one of the realizations of diverse integration processes – and as such has naturally shaped the reminiscence process.²⁶ Second, even if the transnational interactions of people were informal, the Interrail system itself had formal frames. The ticket offer resulted from a formal agreement among European railway companies and the International Union of Railways in the early 1970s.²⁷ However, Interrail was neither defined by nor limited to the formal political entity of EEC. The geographical coverage of Interrail also allowed people to visit parts of Europe that did not belong to the EEC, including some of the Eastern Bloc countries, EFTA countries, and even parts of Africa (Morocco) and Asia (Turkey).

Materials and methods

This article is based on interviews with Finnish and Swedish Interrailers who travelled between 1972 and 1993. The 18 Finnish interviews with 20 travellers were conducted during the years 2016–2020. The 19 Swedish interviews with 20 travellers were conducted in October 2021.²⁸ The interview call was widely disseminated in social media. Due to the method of acquiring interviewees, male interviewees accounted only for 25% of the interviewees in both countries.²⁹ The bias is recognized, but it is worth noting that gender is not a focal category of analysis in this context. Naturally, the composition of interviewees and the fact that the chosen interviewees were those travellers who were willing to talk about their journey, i.e. who more probably deemed a trip a ‘success’, are taken into account in the analysis and conclusions of this paper.³⁰ The study period is temporally quite well covered: only trips made in 1975, 1976 and 1991 are not discussed by the interviewees.³¹

The interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews but leaving ample room in the situation and for interviewees’ personal way of recounting their experiences. The main idea was to allow the interviewees to reminisce about their trip with the help of questions covering topics such as the context and period, motives, preparations, experiences and activities, encounters, feelings, coming home and the meaning of the trip. All these topics were covered, but the order varied according to each interview situation. It is worth mentioning that the Finnish interviews were conducted before and Swedish interviews in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the Swedish material includes references to health issues, and a new definition of ‘before’ that were lacking in the Finnish material. This example highlights the situational nature of an interview and was taken into account in the analysis. People reminisce the past from the perspective of today.³²

The temporal distance between the interviews and the experiences of the trip was about three to four decades. Therefore, the present time, the lived life of the interviewee and socio-political events, such as both countries joining the European Union in 1995, as well as different interview situations, created extra layers for memory formation. I have tried to create the interpretation of these layers and decipher the meanings and interdependencies of different times as required by the nature of oral history sources. The memories interviewees recall are usually of significance to them, and as narrations they are valuable interpretations of their personal experiences.³³ Even if some events may have been forgotten, misremembered or omitted in the interview, the oral testimonies usually present ‘the psychological truth’ to the narrator, as described by Valerie Yow.³⁴ Moreover, the Interrail trip was usually experienced as an ‘atypical’ event, a deviation from the normal, that is often recalled more readily than more typical events of life.³⁵ The occurrences of nostalgia apparent in some of the interviews are quite typical in reminiscences of youth.³⁶ However, the potential nostalgic gaze into the past is not harmful as it can serve several purposes such as critique of the present life of the interviewee or conditions of present society but it can also be just yearning for one’s youth.³⁷ Furthermore, memories of Interrail trips are not always positive; some negative ones also emerged.

The interviews were conducted in Finnish and Swedish and transcribed in their respective languages, then analysed using content analysis with the aid of computer software, MAXQDA. The content was categorized into categories or themes such as ‘interactions with people’, ‘Nordic countries’ or ‘Europe’. After this phase, issues recurring in each category were noted and written out. A comparison was also made in the occurrence of themes between Swedish and Finnish travellers.

Inside or outside: Finland, Sweden and Europe

Europe perhaps posed a question of exploration. There was curiosity to see things, countries and people. What it was like and how they had it? One felt some inclination to belong to Europe.³⁸

This description by the Swedish Esisa aptly summarizes the feelings of many young travellers about to start their Interrail journey in the 1970s and 1980s. Europe was experienced as something mysterious, representing otherness and, at the same time, something worth an adventure. The ‘exploration of Europe’ was even encouraged by the Interrail guidebooks and official marketing material, and some travellers framed their journey as a way to discover ‘the truth’ about Europe.³⁹ ‘The aim, back then, was to see all of Europe, every country without deeper familiarization. But it somehow satisfied the thirst for knowledge’, a Finnish Interrailer from the late 1970s recalls.⁴⁰

The will to ‘see it all’ was especially prominent among the first-time travellers, who sometimes toured Europe even to the point of exhaustion.⁴¹ However, this motivation is understandable when one considers that travelling, in general, was not as common as it is today: there were 191.7 million tourist arrivals in Europe in 1979 compared to 746 million in 2019.⁴² Travelling abroad was more novel and, even more importantly, more expensive. One could not be certain when one could afford to travel the next time.

But what did Finnish and Swedish travellers mean by Europe and how did they perceive their own position in it? First of all, the ‘traditional’ geographical borders of Europe that were taught in schools seem to have been the basis for their definitions in the reminiscences.⁴³ In addition, the area of the validity of the Interrail ticket affected travellers’ perceptions of Europe as their ‘European experiences’ came mostly from the countries involved in the system, even if some travellers also visited non-member countries of Europe.⁴⁴ However, the geographically non-European countries that were part of the ticket system were mostly excluded from the traveller-defined Europe based on sentiments of otherness. For example, Morocco did not feel ‘European’ as expressed by one traveller who visited the country. Similarly, travelling over the Bosphorus Strait meant visiting ‘Asia’ for another youngster in the early 1970s.⁴⁵

Finnish and Swedish travellers of the 1970s and 1980s seemed to have experienced at least two major European divisions that recur in the travel memories: vertical and horizontal. The former division into East and West was defined by the political boundaries of the Cold War in the reminiscences. The latter more personally defined and more flexible boundary seems to have divided Europe into ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ parts due to cultural or identity-based similarity that some interviewees felt diminishing the farther south they travelled. The flexible border area resembled the concept of ‘march’, where border is not a strict line, but the border area can be seen as a space for interaction or a buffer zone.⁴⁶ This zone was defined more culturally than geographically.

The Nordic dimension was especially important. The senses of familiarity and belonging that were in the making on the broader European level were already experienced in a form of familiarity in the Nordic countries during Interrail trips of the 1970s and 1980s.⁴⁷ The sense of Nordic familiarity had been strengthened by formal political agreements such as the Nordic Passport Union which abolished the need for passports and visas for its members as early as in the 1950s.⁴⁸ The mass labour immigration from Finland to Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s may also have affected the increased familiarity and lack of exoticism of Sweden among Finnish travellers besides the centuries of common history.⁴⁹ As a consequence, young Interrailers preferred other European countries as their Interrail destinations on most occasions.⁵⁰

Thus, Nordic countries were not ‘proper’ and ‘exotic’ foreign countries and it was taken for granted that people had visited these countries even before their Interrail trip.⁵¹ ‘One experienced obvious nordiskhet [“Nordicness”] because if one saw Norwegians, Danes or Finns then one felt that we belonged to the same club’, the Swedish Hans recalls.⁵² These reminiscences of a feeling of kinship resemble Kirsten Hastrup’s ideas of collective experiences of Nordic living conditions that have tied the ‘Nordic world’ together.⁵³ One of the shared social experiences of the Nordic countries recalled by Swedish travellers, sometimes with pride or restorative nostalgia, was the question of the welfare state:

Because, after all, we had our Nordic system that does not really resemble the European systems. We have a welfare system that the Europeans have come closer to these days but back then it was pretty rare to have it. That is how I felt and then I have Finnish and Swedish relatives, too.⁵⁴

However, the theme of welfare state does not appear in the Finnish interviews, which may reflect the different (self-) images of Sweden and Finland abroad. For Finns, the sensitive issue of Finland’s position in the Cold War Europe of the 1970s and the country’s location on the periphery of Europe – and of other Nordic countries – seemed to be more of an issue even in the reminiscences. One Finnish traveller felt even ashamed when the map of Europe ended at Denmark when he was trying to show another traveller where Finland is located in Europe.⁵⁵

Interestingly, the Swedish travellers also placed more emphasis on the concept of Nordic countries than did Finnish travellers. The language seems to be the major issue here, but this could also be partly a contrast created by the interviewer’s Finnish nationality. The Swedish Jan-Ove described the television that was watched and the newspapers that were read over the national borders, thereby diminishing their restrictive meaning between Nordic countries.⁵⁶ The common linguistic roots of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian made the North feel familiar to Swedish travellers even if it was not always easy to understand each other. Another traveller described the language issue moving between the past and present in her reminiscences:

And if one speaks the Scania dialect [of Swedish] one understands quite a lot of Danish. Therefore, I can speak passably with people from Denmark and Norway. […] it becomes a bit more complicated when we have conferences involving Finland. Then one has to take it all in English.⁵⁷

Nevertheless, there are mentions of the Nordic community in the Finnish interviews, too. Mi, a four-times Finnish Interrail ‘veteran’ from the 1970s expressed as her view that she wanted to connect to the people of the Nordic countries. ‘It was that time in the 1970s when the Pohjola-Norden association and the emphasis on the northern dimension was in the public eye’.⁵⁸ Even for her, the connecting factor was the Swedish language, which allowed her to communicate with other travellers from the Nordic countries.

Interestingly, the same travellers who describe the importance of the Nordic dimension seem to feel that the public emphasis on the Nordic countries has all but disappeared since their trips in the 1970s and 1980s. The creation of the European Union and the accession of Sweden and Finland to it, emerges in many interviews as something that has changed the position of the Nordic countries in relation to Europe.⁵⁹ ‘Both Danes and us [Swedish] have become better in English’, says one Swedish Interrailer from the late 1970s.⁶⁰

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the relationship between the North, the Nordic countries and Europe was quite ambivalent for Interrailers. Swedish and Finnish travellers, outsiders in the EEC during the study period but part of the EU during the interviews, reminiscence about Europe with a dualistic, yet surprisingly similar, definition: something that these countries were part of but also something that young travellers headed to. One Swedish Interrailer compares her personal European relationship to that of English travellers:

Europe was ‘a foreign country’ [utlandet]. Someone has said that it is only from England that people travel to Europe but it was also from Sweden. We [travelled] to Europe. […] And Europe meant Western Europe.⁶¹

In the reminiscences, Sweden and Finland seem to have been on the outskirts of Europe, in a grey zone. The significant temporal change probably comes only with the enlargement of the European Union to include these countries in 1995.

Denmark was experienced as being more on the ‘European edge’ of the Nordic countries – something different yet partly similar. Denmark had joined the EEC in 1973 but it is not this political dimension that is recalled in travellers’ reminiscences. Probably the consequences of this institutional, political difference were less obvious or memorable for young travellers. The ‘border country’ status was due to other factors such as the proximity to continental Europe: ‘After all, they have a border with Germany. It is a bit more continental there’.⁶² For young people, the more liberal policy on alcohol, for instance, made Denmark ‘exotic’ compared to other Nordic countries.⁶³

However, the ‘real’ Europe of Finnish and Swedish Interrailers opened up only after Copenhagen. For example, Ida from Swedish Scania thought ‘that it [Denmark] was part of Scandinavia or the Nordic Countries. Europe was what came next’.⁶⁴ This experience was intensified by the infrastructure of the railways: Finnish and Swedish Interrailers often travelled in groups with their compatriots and other Nordic travellers on the same trains until Copenhagen and, eventually, to Hamburg as railway corridors from the North to continental Europe were scarce. One Finnish traveller describes the feeling of breaking up these fellowships of Nordic travellers⁶⁵:

It was only after Copenhagen that people started scattering in [all directions] and one felt that ‘now we are a long way from home’.

Of course, there were numerous other reasons that affected travellers’ perceptions of Europe. For example, the geographical and perhaps even cultural distance from the southern region of Scania in Sweden to the European continent and to Denmark was substantially shorter than it was for those living in Stockholm, in Northern Sweden, let alone in Finland.⁶⁶ The sea was also experienced as a natural boundary. Before the Øresund Bridge was built in 2000, there was an obligatory ferry crossing when leaving Sweden. For some Swedish travellers, the Danish ferry marked the beginning of a European adventure just as the ferry trip to Sweden did for Finns⁶⁷:

It was marvellous to take that little ferry because then one knew that the adventure was about the begin. […] Denmark gave me a kick, a feeling that now we are on our way.

Integrative encounters: sociable transactions on an Interrail trip

The story of the Swedish Hans touring Europe in 1980 sums up how Interrail travel allowed young people to cross several boundaries of a political and economic nature. It also illustrates the history and political realities of the continent through human encounters. Hans met an English girl in Bucharest, Romania, and they had a brief romance.⁶⁸ The encounter took place in a country that was a member, albeit a reluctant one, of the Warsaw Pact and under the iron grip of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Hans himself came from neutral Sweden, a member of the European Free Trade Association, and the girl he met was from a country that belonged to both the EEC and to NATO. According to Hans’s reminiscences, Romania mostly served as a ‘platform’ for travellers to meet each other as few of the locals could speak English. However, this also demonstrates the importance of language skills: a knowledge of languages deriving from Latin would have facilitated contacts with locals. Yet he remembers having spoken to an old local man who served as a porter in a museum. It turned out that the museum was his former home confiscated by the Socialist Republic of Romania, and the former owner was allowed to stay on and work there after the Second World War.⁶⁹ As the story shows, Interrail provided opportunities to meet other travellers and local residents alike.

Such sociable interactions breaking down socio-political differences were valued and remembered by Interrailers as motivations for a trip but also as outcomes: many new friendships were formed, even longer lasting ones.⁷⁰ In a survey of Finnish Interrailers of 1986, a third of respondents mentioned people they had met on a trip as the best experience of the trip.⁷¹ For example, seeing and talking with other youngsters, having shared experiences and making friends and even having romances were seen as a part of a successful and fulfilling Interrail trip.⁷² Yet the social factor was quite dependent on one’s travel companions and on the traveller’s personality. If one was travelling, for instance, with a partner, the social aspect seems to have been of less importance than for those travelling alone or with friends.⁷³ Still for many, Interrail was the first independent trip without family and allowed a much longer time in a socially less normative ‘liminoid mode’, meeting new people as, for instance, in a one-week holiday at a Mediterranean resort. ‘It is insane how many people one met’, recalls the Swedish Bitte.⁷⁴

The encounters with new people took place at the locations where the travellers spent most of their time: on trains, in accommodation facilities such as hostels and campsites, railway stations and, more generally, in cities that young travellers visited. The importance of such spaces for encounters – and more generally materiality – should not be underestimated as enablers for the sociable interactions.⁷⁵ In addition, the coverage of the Interrail system and the touristic attractiveness of a destination affected and guided social interactions. For example, Paris enjoyed a popular status as a place to visit and many Interrailers ended up there, which further strengthened the sense of community.⁷⁶ ‘Because Interrail travellers followed almost the same routes down to Europe, there were some girls we met at several locations’, recalls Eva,⁷⁷ and Cecilia also recalls meeting Norwegian girls first in Greece, then in Paris and London without any planning.⁷⁸

Travelling by train in the 1970s and 1980s was especially good for encountering people: a classic railway carriage seating six to eight persons, for instance, was better suited for meetings than the present-day open carriage as coupés provided easier and closer face-to-face contact with other passengers. One of the travellers recalls having specifically sought coupés with other ‘backpackers’ or peers.⁷⁹ In the reminiscences, trains were ‘always’ crowded, a very common and shared memory of summer holiday periods, and the atmosphere varied, but people started up conversations with each other. In such closed environments, people had enough time to have discussions, share their meals, have drinks and even play the guitar together. All this brought travellers closer together.⁸⁰

In addition to train coupés, youth hostels had a special place in Interrailers’ memories in terms of meeting other youngsters travelling and occasionally young employees of youth hostels, too. After the Second World War, internationalism had become a driving force for the youth hostel movement in promoting friendship among the new post-war generation.⁸¹ In the 1970s and 1980s, the youth hostels, and in some cases also campsites, gathered a great number of young people together as they were affordable and allowed interactions with peers. Isabella remembers, with a certain nostalgia, that in the evenings one could play cards or roll dice as ‘there were no small smartphones to look at’.⁸² Bitte summarizes the commonly recalled advantages of youth hostels:

I considered the youth hostels really nice. Partly because one met lots of people, they were cheap and there was a kitchen there where one could cook food, which was cheaper. The company was also nice, one could borrow things from each other.⁸³

The encounters themselves usually started with standard ‘Interrail small talk’ consisting of introductions and, for instance, as the Swedish Esisa describes:

where did one come from, what did one do, how one lived. What kind of work one had and how was it. If one had grandparents, how they lived and whether they lived with us’.⁸⁴

Despite the superficial tone of the discussions, these should not be underestimated: young travellers got first-hand experiences of interacting with foreign people of whom many had not necessarily much prior knowledge before these trips while feeling safe in their common ‘travel bubble’. Furthermore, the discussions sometimes became more profound, depending on the participants themselves, their language skills and the setting of the conversation.

According to the interviewees, a wide range of topics was taken up among the travelling youngsters even if details of conversations were forgotten on many occasions due to temporal distance. However, it is good to remember that not all the foreign travellers the Interrailers met were European. For example, there were many Eurail travellers on the move. Still, the memories of Interrail travel are intrinsically connected to the concept of ‘Europe’, and a Swedish traveller from the 1970s recalls that the people coming from overseas shared a common curiosity about ‘Europe’ with the Nordic Interrailers.⁸⁵

In the discussion of young travellers, comparing one’s life in different countries to understand the lives of travellers’ peers in other parts of Europe was typical, themes ranging from music to local living standards. The Swedish Isabella remembers that her themes of conversations also included politics, feminism, languages, traditions, studies and social classes in her travels in the second half of the 1980s.⁸⁶ As many Interrailers were students, comparing school systems was usual. One Swedish traveller has a vivid memory of comparing the Swedish and Yugoslavian student grant systems with Yugoslavian medical students.⁸⁷ Even conversation about the price of bread and levels of income was held between Finnish and Hungarian Interrailers in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1986. The Finnish traveller remembers that she was amazed at how ‘socially aware’ those Hungarians were.⁸⁸ These memories of ‘systemic’ differences are probably emphasized and preserved at least partly by the disappearance of the Eastern bloc.

After the introductory discussions, common activities of traveller communities consisted, for instance, of ‘hanging around together’ and doing things such as having a beer, going to a disco or to see popular sights, eating or sharing lodgings together before the ways once again diverged.⁸⁹ Some travellers even changed their travel plans if they met nice people. One Swedish traveller recalls having difficulty finding accommodation in London, after which they decided to head to Paris as some Finnish girls were also heading there.⁹⁰ Sometimes teaming up with other Interrailers was a question of safety. The sheer number of rail travellers allowed young people to feel safe whether sleeping in front of the railway station in Paris or on the beaches in Korfu, of which a traveller recalled ‘that we perhaps wouldn’t have dared to do if there hadn’t been a whole gang [of travellers].⁹¹

Even if the traveller community was vital for getting to know people from other countries, touring around Europe also created a lot of sociable transactions with local residents. Of course, there were already decidedly ‘touristic’ places in the 1970s, but tourist – local resident interactions were quite novel in many other places.⁹² On many occasions in the stories of the 1970s and the 1980s, the curiosity between residents and young tourists seems to have been mutual and the experiences of hospitality and friendliness of local people are recurring themes in the Interrail stories: local people helping the tourists out, having conversations or extending hospitality by showing the Interrailers the best parts of their city or country.⁹³ Nostalgia may explain some part of this, but the perceived – and preserved – feeling of friendliness is more essential. Of course, there were negative memories, too, but they are clearly a small minority.

While the youth hostels helped interactions with other travellers, homestay accommodations, such as B&Bs and even more specifically, rented rooms, allowed Interrailers to see glimpses of the seemingly ordinary life of the hosts. Sometimes the travellers actually mixed with the locals, like the traveller who recalled her stay on the Greek island of Hydra: ‘I stayed at a family [accommodation] on a bed in a large room where everyone [of the host family] slept’.⁹⁴ Staying in others’ homes seems to be a particularly memorable experience:

[…] I got invited to homes as I travelled by myself. Therefore, I got friends from several countries and learned to know their families. […] I was fascinated how other people were living. […] To sit and get fed by two old Italian aunts who had magical old tales made me feel like I was in a film. The reality became almost a little surreal sometimes.⁹⁵

The lack of tourist infrastructure or traditions in tourism also affected the choices. The Swedish Cecilia recalls how they stayed at home accommodations in Greece, but at hotels and youth hostels in other countries. In the latter ‘the relationship became more professional’.⁹⁶ However, the line between professional tourist premises and family accommodation was subtle as the owners of family premises also transported their guests from the station to the accommodation or to see some sights.⁹⁷

In addition to interactions with acquaintances met on the journey itself, many encounters with locals were due to previously corresponding with foreign friends, being an au pair or visiting friends from previous – or the same – journeys.⁹⁸ This was also a way to get free accommodation at someone’s place, which was important for budget travellers. In this sense, Interrail served to strengthen the bonds of internationalization that was already going on among au pairs, students, migrant workers and ex-pats temporarily far from home.

According to the interviews, all the abovementioned encounters gave Interrailers more information about their peers’ Europe. The encounters are deemed ‘authentic’ European experiences and thus increase in importance whether they were authentic in an objectivist sense or not.⁹⁹ Furthermore, Europe and European countries, which seems to be an important level of distinction here, acquired human faces in the Interrailers’ memories. Maria, who travelled in the 1970s recalls these meetings: ‘It was not that I was collecting friends, but one felt that one had a closer connection to the country [in question]’.¹⁰⁰ Among most of the interviewees, one of the consequences of all social interactions seems to be a humanist and idealistic idea of a common humanity that is well expressed by a Finnish traveller from the early 1970s: ‘even if differences in character or spontaneity are visible, people are surprisingly similar in the end’.¹⁰¹

It is important to note that the encounters of the interviewees were experienced in a tourist ‘bubble’ of young travellers where actors were tourists and even locals were seen through the lens of the ‘tourist gaze’.¹⁰² Furthermore, Nordic Interrailers represented social groups, such as university students, for whom tourism was possible in the first place.¹⁰³ Still, even if these human faces of Europe created in the Interrailer community were greatly affected by the ‘tourist gaze’, they were existentially authentic for the travellers themselves and, perhaps as a consequence of such authenticity, seem to be lasting memories.¹⁰⁴

Of course, this mechanism of ‘giving a face to a country’ also led to stereotyping, essentialism, and, occasionally, to negative feelings towards some nations if the individual encounters were not pleasant.¹⁰⁵ Conversely, travellers were also encountered as common stereotypes. For example, Swedish female travellers experienced the ‘blonde Swedish girls’ stereotype on many occasions, some of which were quite unpleasant – at least in the 1970s and early 1980s.¹⁰⁶ However, even though it is important to acknowledge that negative feelings about encounters existed, they seem to have been a small minority and more confined to a particular situation, place or country, at least among the interviewees. Thus, the larger concept of ‘Europe’ was regarded positively and having fun with other youngsters in a European context was one of the most positive experiences, and later memories, for many travellers.¹⁰⁷

European meanings attached to Interrail Travel

The meanings that Finnish and Swedish interviewees attached to their Interrail trip decades after the journey are, quite naturally, diverse. Yet many of the themes, such as freedom, experiencing new places, meeting new people, getting to know Europe and European sentiments, are connected to the concept of Europe or Europeanism.¹⁰⁸ For instance, the experience of freedom associated with Interrail was also associated with the spatial experience of (Western) Europe, and this association was an important aspect of the informal integration that Interrail produced. Positive freedoms to travel, to meet other people and to decide for oneself were all manifested in the practices of Interrail travel – even in the formal framework of the Interrail ticket itself.¹⁰⁹ The freedom of movement was also one of the core freedoms of the EEC and later of the European Union.¹¹⁰

Freedom was essentially relative: there are a lot of stories of frequent border checks in the Interrail experiences of the 1970s and 1980s. Yet Finnish and Swedish travellers describe them as easy for them, which they attribute to their ‘reputable passports’ but also to being Interrail travellers. The young travellers remember that they were often given easy treatment in customs and at passport checks, if any were done at all. Of course, there were exceptions, especially on the Cold War borders.¹¹¹ But in general, it seems that young travellers became accustomed to easy travel and border crossings on their Interrail trips. Maria, who travelled in the latter half of 1970s, expresses her idea of the freedom of movement that is based on Interrail and compared it to the present day:

When we travelled there were no borders for us. That was something I have had with me [since then]. I think when people are talking about borders in Europe, my idea is ‘here we shall have no borders’. It [Interrail travelling] has affected me.¹¹²

Another integrative aspect that emerged after Interrail trips was the understanding of the importance of common European languages. The possible lack of language skills prevented travellers from having the desired more profound conversations with the people they met on their journeys.¹¹³ A Finn travelling in 1972 realized ‘how important it would be for us to speak the same language all over Europe’.¹¹⁴ These remembered ‘awakenings’ made people appreciate the teaching they were given in schools. Here, there is a slight difference between the Swedish and Finnish interviewees. Only three Swedes compared to eight Finns took up appreciation for language skills as an effect of their Interrail trip. This could be due to linguistic differences, Finnish language not belonging to the Indo-European language family and in order to be understood, Finns needed to learn foreign languages whereas Swedes could manage with Swedish in Norway and some in Denmark, at least to some extent. But even if there was no common language, people communicated with sign language and some common words, and were happy afterwards that they had succeeded in doing so.¹¹⁵

Besides language skills, the travellers also recalled other European aspects of Interrail trips. For instance, Hans found his Interrail trips as a way to acquire ‘European general knowledge’, or in other words, European education.¹¹⁶ This way of seeing Interrail is closely related to the idea of the Grand Tour of earlier centuries. Other Interrailers reported that they became friends of Europe or became more interested in what Europe is all about.¹¹⁷ Kerstin said that she found her ‘inner European’ on her Interrail trips and contrasts this feeling with her later trips to Asia and Africa. ‘I don’t feel the same sense of belonging there’.¹¹⁸ This sense of European belonging was expressed by others as well. Due to his six Interrail trips, the Finnish Jukka described Europe as his ‘home’.¹¹⁹

For one Swedish traveller, reminiscing about Interrail trips brought up a nostalgic view on Europe in the past that consisted of ‘unique national states’.¹²⁰ Such statements suggest that this is no longer the case. The political integration that has proceeded seems to have simultaneously taken away some of the remembered exoticism of Europe. Some Interrailers also reported being happy to ‘see the Europe of the time’ referring to differences between countries that were felt to be greater than today and, for instance, from the Eastern Bloc.¹²¹ Yet, others, like the Swedish Alex below, felt that the differences of national states were, after all, minimal even in the 1970s, and Interrail was just a major factor in getting to know this Europe¹²²:

One had respect for Europe and thought that there were bigger differences than there actually were. As a consequence of people making these Interrail trips, I believe that many of my generation got a feeling of Europe being like Sweden, yet a little different.

Discussion

The Interrail ticket enhanced the old ideas of travelling in Europe by creating an easy travel procedure for young people and is remembered by travellers as bringing European people closer together and creating a lot of encounters. Sometimes these acquaintances were brief, sometimes people made real friends but the encounters mattered as they are remembered even after decades as examples of giving travellers new experiences of foreign people and showing how similar people fundamentally are. These experiences can be described as the sociable interactions of Karl Deutsch’s transactionalist theory by creating, but not being confined to, a sense of community and trust.¹²³ It is significant that these core elements of Deutsch’s theory were felt strongly by the interviewees decades after the actual travel experiences, even if the extent of these sentiments in a larger traveller population would merit more research. A factor creating such long-lasting memories might be the one month’s duration of a common Interrail experience, making it much longer than, for instance, a beach holiday of one week. These shared generational experiences and common travel practices of Interrail or Eurail ticket offers were the unifying factors for communities of travellers besides the travellers being young. Apart from meeting other travellers, Interrailers also met many local residents. Sometimes these local people were other travellers or tourist service providers but, on many occasions, just local youth curious to meet travellers. Thus, Interrail became indeed a shared European experience.¹²⁴

Interrail contributed to informal European integration by creating meaningful content for the concept of Europe for those Swedes and Finns before their countries joined the European Union. The youthful trip ‘to or within Europe’ is remembered as synonymous with freedom in many Swedish and Finnish reminiscences. All in all, the travellers’ reminiscences create a picture of Europe which was not monolithic, but varied according to the places visited and people met and which was defined by the travellers themselves. In general, it seems that Interrailers’ Europe consisted more of cities than rural areas as the former were more often visited and reminisced about. Still, it seems that the borders of Europe became blurred with the idea of ‘being on an Interrail trip’ in rather the same way as the Mediterranean destination became the undefined ‘South’ to which Finnish holidaymakers travelled in the 1996 study by Tom Selänniemi.¹²⁵

Leaving aside the question of European identity, the results of the interviews would also suggest that an Interrail trip and its encounters created many profoundly positive memories about Europe and its people for Interrail travellers, and in this sense, created informal integration. Of course, the actual events of European integration have shaped the memories and the effects of Interrail trips might not have been instant nor obvious at the time of travelling but having taken shape later in relation to other events in one’s life. Therefore, one should not oversimplify the causal factors, but interviewees generally had positive European experiences on their trips. This shows how travel became one element in ‘lived Europeanness’.¹²⁶

Moreover, whereas Europe and Europeanness were framed positively, the rare negative aspects were more attached to regional or country levels and in this sense, a nation-state seems to remain a significant level of distinction in the reminiscences. Yet sticking to the borders of national states would have led to one’s gaze being misdirected as the comparison of Swedish and Finnish interviews primarily revealed the regional differences between the two countries. The physical and perhaps even the mental distance to Europe from Southern Sweden was experienced very differently than in the more northern areas of Sweden, let alone in Finland. However, the emphasis should not be on differences but on similarities: Interrail for Finnish and Swedish Interrailers seems to have been quite a similar experience.

It would be interesting to conduct a study on those many non-travelling peers of the Interrail travellers. According to Kuhn’s study, ‘people who do not interact across borders develop sceptical attitudes towards further integration’.¹²⁷ Interrail was, of course, only one of the ways to gain experiences across European borders, but it is certainly an interesting thought that while many Interrailers warmed to ‘European sentiments’ those who could not travel might have done the exact opposite. In Kuhn’s terms, Interrailers could be described as the ‘small avant-garde’ of their generation. Still, the Interrail trips of Finnish and Swedish youngster seems to have created informal integration through the normalization of and ‘need’ to cross the European national states’ borders. In this way, Interrail fostered the importance of freedom of movement among young people by highlighting the significance of cross-border travel as a ‘way of life’ within youth travel culture. Finally, this study suggests that, under appropriate circumstances, travel can facilitate sociable interactions that leave lasting impressions on individuals’ thoughts and memories and create transnationally shared habits, thereby also improving the essential background conditions of integration, such as strengthening attachment to a common way of life and values, described by Deutsch’s transactional theory.¹²⁸

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ella ja Georg Ehrnroothin Säätiö; Koneen Säätiö; Pirkanmaan Rahasto.

Notes on contributors

Mikko Manka

Mikko Manka is a Doctoral Researcher at the Tampere University. In his PhD research, he is particularly interested in the history of tourism and the effects of tourism in the society. He holds a Master’s degree in history from the University of Tampere.

Notes

1. Interview with SWE1, male, 1973, October 17, 2021. The interviewees are cited and identified in this article by nationality, number, gender, the year(s) of their Interrail travel, and at the first mention, the date of the interview. SWE refers to the interviews with Swedes (in Swedish) and FIN to the interviews with Finns (in Finnish) made by the author.

2. Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors, 5.

3. Jobs, “Youth Mobility,” 160.

4. On communities of experience, see Kivimäki et al., “Lived Nation,” 14–15; Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 33–35.

5. Haapala, “Lived Historiography,” 30. About collective experiences, see also Kaiser, “Transnational Networks in European Governance,” 19–20.

6. C.f. Savolainen and Taavetti, “Muistitietotutkimus,” 15.

7. See Hytönen, ”Tutkija aikamatkustajana,” 301–2.

8. Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 13–14.

9. On different concepts in comparative history, see e.g. Cohen and O’Connor, “Introduction,” ix – xxiv.

10. Finland was an associate member of EFTA 1961–86 before joining as a full member. See Paavonen, Vapaakauppaintegraation kausi.

11. The age limit was 21 years at first, but later rosed to 23 (in 1976) and finally to 26 (in 1979) in the study period.

12. On the countries involved and popularity, see Manka, “Interrail Youth Travel,” 222–8. Disputes among railway companies, the Yugoslav Wars and the reform of the Interrail system also affected the popularity of the ticket offer.

13. Murray, “Uses and Abuses of the Concept of Integration,” 241.

14. C.f. Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 1–14.

15. Roos and van Heumen, “Introduction,” 9.

16. C.f. Roos and Neuhold, “Studying the Informal in European Integration,” 28.

17. Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 46. On the original concept, see Deutsch et al., “The Political Community,” 68–86.

18. Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 145–6.

19. Ibid., 124–6. However, Kuhn stresses that the interactions should be framed in a European frame of reference in order to increase support for integration.

20. See Jobs, “Youth Mobility,” 159–60. On cultural diplomacy of the Soviet Union, see Koivunen, Performing Peace and Friendship. On the debate on contact theory and the effects of tourism on international understanding, see Bechmann Pedersen, “A Passport to Peace,” 392–9.

21. Sternberg, The Struggle for EU Legitimacy, 78.

22. See e.g. Paavonen, Vapaakauppaintegraation kausi; Stålvant, “Neutrality and European Integration,” 425–6.

23. See Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 6–8, 46–8; Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors, 247.

24. Roos and van Heumen, “Introduction,” 5.

25. Roos and Neuhold, “Studying the Informal in European Integration,” 21; Middlemas, Orchestrating Europe; Roos and van Heumen, “Introduction,” 3–19; See also Stacey, Integrating Europe; Kaiser, “Transnational Networks in European Governance,” 12–33; Badenoch and Fickers, Materializing Europe.

26. Patel, “Provincialising European Union,” 649–73.

27. SNCF Direction commercial marketing, “Études De Marché. 15.1.1974,” NSB Interrail Collection; On the relation of formal and informal, see Roos and van Heumen, “Introduction,” 10.

28. All the interviewees freely signed a written consent form. The interview material contains no sensitive personal information or identifiable personal data. The group of potential interviewees was limited by requiring that the interviewees should be in possession of some photographic material to help in the reminiscence process. Of this group of 40 travellers, only four did not have any photographs present in the interview situation.

29. It should be noted that the share of female travellers was actually quite high in both countries. In Finland, for instance, female travellers made up a half of all travellers in 1972 and two-thirds already in 1986. Jauhiainen, Suomalaisten interrailmatkailu, 21; SNCF Direction commercial marketing, ”Études De Marché. 15.1.1974,” NSB Interrail Collection.

30. C.f. Pöysä, Lähiluvun tieto.

31. The Finnish interviews cover the period 1972–1991, the Swedish interviews 1972–1993. The average duration of the Finnish interviews was 85 minutes and of the Swedish interviews 72 minutes.

32. On the effect of the temporal interview situation on the interview, see e.g. Abrams, Oral History Theory, 78–105; On the effect of interviewer-interviewee relations, see e.g. Yow, Recording Oral History, 185–207.

33. Abrams, Oral History Theory, 86–90.

34. Yow, Recording Oral History, 87.

35. Ibid., 57.

36. Vehkalahti and Jouhki, ”Lapsuuden ja nuoruuden historian näkökulmia,” 366–7.

37. Helgren, ‘A “Very Innocent Time,”’ 68–69; See also Boym, “From Nostalgia,” 452–7.

38. SWE5, female, 1976 & 1979, October 20, 2021. Italics by the author.

39. See FIN1, female, four trips in 1972–78, November 11, 2016; FIN2, female, 1980 & 1985, February 22, 2017; and about marketing material and guidebooks e.g. Helsingin Sanomat, An advertisement of Valtionrautatiet, Junaile itsesi Eurooppaan, March 26, 1977; Haavisto, Inter-Rail-Opas.

40. FIN14, male, 1977 & 1979, March 17, 2017.

41. e.g. FIN9, female, 1982, March 9, 2016; SWE1, male, 1973.

42. UNWTO Tourism Dashboard, Accessed November 2, 2022. https://www.unwto.org/tourism-data/global-and-regional-tourism-performance; World Tourism Organization, World Tourism 1979–1980.

43. C.f. Walters, “Europe’s Borders,” 485–505.

44. For example, the Eastern Bloc countries such as Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia were visited by Interrailers. See e.g. FIN7, female, 1989, March 3, 2017; FIN17, female, 1986, 1989 and 1990, May 30, 2017.

45. See e.g. FIN14, male, 1977 & 1979; SWE1, male, 1973. The European part of Turkey joined the Interrail system only in 1985 and the rest of Turkey in 1989.

46. e.g. SWE4, female, 1976–78, October 20, 2021; FIN6, male, six trips between 1982–89, March 1, 2017; FIN17, female, 1986, 1989 and 1990; SWE13, male, six trips between 1974–82, October 25, 2021. C.f. Outhwaite, “Europe Beyond East and West,” 55–6, and Walters, “Europe’s Borders,” 489.

47. e.g. SWE16, male, four trips between 1977–84, October 26, 2021; FIN19, male, 1972, May 11, 1972; FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

48. Schrama et al. “Going Nordic,” 66. The treaty was originally signed by Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland in 1952. This was also mentioned as a factor by SWE7, four trips between 1973–78, October 21, 2021.

49. See Weckstrom, Representations of Finnishness in Sweden, 18.

50. Jauhiainen, Suomalaisten interrailmatkailu, 34–7; SNCF Direction commercial marketing, “Études De Marché. 15.1.1974,” NSB Interrail Collection. See also FIN12, 1985, “It did not occur to me that one would hang around the Nordic countries [on an Interrail].”

51. See e.g. SWE6, female, 1982–83, October 21, 2021; SWE1, male, 1973; SWE3, female, 1976, October 19, 2021; FIN12, female, 1985, March 17, 2017. In the case of Sweden, visiting other Nordic countries normally meant Denmark and Norway. For Finnish travellers, Sweden was the most visited Nordic country.

52. SWE13, male, six trips between 1974–82. Similar experiences were recounted by FIN3, male, 1984, February 23, 2017, and FIN8, female, four trips between 1981–87, March 4, 2017.

53. Hastrup, “Nordboerne Og De Andre,” 230–1.

54. SWE14, female, three trips 1986–89, October 25, 2021. Italics by the author. Also SWE4, female, 1976–78; SWE5, female, 1976 & 1979. On restorative nostalgia, see Boym, “From Nostalgia,” 453–7.

55. FIN19, male, 1972. See also FIN10, female, 1972; FIN1, female, four trips 1972–78. C.f. Paavonen, Vapaakauppaintegraation kausi, 37–42.

56. SWE16, male, four trips 1977–84, recounts his experiences of meeting Danes on Interrail and speaking a mixture of Swedish-Danish whereas his children “spoke English from the beginning”.

57. SWE10, female, 1977 & 1980, October 24, 2021. Also SWE11, female, 1980 & 1984, October 24, 2021, describes the importance of the linguistic community.

58. FIN1, female, four trips, 1972–78. The Pohjola-Norden referred to here is a Finnish association (est. 1924) to promote Nordic co-operation. There are ‘Norden’ associations in every Nordic country.

59. e.g. SWE1, male, 1973; SWE9, female, 1991–92; SWE15, female, 1979 & 1984, October 26, 2021.

60. SWE15, female, 1979 & 1984.

61. SWE15, female, 1979 & 1984; SWE2, female, 1979 & 1983, October 18, 2021: “Europe was the place one travelled to on holiday. Scandinavia was my own pond, so to say. That was it. Europe and Italy and Spain, they were still exotic.” Italics by the author.

62. SWE19, female, 1991, October 28, 2021; Also FIN17, female, 1986, 1989–90.

63. e.g. SWE14, female, 1986, 1988–89.

64. SWE20, female, 1993, October 18, 2021; SWE4, female, 1976–78.

65. FIN4, female, 1988, February 24, 2017.

66. e.g. SWE19, female, 1991, mentions being far from Southern Sweden living in Sundsvall.

67. SWE18, male, 1972, 1974 & 1980, October 27, 2021; c.f. FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

68. SWE13, male, six trips, 1974–1982.

69. SWE13, six trips, 1974–1982.

70. e.g. SWE5, female 1976, & 1979; FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

71. Jauhiainen, Suomalaisten interrailmatkailu, 43.

72. Grundström, “Interreilaus on modernia,” 114–117.

73. See e.g. FIN4, female & FIN5, male, 1989, February 24, 2017; SWE15, female & SWE16, male, 1979; FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

74. SWE7, female, four trips 1973–78; On liminoid mode, see Selänniemi, “On Holiday,” 21–8.

75. C.f. Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors, 5; Haldrup and Larsen, “Material Cultures of Tourism,” 279–80.

76. Jauhiainen, Suomalaisten interrailmatkailu, 34–36. C.f. Jobs, “Youth Mobility,” 160.

77. SWE6, female, 1982–83. ‘Down to Europe’ also reveals a common perspective of Europe of the Nordic travellers.

78. SWE10, female, 1977 & 1980. Similar occurrences were also mentioned by SWE7, female, four trips between 1973–78 and FIN12, female, 1985.

79. SWE15, female, 1979 & 1984. The importance of coupés is also highlighted in the reminiscences of SWE11, female, 1980 & 1984; SWE12, female, 1990, October 24, 2021; SWE13, six trips 1974–82; FIN8, female, four trips 1981–1987.

80. e.g. SWE11, female, 1980 & 1984; SWE12, female, 1990; FIN10, female, 1972, March 13, 2017; FIN19, male, 1972.

81. Jobs, “Youth Mobility,” 146–9.

82. SWE14, female, three trips, 1986–89.

83. SWE7, female, four trips between 1973–78; also FIN6, male, six trips 1982–89 talks about the mutual help in youth hostels.

84. SWE5, female, 1976 & 1979. Similar experiences, also FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78; SWE18; male, 1972, 1974 & 1980; SWE7, female, four trips 1973–7; SWE15, female 1979 & 1984; FIN6, male, six trips between 1982–89; FIN3, male, 1983; SWE9, female, 1991–92, October 22, 2021.

85. SWE7, female, four trips 1973–78. Also FIN1, female, four trips 1972–78; SWE12, female, 1990; SWE4, female 1976–78. More about travellers from overseas, see Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors, 159.

86. SWE14, female, 1986, 1988 & 1989.

87. SWE15, female, 1978 & 1984. See also SWE12, female, 1990.

88. FIN17, female 1986, 1989 & 1990.

89. These kinds of shared travel activities were described in most of the interviews. e.g. SWE7, female, four trips 1973–78; SWE8, male, 1976 & 1979, October 22, 2021; SWE6, female, 1982–83; FIN1, four trips 1972–78; FIN9, female, 1982; FIN18, female, 1972.

90. SWE8, male 1976 & 1979.

91. SWE6, female, 1982–83; SWE17, female, 1974 & 1981, October 26, 2021; also FIN3, male 1983; FIN6, male, four trips 1982–89.

92. The discussions about the negative effects of tourism had already started in the 1960s. See Koens et al., “Is Overtourism Overused?” 2.

93. See. e.g. FIN18, female, 1972; FIN1, female, six trips 1972–78; FIN4, female, 1988–89; FIN5, male, 1989; FIN6, male, six trips, 1982–89; SWE3, female, 1976; SWE5, female, 1976 & 1979; SWE9, female, 1991–92.

94. SWE5, female, 1976 & 1979.

95. SWE2, female, 1979 & 1982.

96. SWE10, female, 1977 & 1980. However, the travellers also befriended and had conversations with employees in more commercial premises. See e.g. SWE3, female, 1976.

97. See e.g. SWE5, female 1976 & 1979.

98. See e.g. SWE2, female 1979 & 1982; FIN1, female, four trips 1972–78; SWE4, female, 1976–78; SWE11, female, 1980 & 1984; FIN6, male, six trips 1982–89.

99. C.f. Wang, “Rethinking Authenticity,” 352.

100. SWE4, female, 1976–78.

101. FIN18, female, 1972; FIN13, female, 1982; See also FIN8, female, four trips between 1981–1987; FIN20, female, 1972; FIN13, female, 1981.

102. Urry, The Tourist Gaze.

103. Jauhiainen, Suomalaisten interrailmatkailu, 20.

104. C.f. Wang, “Rethinking Authenticity,” 358–65.

105. e.g. FIN4, female, 1989; SWE12, female, 1990.

106. e.g. SWE2, female, 1979 & 1982; SWE4, female, 1976–78; SWE6, female, 1982–83. The ‘blonde girls’ stereotype was experienced by Finnish travellers, too. See e.g. FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

107. On positive accounts, e.g. SWE3, female, 1976; SWE7, female, four trips between 1973–78; FIN1, female, four trips between 1972–78.

108. Excluding the very personal category of learning that one can ‘get along’ as a result of such a trip.

109. C.f. Grundström, “Interreilaus on modernia,” 114. Grundström talks about illusory freedom in the sense that it was limited by the framework of Interrail rules.

110. See e.g. SWE2, female, 1979 & 1982; SWE4, female, 1976–78; Marcoux, “The Concept of Fundamental Rights,” 673–5; See also European Union, “Charter of Fundamental Rights,” 19.

111. e.g., about border checks in Hungary SWE1, male, 1973 and FIN4, female, 1988–89; about East Berlin SWE2, female, 1979 & 1982 and SWE18, male, 1972.

112. SWE4, female, 1976–78.

113. See e.g. FIN4, female, 1988–89; FIN5, male, 1989.

114. FIN10, female, 1972.

115. SWE6, female, 1982–83.

116. SWE13, male, six trips 1974–82.

117. e.g. SWE18, male, 1972, 1974 & 1980; FIN9, female, 1982. On the Grand Tour, see e.g. Towner, “The Grand Tour,” 297–333.

118. SWE11, female 1980 & 1984. About belonging see e.g. Antonsich, “Searching for Belonging,” 644–59.

119. FIN6, male, 1982. See also SWE18, male 1972, 1974 & 1980.

120. SWE7, female, four trips 1973–78.

121. e.g. FIN12, female, 1985; FIN11, female, 1989.

122. SWE18, male 1972, 1974 & 1980.

123. Deutsch et al., “The Political Community,” 68–86.

124. C.f. Haapala, “Lived Historiography,” 30.

125. Selänniemi, Matka ikuiseen kesään, 268.

126. C.f. Kivimäki, Suodenjoki and Vahtikari, “Lived Nation,” 15–16.

127. Kuhn, Experiencing European Integration, 142.

128. Deutsch et al., “The Political Community,” 79–84.