Has anyone here had a truly CHEAP trip to Europe?

[EuroVeeDub]

Every once in a while I go to the bookstore and browse the European travel books...dreaming of taking a trip with my wife. The best books seem to be the Rick Steves books, he has several books out now and they all seem to be based on a very realistic travel bugets. I belive the name of one book in particular is "Europe through the back door", Im not too sure on the title. Anyway, in that book he claims it is possible to travel in Europe (excluding the cost for a Eurorail pass) for as little as $20 a day. Of course this envolves camping out or sleeping in super cheap hostels and eating at local markets instead of resturaunts. I'm just wondering if anyone here has actually done a trip like that...a trip that cost very little?

Any advice or comments are more than welcome, I'd love to hear of your experiances traveling in Europe

[Lwize]

My brother and I did two weeks in Italy 10 years ago on the cheap. We stayed in youth hostels which were around $10/night at the time, and travelled by train mostly (we did have a rental car for 4 days to drive from Zurich through the alps into the northern Italian lake district).

Food costs were low -- bread & jam for breakfast, pizza or sandwich for lunch, and excellent inexpensive dinners at the hostels. Although we paid for dinner at the hostels, some let you cook your own meals in their kitchen to save more money (they provide the cookware). We did splurge a couple of times on dinners ($120 at one restaurant in Venice).

Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door is a fine guide and PBS series. Check out http://www.ricksteves.com.

[EuroVeeDub]

Quote, originally posted by Lwize »

Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door is a fine guide and PBS series. Check out http://www.ricksteves.com.

Definetly agree, I watch it every Saturday

[Elliot]

we spent 5 weeks railing aroudn europe after college, and although our goal was $60/day (including everything but our eurail pass), we could easily have done it on $40/day, and not-so-easily done it on $25-30.

Fact: you absolutely cannot survive happily in northern Europe or the UK on $25-30/day. Even the hostels cost that much in many of the big cities.

Fact: Spain, Portugal, and small-town Italy are dirt cheap. Hostels run $8-15/night, and private or semi-private rooms run $15-25/night.

Fact: restaurants are expensive ways to eat. Stock up with fresh fruit, bread, cheese, etc at the local market and feed yourself for $10/day.

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Ok, here's my suggestion. It is possible to travel on $25/day in most of Europe, but it won't be very fun unless you really like sleeping in noisy dorm style hostels and eating grocery store food...not to mention missing a bunch of museums & other attractions that charge $5-10 admission. I think a much safer thing to do is budget for $40-50/day and go from there. If you can cut corners, that's great. If not, you'll know you aren't breaking the bank by spending $40-50. Remember, in many places you'll have to pay just to use the toilet....

[Beleidigungmaschine]

Well... I spent 2 weeks in Paris (december 31 to january 15, 2002) and it cost me about 2000 $CAN... including the 800$ airplane ticket... We had rent a room in Montmartre (you know, Amelie Poulain's place ) which was 500$ per week (I was with my gf so it was half that per week).

Also went to see the castles of the Loire during 3 days. We had a mercedes A class for rent.

All in all, very cheap trip for that periode and it was really nice

[TravelnBill]

Quote, originally posted by bigelliot »

we spent 5 weeks railing aroudn europe after college, and although our goal was $60/day (including everything but our eurail pass), we could easily have done it on $40/day, and not-so-easily done it on $25-30.

bigelliot,

I don't know how long ago it has been since you did your trip. If it has been more than a couple of years, there are a couple of recent developments to consider.

First, the US Dollar is really weak right now. The Euro has appreciated more than 25% over the last two years.

Second, since the arrival of the Euro in Jan 2002, a lot of the formerly cheap places have experienced some significant inflation.

So if you are basing your prices on what you paid in 2001 or earlier, you probably need to add somewhere between 25% and 50% to your prices to arrive at the current prices.

Quote »

Fact: you absolutely cannot survive happily in northern Europe or the UK on $25-30/day. Even the hostels cost that much in many of the big cities.

Agreed. Especially England. Everything seems expensive there.

Quote »

Fact: Spain, Portugal, and small-town Italy are dirt cheap. Hostels run $8-15/night, and private or semi-private rooms run $15-25/night.

Unfortunately, Spain has had some of the worst inflation in the Euro zone. Germany also. Italy hasn't been quite as bad, but still relatively high.

Quote »

Fact: restaurants are expensive ways to eat. Stock up with fresh fruit, bread, cheese, etc at the local market and feed yourself for $10/day.

Again, I agree that restaurants are expensive. But I also find that to be a very enjoyable part of the experience. I just accept it and plan it in my budget.

[TravelnBill]

Quote, originally posted by EuroVeeDub »

Every once in a while I go to the bookstore and browse the European travel books...dreaming of taking a trip with my wife. <<snip>> Anyway, in that book he claims it is possible to travel in Europe (excluding the cost for a Eurorail pass) for as little as $20 a day. Of course this envolves camping out or sleeping in super cheap hostels and eating at local markets instead of resturaunts. I'm just wondering if anyone here has actually done a trip like that...a trip that cost very little?

These days, I would say that trying to do it on $20 / day including lodging would be almost impossible, except in the absolute poorest areas. You might be able to get by in some of the former Eastern block countries, but not much else. Forget about any kind of entertainment on that budget.

For relatively short trips I think that it is better not to try to go too cheap if you are planning to see major cities. For a trip of two weeks or less, my recommendation would be to plan at least $150 / day for a couple including lodging (not counting rail passes & airfare). This should give you a comfortable budget to travel in most European cities.

This kind of budget would usually allow you to stay inside the cities and avoid wasting time on trains trying to get to the places you want to see. That usually means paying more money.

Yes, you could eat from markets or grocery stores. Personally, I think that going to resturants is a lot of fun. The people watching, new foods, and interaction is part of the entertainment. I wouldn't want to give that up.

The length of the trip has a lot to do with your average daily budget. With trips of several weeks, like bigelliot's 5 week trip, you have the flexibility to get off the beaten track a little more and stay some places longer. This can really cut your budget down.

When my wife and I did a 4 week trip in 2000, we budgeted $100 / day (without lodging). We came in under that budget, but at today's prices we probably would be pretty close.

[GeoffD]

I've been to Europe dozens of times for free. It's called a "business trip".

[Son]

Quote, originally posted by GeoffD »

I've been to Europe dozens of times for free. It's called a "business trip".

But have you managed to postpone your business trip's return flight to be able to have holidays like I did on my last week's trip to Spain? Two days of work and six of holidays. The allowance money actually even covered my personal hotel bill and the train ticket to Valencia and back. Yay!

[vdubjb]

I'm going to Ibiza for a week. I may be on welfare when I get back, lol.

[CasaDelShawn]

Hey, I got paid to live in Europe for a couple of years!
Guest of my Uncle Sam.
Even back then (early 14th century), we could travel very well on $100.00/day/person. We saw a lot of Germany, most of Holland and Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France, East Berlin (really dating myself now!), Czechoslovakia, Italy, Spain and Denmark. The key to traveling cheaply is to do it when you're young. That way, you can put up with a lot more crap...

[FowVay]

This may sound a bit crazy but I do have a good story to tell. I have met several German families through internet chat rooms and I have ultimately become very good friends with them.

I work for a airline so my airfare to Europe cost me no more than the landing fees which average $30 per trip. I flew to Stuttgart in early June and spent 9 nights in Germany. I stayed with one of the families that I met on the internet for free and they even fed me very well. I spent 4 days with them and we traveled throughout the Schwarzwald and I ate more schwalderkirsche torte and schwaben specialties than I care to recall. All of this was complimentary. They even took me to Baden Baden for a day of casino gambling in which I managed to keep my shirt.

They gave me full use of their old BMW 320 with which I used to travel to the Palatinate region where I stayed with another family that I met. They own a winery and therefore have a guest house that they let me use for free. I did pay to take their children to Holiday Park, which is a big amusement park, and that cost me 80 euros but that was absolutely my pleasure. Once again, they were very happy to feed me. I was actually a guest speaker at one of their english language classes and was offered a night of entertainment by the english teacher, who happened to be Russian. As you can imagine, it turned into a night to remember as I learned that Russian Vodka is much too strong for my tastes and the champagne (sparkling sekt, as I was taught) doesn't fair well in the back of a hot car. I even got to have a community dinner with the wine growers that was provided by a agricultural company.

I am completely amazed at the hospitality of these total strangers.

I returned to Nagold to spend my last night with the man that owns the car. We stayed up all night talking about world events, drinking wine and discussing the government. He was retired from the Arbeitsamt (unemployment office) so he was very interesting to listen to.

This whole trip for 9 days cost me: $30 for airfare, $85 for holiday park (4 people), $35 for some expensive gasoline, and less than $50 for snacks. That is $200 divided by 9 days,,, which equals $22.22 per day,, airfare included.

I cant wait to do it all again at the end of august. This time i'm going toward Austria to visit another group that I met several years ago on AOL. They're younger, drink much more, and are incredibly fun to go to the beer tents with. They even have a good friend that is a radio DJ and he is always making fun of my wife and myself while he's on the air.

[tjl]

Be aware that expenses can depend significantly by country, and what season you are traveling in.

For seasonal differences, you can check web sites for hotels, B&Bs, and other lodging in Europe; often, they will list different prices for different times of year. You'll then figure out when the more and less expensive times to travel in the area the hotel is in are.

[lushlush]

By no means am I a travel expert, but a very good resource that I know is Frommer's Budget Travel. I like them so much that I've subscribed their magazine. If you are doing research online, definitely check them out.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/bt-f...C208R

[sucking chest wound]

In May of 2001, my girlfriend and I flew to Frankfurt from NYC on Singapore Airlines (awesome airline!). Airfare during this time period was insanely cheap. We each paid about $350 roundtrip, including all fees and taxes. Wow! Booked the tickets through Expedia myself. Once at Frankfurt I picked up an Opel Vectra at the Avis desk that I had booked through AutoEurope. Total cost for 2 weeks was like $400 I think. We spent the next 11 days driving around Germany, Austria and Switzerland, more or less following Rick Steve's guidebook, which is highly recommended. The Romantic Road was especially nice and well worth the trip. We stayed at campgrounds, in a two person tent we brought. Generally the campgrounds cost us about $12-20 a night, total, for two people. If you do this it helps to have a "Camping Carnet" card. The only exception to this was when we spent two nights in Munich. We slept at a Best Western those nights for like $89 a night. We maybe spent $30 per person in food and beer per day, and we ate and drank very well. All in all we spent practically nothing on that trip and it was a fantastic time. Regarding campgrounds, we got very nice maps by writing to the travel desk at the embassies of the countries we visited. Germany, in particular, provided us with an excellent, comphensive fold-out map covering all of Germany and it's campgrounds. This map was invaluable. Once in a town with a campground (and MANY towns have them) it was easy to follow signs to the place, as they are well marked and camping is popular in Europe.


Modified by sucking chest wound at 6:37 PM 7-28-2003

[pipes]

My wife and I went to Paris March 31st 2003 for 9 days. We paid $2780ish for two ppl, airfare and hotel accomodations at a 4 star on Ave'd Wagram, a stone's throw from the Arc d' Triumph, and included shared taxi mini-bus service to/from airport. Hotel had breakfast thrown in with this charge.

We got rapped the first time converting to Euro, but found a better place to convert as he didn't charge us for the conversion

We bought nice bagette sandwiches with ham/chicken, cheese, egg, lettuce ($8 Euro) before heading out on the metro with water from the hotel taps (the water is not anywhere near as bad as Mexico). Ate lunch in very wonderful places each of the days, and had decent dinners, about $15-20 Euro (remember, the dinner costs have taxes and tip included, unlike the US).

Things to avoid for costs reasons:

1) Soda
2) Beer

Country Table wine (I forgot the french word for it) was $7 Euro for the liter (about the same size a bottle).

Some places charged us $4 Euro for one cup of coffee We didn't go back there again...

We splurged on everything, but you can honeymoon only once in Paris

[tjl]

Quote, originally posted by pipes »

We got rapped the first time converting to Euro, but found a better place to convert as he didn't charge us for the conversion

How were you converting to Euro?

ATMs often give good conversion rates. Just make sure that the bank issuing the ATM card does not charge huge fees to use the card in foreign countries.