One of the joys of reading travel blogs is that you find little word of mouth discoveries about well-known places that can lift your visit from a generic tourist trail to a unique and individual experience.

STA Explorers Meg and Mojo have given just such an insight into Rome, the fifth destination on their European interrailing romp. Having wandered around the Pantheon, the girls spot a precipice in a piazza, which on further inspection reveals

a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.

They then follow a strange trail of cats to an out-of-the way cat sanctuary, where they befriend the American volunteer who runs the place and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the kittens and injured strays. The discoveries continue as they root out a ‘nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant’ with a charming waiter, who brings them an old-school Roman 3-course feast for €10, with free sweet watermelon thrown in.

But the girls haven’t only been having quirky adventures in Rome. In Madrid they found a gay circus and drag queens galore and in Milan they stumbled into a photoshoot for Italia’s Next Top Model, as well as making friends with a young artist painting in the Prado.

Visit their blog to ask questions for your own trip or give recommendations for the perfect off-the-beaten-track European experiences.

STA Explorers Meg and Mojo have hit their first destination Madrid, and their series of blog posts about their four days spent in the city is an absolute must-read for anyone thinking of interrailing around Europe. With detailed descriptions of their experiences and discoveries each day, Epic Interrailing Romp contains a host of tips and insights into the hostels they stayed at, the places they ate and the attractions they rate, such as the Prado and Botanic Gardens.

Fellow interrailers will find their advice on navigating the local ‘fabulous, sleek and modern’ train services invaluable, such as this little nugget:

It’s definitely advisable to book your tickets on arrival in the train station, or if like us you don’t arrive by train then make an excursion there a day or two before you want to depart. You never know if the train will have space, if you will need to wait a long time, or if you will simply be unable to find where you need to go. And the best advice is if you are ever in doubt, ask someone.

It’s great that they’re finding time to blog such useful tips, what with their ‘drag-queen and jack daniels infused’ evenings (!) - so make the most of it and follow their blog.

iPod, youPod, we all Pod - especially when we’re on the road. Music was made for travelling. It can lull you to sleep on a longhaul flight, pep you up after days in the car, and turn train journeys into filmic adventures. I swear by Scott Walker, Jimi Hendrix and Air as my staple mobile minstrels.

STA Explorers Meg and Mojo have been giving their playlist plenty of thought in the run up to their European interrailing trip. When you’re spending so much time on a train, the right tunes can transform a drag into a delicious drama, as Meg explains:

There’s something so right about rolling down the road in a bus, or gliding along in a train, or even walking along on your own two feet that complements the beat of your favourite songs.

As such, they’ve each put a cute mixtape widget on their sidebar, courtesy of My Flash Fetish, to share top trip tracks. It’s a great idea and they’ve already got other interrailers commenting on the post, so jump over and nominate your own travelling sounds. I’m also a big fan of Muxtape - why not make a compilation for your own journey and send us the link so we can share some aural inspiration? As those jaunty Swedes say, thank you for the music, people.

Lots of travellers online like to talk about the exciting part of their trip - the champagne drinking on Carribbean yachts, the lion cub-cuddling on safari - but, to be honest, the most useful conversations are about the boring bit. Planning, booking and accommodation ain’t fun - but they’re what we most want advice on, so we can actually have the bleeding fun in the first place.

So big bouncy love to STA Explorers Meg and Mojo for the latest post on their Epic Interrail Romp blog, which outlines their preparations for interrailing across Europe such as booking tickets, flights and hostels. In particular, they describe which hostels they have chosen and why, give their list of benefits of booking a place in advance, and give more general tips for how to save money and hassle when thinking about accommodation.

The girls are on a budget so they’ve sourced some great cheap places - but they also want to ’shake it up a bit’ so they’re looking at a wide selection of digs with different atmospheres: ‘basic hostels, home-run places, budget hotels and a friend’s house’.

Read their advice and do add a comment with any questions or suggestions of your own.

We’ve nominated Meg and Mojo to be our latest STA Explorers because, despite not setting off on their Epic Interrail Romp around Europe until July, their blog is already witty, quirky and clued-up on all the potential pleasures and pitfalls of travelling on a budget with your best mate. As they put it themselves:

Armed only with an Interrail pass, a backpack, a large roll-along suitcase and a detailed itinerary, these arresting youths will seek out culture, history and entertainment, and attempt to experience it all on a minute budget.

We reckon that, as they travel from London to Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Florence, Rome, Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Amsterdam (check out Mojo’s amazing home-drawn route map), their triumphs, trials and tips will be an excellent resource for anyone looking to explore the continent without breaking the bank.

They’ll be posting content across social media (Flickr, YouTube, Twitter etc) once the trip starts in July, but we’d like to introduce them now as their blog already tells the funny, fesity tale of Meg and Mojo preparing for their journey - their booking and budgeting, Meg’s inspiration for blogging, and their thoughts about protecting friendships on the road.

They’re eager for STA travelbuzz readers to get involved, commenting and contributing as they go. On which note, Mojo latest post describes a change of plans as the girls have read bad reviews about their vermin-ridden Amsterdam hostel - so let them know if you can recommend anywhere cheap but clean!