For something like this to catch on, especially with young people, there should be fun (or funny) phrases along with useful ones:

- "Mia ŝvebŝipo estas plena de angiloj!"

I have an old book by Mario Pei, Talking your Way Around the World. It has a chapter on Esperanto with soe stock phrases usable while traveling presuming you encounter an Esperantist. Some are plug-in phrases like 'Bonvolu porti al mi X (kafon, teon, unu bieron, etc.) He doesn't go into the grammar extensively and the phrases are shown in Esperanto and then spelled out 'phonetically' (KAH-foh, TEH-oh)

I also found a few online phrase collections for travelers in several languages. Would the Backpackers Esperanto Phrasebook be for English speakers, or would it be translated into several languages?

Well, maybe it would be possible to have somebody mock up a flyer/brochure for Esperanto that gives the history a basic lesson and contact information for us all to look at. Then we could just print it off from lernu, fold it up or whatever, and leave the copies in hostels or other places that language lovers might frequent.