Hey! I understand what you are going through because I recently came back from a study abroad year in France the same things on your mind were on mine back then ! First thing you need to ask yourself, and this is what I ended up asking myself is what countries do I really want to see and what do I really want to do? Also you need to ask yourself what kind of traveler are you: do you like musuems and art, recreational activities, sports, cultural, etc. You really need to sort out the things you really want to do and what you don't want to do so that this way you can start to figure out a budget and what you're willing to do with your money and not. Also, since you want to see cities in Denmark you need to decide what you want to see there and start pricing hotels, food, and the sites you want to see in that town. A warning about the 2 year youth hostel membership: I had one too, and it didn't mean anything to any of the hostels I went to so it may or may not help you, but to keep costs down, membership or no membership, staying at a hostel is your best bet, and to keep costs even lower, stay in a dorm, and the bigger the dorm, the lower the price is. Another warning, not all countries or cities have hostels nor are all of them equal-I learned this the hard way so depending where you travel, like France for example, they have hostels in France, but very few, there aren't that many and in my opinion not as good as the hostel experiences I had in other countries, so depending on where you travel you might have to swallow hard and accept the fact that you're going to have to book a budget hotel. In regards to traveling cheaply around Europe, your best bet is either by bus or by flying with a cheap airplane company. A lot of my friends use Ryan Air, which is a very cheap air company-a lot of Europeans and a lot of my fellow American friends used them. I think you can fly with them to Rome for example for like 45 euros or something like that, but you can only fly on certain days I think and they don't resolve flight delays very well. An aquaintance of mine had a very scary experience with Ryan Air in regards to a delay when returning from Rome back to France, so keep that in mind. If you're not into budget air travel like I am, you can do what I did and go by bus. The company that I highly recommend and that I used is eurolines.com (http://www.eurolines.com) and they are known all over Europe and you can get travel passes with them and also discount cards with them for very good prices. The only thing is though, depending on where you decide to travel it's going to take forever to get there sometimes and they leave on certain days and sometimes you will have a lot of crazy connections and they don't go to every city. You could also check to see when well known airlines are starting to have sales and the airline company in Denmark (I think they use ScanAir buty I'm sure there's another) and you could see if you could get cheap flights that way. If you're a student or at least under the age of 25, apply for an ISIC card and you can use this card to get discounts at musuems, attractions, etc all over the world. I know it was very helpful for me. I think the website is isic.com, and go on there and I think the card costs about 25 dollars. There's also one for non students as well that you can get.
As for countries to see; If you're on a budget, I'd stay away from the rest of Scandanavia and Western Europe, and possibly the UK; they're all very expensive in regards to everything, particularly Scandanavia, which is where you're going to be. I went to Oslo for a weekend trip, which I enjoyed immensily but the prices made me want to cry they were so horrible! If you want to really save, you could travel to countries in Easter Europe like Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, etc. or you could travel to Spain, Spain is very cheap even though it is in Western Europe as well as Portugal which is also cheap. There's also Croatia and the Baltics (the ones that are stable enough to visit) and I think Greece is pretty cheap as well. But, if any of these countries don't interest you, just select a few countries from the ones that I mentioned that are really expensive and plan your trips that way. France will probably be out since there aren't that many hostels, you'd have to stick with a hotel. Switzerland might be out too for the same reason, but if you go to like the Swiss German part you should be able to find hostels. Germany, you should be able to find hostels I think, Italy you can find hostels definately I know from experience, Norway yes, Sweden I believe so, Finland i believe so, England and any part of the UK definately, Netherlands of course, Belgium yes and no. And in all the areas in Europe that I mentioned that were cheap, there are definately hostels there too.
So start sorting out what you want to do and what you don't want to do, what you want to see what you don't want to see, etc and you should be okay. Oh, in regards to eating cheaply, to keep costs down either eat street food, sandwitches, get food at the supermarkets or markets that are preprapaired or get supplies to cook at the hostel (most hostels have kitchens and stuff to cook with including spices) or go to delies and bakeries and order some local cold cuts and cheese, pasteries and savory tartes, etc and eat on that. Also if you don't drink a whole lot of water start getting in the habit because it'll be cheaper for you to drink than other beverages especially since most sodas are not from Europe and stick to more local foods and ingrediants because they are cheaper. Other than that, good luck and enjoy yourself and have a great time!
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