Regardless of my assertions that I’m throwing caution to the wind and doing wtf I want with my money while on my vacation, I am, in fact, still budgeting and still watching every penny. At this point in my life, after so many years of careful penny-pinching, I couldn’t possibly just start throwing euros around even if I really, really wanted to.
Case in point: I’ve been looking for an olive green bag for the past 4 years. I need one that looks professional but is big enough to hold my things and also the right shade of green to watch my nice winter coat. I found it yesterday and it was 12E. Did I buy it? No. Because I can’t afford it right now and if I do I will stare at it and it will forever be The Bag That I Could Not Afford.
But I digress.
Here are some of my tips, in list form because everyone likes lists and it’s 11pm:
- Hostels, hostels, hostels. I cannot stress this enough. Obviously common sense should prevail and you might not want to stay in a hostel in… Mexico… but in Europe? There are SO many hostels and they are mostly clean. With all the options available (bunks, privates, semi-private), you will be able to find somewhere to rest your head for under 50E per night. My average so far is 19E per night (or about 600E per month) which is pretty good in my books!
- Pick a hostel that provides free wifi and free breakfast. The savings on breakfast alone could be huge since Europe likes to charge a million dollars for a tiny cup of coffee IN ADDITION to whatever you pay for your breakfast. If the breakfast is an open buffet, eat twice and eat a lot
- Take the bus. A train pass is restricts you to certain countries and costs hundreds of euros. A bus pass covers all of Europe and is 215E for a month
- Ride buses and trains overnight to save on accommodation costs. That 19E average? It should really be 17E because I took an overnight bus from Paris to Madrid which saved on a night’s hostel cost. No one takes the bus so you can literally curl up on the two seats and bunch your coat into a makeshift sweater on the window*
- Travel in the off-season. I arrived just as the Australians are headed home from their summer jaunts to Europe and the hostels are empty! The tourist attractions are still a bit crowded (although… compared to what I imagine the summer would be… Oi.) but cheaper.
- Take a red-eye plane to your destination, if possible. The difference in cost between my flight at 9pm and a flight at 9am? About $50. Plus I got a whole extra day in Paris and didn’t have to pay to sleep somewhere the night before!
- Depending on your language skills, pretend to be an EU resident to get discounts on museum tickets.
- Be flexible! There’s a reason that I left for Paris so abruptly — the ticket prices jumped $70-100 in the days that followed
- Be flexible 2.0! I really wanted to go to Morocco and Egypt but flights (and even bus tickets!) are extremely expensive so alas…
- Be flexible 3.0! I forgot to pack a towel and decided that, instead of renting one in each city that I visit, I would be better off to buy one in France’s Wal-Mart. So off I go to the store, lalala, and I see that they have these weird fleece mini-towels that were 2 for 3.50E. They don’t cover my body at all but they dry super fast and were cheap. Sold!
- Grocery stores are your friend — especially in the more expensive countries. I bought a bag of apples in Paris for 3E and I’ve still got a bunch left. I also bought a 0.50E baguette and a 3E microwave lunch thing and bam! dinner
Well that’s it! Maybe in this coming week I’ll have more tips for you but those are the basics right now, hahaha.
Total spent in week 1: $530.19 plus my flight. Remember though that Paris is a very expensive city. This is also about 15% less than what I spent on my last trip to Europe.
Now some photos!
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- This is my all time favourite landmark in the world
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- Obligatory Eiffel Tower picture
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- Replica of the Statue of Liberty flame aka The Princess Diana memorial (over the tunnel where she died)
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- L’arc from the Grande Arche (and the Champs d’Elysee)
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- Bones 19m below the streets. Go and read the Wikipedia description… *shudders*
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- Trippy
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- Obligatory Mona Lisa picture. Really creepy to see this btw
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- My Louvre album is subtitled “floors and doors” on FB for obvious reasons
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- If you look carefully, you can see an Apple logo in the back. Consumerism is alive people!
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- One of my favourite pictures
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- This was, no word of a lie, french fries, fried eggs and sausage!
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- At an ATM. WTH??
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- My American-style dinner. I was so confused… beans and garlic bread with steak??
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- Why would an octopus have seafood??
*I have back problems but honestly, I sleep so well in buses that it’s ridiculous. My back hurt more from the Paris hostel’s bed than it did from the bus
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@vanessasmoney if you’re going to southern Spain, trips to Morocco are quite cheap! In Malaga they offered daily jaunts across the water.
I can imagine you and your best Parisian accent trying to get in the Louvre for free! If you don’t know jetairfly, they have pretty good rates to Egypt from Brussels. When I lived in Morocco, easyjet and airarabia usually beat jetairfly. Ryanair had a Sevilla/Fez for 20 euros but I think they discontinued the route. It was always much cheaper than other Spanish cities, I guess the plane had to go there anyway and tickets were a steal.
Good advice on the hostels. On my last trip to Scotland, we stayed in a hostel and a hotel in the same city. The hostel was a MUCH nicer stay.
Alex recently posted..Happiness Experiment 39: Eat the Rainbow Conclusions
That`s a good list of advice when it comes to travelling in Europe. I have to ask, France`s WalMart, was it Carrefour?;-) What other countries are you thinking of visiting while staying in Europe?:-)
The Norwegian Girl recently posted..Cream Puffs “Norwegian Style”
haha, I have no idea if it was the “real” Wal-Mart of France but it was called “Auchan”
And that point about free breakfast is a very clever one! It`s rediculously expensive to eat breakfast in many European countries.
The Norwegian Girl recently posted..Cream Puffs “Norwegian Style”
You go girl! Traveling the world!
Another tip is do what the locals do. When I was in Paris, during the summer, many of the locals just hung out along the gardens and parks, sipping wine and eating baguette with cheese. So that’s what we did, too, and it was fun and frugal!
Have fun and can’t wait to see more pictures!
fabulously frugirl recently posted..Loving yourself first on Valentine’s Day and EVERYDAY
4 years is a long time to look and 12 euros isn’t too bad, I say get the bag as I fear you will regret it.