Okay, so today I'm going to talk about how to travel Europe on a budget! I find that most people think it is incredibly expensive to do, when in reality it can be incredibly cheap! It all depends on where you go, where you stay, what you eat and what you do! I have been to Europe three times now and it has and always will have a massive place in my heart! Every country is so different from the other, not only with different languages but also cultures, food, architecture, climate, people, everything. It's like another world when you head to the next game on your itinerary! Now I will say I'm just an average person, I don't make a ton of money, I don't get money from mom and dad for travels, and I don't take out lines of credit to travel. So what do I do, SAVE! Save all your money! If you truly want something you will do everything in you power to do it!
Save that money! My first trip to Europe was in 2015, it was my first solo trip and I did a month of traveling! I was living on my own and had to cover all my expenses while I would be away, including rent, car payment, phone bill, car insurance, pretty much all the fun adult things in life. This made it so I had to save quite a bit more, but I still did it! While traveling I stayed in hostels, for those of you who have never traveled much or those of you that relate the word "hostel" to the awfully scary movie, let me tell you, hostels are not like that! You can find multiple hostels on every street all over the world, they are such a great and cheap alternative for those traveling on a budget! On average I would spend $10-$25 a night for a bed in a dorm. For an entire month that's $300-$650! WHAT! Sign me up! I always book a bed in a dorm because...
A. It's cheaper than a private room and
B. It's the best way to meet new people
You're pretty much forced to step out of your comfort zone and meet people, it's the best part of traveling! In terms of food, I would usually allow myself one meal out a day and I would eat small snack the rest of the time, of course I would sometimes treat myself and eat out more than once. This was my first trip solo and I worked a lot to save so I wanted to really go all out, so I treated myself. Depending on what country you're in, food prices vary, I would usually eat at a small, local place, not nice fancy ones, again budget traveling! I would usually spend about $15-$20 per day on meals! And if I went out drinking with people sometimes that would fluctuate depending on if we bought a bottle of alcohol and split it or if we were buying drinks at a bar or club.
Now for transportation, oh boy. I decided to buy a Eurail pass, which non European citizens are able to buy in order to travel by train throughout Europe. There are multiple passes that you can get through them.
- You can get a one country pass. You pick the country and there are usually a few options for how many days of travel you will be doing, not how many days you'll be in the country, but how many days you will be using trains in the country. If you're traveling in just one country this could be a good deal. But definitely research trains on their own and try to make a budget and see how you want to go about your transportation costs.
- You can by a multiple country pass. This pass allows you to pick up to four countries I believe and you can travel throughout all these countries with your pass. They also have a few options for how many days you'll be using the trains as well. Again, do some research on train prices for where you are going, it could be a good deal or train tickets by themselves may be cheaper.
- The last option, which is the option I went with is the Global pass, this pass allows you to travel through nearly every country in Europe. Again this one has a few options for length of time to use your pass. I chose the 30 day option. It cost me $700. WOW! I know, expensive.
Now I do have to say that with any of the Eurail passes you can only take the slow trains, you can't take any trains that require a reservation otherwise you have to pay extra. Not knowing this I ended up paying around $100 extra dollars for a few different trips that I wasn't able to spend 12 hours traveling by train on. At the end of my month long trip I did the math on how much each of my trains would have cost me and it was a lot less than $700, therefore like I said do your research on how much trains will cost, for me the Eurail pass was not the best. And it was rather expensive!
Of course since this was my first trip I had to buy some souvenirs for myself, my family and my friends! I think I spent about $100-$200 on souvenirs at the most! You can't really bring much back when you only have a backpack!
One of the main things that I spent my money on, besides food, was activities. Whether it was a tour bus through a city, a bar crawl, museum entrance fees, renting ATV's, or booking a tour to a volcano, I was signing up for it. Again depending on the country and your haggling skills, the price of activities varies! I think I spent about $1000 on all my activities for the month.
Now for the flight, probably the most expensive thing when going overseas is your flight! I use Sky Scanner when purchasing most of my flights, you can set alerts for flights and it will email you when the price changes, super convenient! I bought a round trip flight from the west coast of The states to Switzerland for $800. Which quite frankly is rather cheap! So search those flights and set those alerts!
Throughout this trip I of course had a few unexpected expenses, missed ferries and having to buy new tickets, buying another backpack, buying medicine from getting sick(almost everyone gets sick on a backpacking trip), altogether I spent another $100-$150 on unexpected things. Altogether my first Europe trip was about $4,500. I saved nearly everything I made for eight months in order to go. This number doesn't include the money I saved for my adult expenses while I was gone, with that included it was about $6,000.
Now I must say I didn't travel super on the cheap this trip, I treated myself a lot more often and I don't think I ever cooked a meal for myself either. There are plenty of things you could do to travel much cheaper than this one, cook some of your meals, camp instead of stay in hostels or volunteer in hostels in exchange for a bed and a meal!
Budget breakdown:
Hostel: $10-$30 a night $300-600 total
Food: $15-20 a day $350-600 total
Souvenirs: $100-200
Activities:$1000
Unexpected expenses: $100-$150
Transportation: $800
Flight: $800
Adult expenses: $1,500
Total: around $5,650
Countries visited: Switzerland, France, Monaco, Italy, Greece, Germany, Holland
So many things to see in Europe. What a great experience!
There really is so much to see! It's always an incredible experience when I'm there!
Your pictures are beautiful. My wife and I want to see all of Europe. I'll be sure to save enough ahead of time. We might have to travel a little cheaper than you, since there's two of us. Thanks for the great tips!
Europe is incredible! Definitely travel slowly and it's it's usually cheaper that way! This was my first trip so it wasn't too cheap! I'll do another post of truly cheap European travel in a few days! I hope you enjoy Europe as much as I do!
Thank you so much @meiguoarenbroad for sharing the experiences; it was almost the same to what I did when I was studying in Europe. Hostel is always in the priority option. Car-share also another good way of less expense with the traveling. Taking night train or night bus, saving expense one night in hostel. I don't like taking the plan in Europe, since it will take half a day already just for transfer in/out. ;)
Ya so true! This trip I wasn't traveling too budget friendly, I'll be posting another one about super cheap European travel in a few days! I have found some super cheap flight before through Ryan air which is super confirming, just have to pay to check your bags, but $20 flights are worth it! Bus travel is the cheapest for Europe though, agree there, just not the most comfortable! ;)
Great post!! I am one of those people who stayed away from Europe because I thought it was expensive. $700 for a month of rail travel seems expensive... On the other hand, it's cheap considering the freedom you have to travel all across Europe and see multiple countries. Gorgeous photos by the way.
Ya, I would say that rail pass was one of the bigger mistakes, but you live and you learn! I've found trains for $10-$30 all time now, it's really quite cheap! And thank you! Europe is a beautiful place!
I also just realized this was you Jordan!