Europe: 2 Travelers, 10 days, $2400

My travel partner and I took a trip to Europe for cheap. Traveling cheap is not for the faint of heart, but if your heart is full of nothing but true wanderlust and you don’t mind packing light, read on!

Here is how we did it.

First decision we had to make: when to travel?

Stuff we knew–

• We wanted to take as little paid time off (PTO) as possible
• We wanted to see as few crowds as possible (off season)
• We didn’t care about the weather

We landed on Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving holiday gave us a few extra days off plus added weekends. Total, we only took 5 days PTO for an 11 day trip. Not bad. Plus, it left PTO for Christmas time! We had to go through the entire year on a day planner to figure this out which is alot of work, but as I was discussing this with a co-worker the other day, it’s totally worth it to plan ahead. Saving takes a little planning!

Thanksgiving also meant it was officially off season. This didn’t mean zero other tourists, but it translated to better car and hotel rates, etc.

Why Europe?

We took alot of pressure off ourselves and let cheap fares (fate) decide our adventure! At the time, there was an abundance of cheap fares to European countries. France? Okay great! Belgium? Love it! Germany? Neat! It’s with that attitude we searched for low fares.

How much for tickets?

We set a limit of $500 round trip per ticket. Final answer.

Finding a fare

We subscribe to Scott’s Cheap Flights. Yes, it’s THAT easy. If you have not heard of Scott or his flights, sign up now! You won’t regret the great deals flyin’ into your inbox. No, Scott didn’t pay me for this endorsement, but if you’re reading this Scott–thanks for the dealz dude! If you don’t want your inbox filled up with random Scott deals, you can also use Google flights to track specific flights you’re interested in.

That time we tried to buy plane tickets

We got a $500 RT fare alert from our friend Scott (Houston to Paris). We called AirFrance to book ASAP. My husband was on his lunch and both of us were sitting in his work parking lot with my phone on speaker. Before we could get through all the booking questions, the fare vanished and reality came back when the booking agent told us our total would be $1620; Our response: “for both?” Nope. The fare was gone.

That time we actually bought plane tickets

“Oh well, we’ll try again.” And it’s with THAT attitude we waited for another fare. Less than what was a day later, we found a flight Houston to Amsterdam to Rome. Perfect. We booked ASAP. TOTAL COST FOR TWO ROUND TRIP FLIGHTS $843 

Next we planned our route…with additional stops!

Before I started to look up attractions or Airbnbs, I wanted to confirm our route. We wanted to stop over in Amsterdam to see friends of ours, so we opted to get off the plane and not get back on to go to Rome on the way there. We checked with the airline to make sure they wouldn’t cancel our return ticket and we were good to go. NOTE: THEY CAN TOTALLY CANCEL YOUR RETURN FLIGHT IF YOU VANISH AT A STOPOVER. Or at least that’s what we read on Reddit. So, it’s best to check!

Okay, we had Amsterdam on the route, now where else? I decided that I wanted to visit Budapest. So, we booked two one way tickets to Budapest for $170 from our short one night stop over in Amsterdam. Then I booked two tickets from Budapest to Rome (finishing our original round trip flight from Houston) for $50.86.

I did ALL of this before planning activities, outfits or learning common Italian phrases.

Our FINAL route

Houston-Amsterdam-Budapest-Rome-Houston Total monies spent on flights: $1063.86 ($531.93 each)  It’s sometimes more to go to Denver. So worth it!

A note about packing before we go on to hotels: we pack super light. You can read a post about by clicking here. It should be noted that although we pack light, this didn’t stop us from bringing goodies back including a few bottles of our favorite Italian wine!

After we booked tickets and figured out our schedule, it was time to book the rooms.

We could have possibly saved just a bit more by staying in hostels which are fairly common in Europe and really affordable, but because we were a newly married couple, we opted for Airbnb and hotel options.

Airbnb came through with great rates in Amsterdam, Budapest, Toscana, and Bologna.  My recommendation is to book early and for each booking, confirm 7 days before and then 2 days out just in case there are any last minute cancellations on the hosts’ part. I added this to our spreadsheet schedule, so I didn’t have to remember or think about it. I also recommend having back-up options which might seem like a bit much, but nobody wants to spend the night on the train in a foreign place, right?

Below are our final lodging costs:

• Amsterdam Airbnb (private room) 1 night: $51.14
• Budapest Airbnb (entire apartment) 4 nights: $213.84
• Toscana Airbnb (entire apartment) 1 night :$68.72
• Bologna Airbnb (entire apartment) 1 night: $70.29

For our stay in Rome, we decided to splurge and stay in a hotel. As part of our stay, free breakfast was included. The breakfast was delicious with cappuccinos, omelets, fresh baked rolls, cold cuts, fruit, etc. It was worth paying a bit more for a hotel and getting a good breakfast!

Rome hotel (hotel room) 2 nights: $160

Total monies spent on lodging:$563.99

Total monies spent on plane tickets and lodging: $1627.85 ($813.93 per person)

 

Building a Schedule

After we worked out where we were staying, we started to build a schedule. I HIGHLY recommend using a simple Excel spreadsheet. My husband and I used Google Sheets and this way were both able to view and amend the plan. It was nice if he had a moment of downtime during lunch, then he could add something or if I read about something neat, I could use the phone app and make sure we didn’t miss out!

Below is a sample of what it looked like; it was nothing fancy, just a list that was easy to work with and accessible–that’s the key!

What did we eat? How did we get around? What did attractions cost?

A note about the power of grocery stores

The majority of our food came from the supermarket in every country we visited. Maybe you’re like me and get excited about exploring the aisles of food in far away places. I enjoy seeing the variety, labeling, and displays of items…and even if you’re not into to any of those things, you probably like saving money.

Moral of the story: grocery stores reign supreme and will reign in your budget!

 

Amsterdam

My husband made sure we were awake for all the KLM meals and drinks on the way over. Airplane food isn’t always terrible, guys. Sure, it probably has 3x the daily limit for sodium intake, but this post isn’t about travel diets. When we arrived in Amsterdam, we had a little bit of jet lag, but we weren’t hungry.

To get around, we used public transit. We purchased two 24 hour passes for $9 each.

During the afternoon, we ate from the little markets and spent about a Euro or two for different delicious warm things. If I am completely honest, I wasn’t too hungry after our stop in at the windmill (Brouwerij ‘t IJ) brewery which was so reasonable it was almost hard to believe. I remember drinking a 9% barley wine thinking: this was like a little over $3…pretty much happy hour prices in the states! Ha! And after our boat tour that evening, we closed out the night with street food costing $7 for both of us.

Since we didn’t have much time in Amsterdam, we justified spending a little more on our activity. While the main activity was walking, we booked a river tour upon the insistence of our friends. It was super steep, but worth it. The cost (get ready) was $80 each.

Total cost on activities and food in Amsterdam: $196

Budapest

In Budapest we shopped at the grocery and market hall. We hit up Aldi, spent 4,000 Forint (about $15) and came out with everything from bagged milk to champagne. This was breakfast, snacks and sometimes dinner during our four night stay. The meals we ate out in Budapest were at the Christmas markets and market hall. They collectively cost us $30 total. Coffee, baked goods and a few beers cost us around $25 total during our stay.

We used public transit and our feet to get us from place to place. We spent $22 in four days. Not bad.

We took a tour of the parliament building $20 each (less than half if you’re an EU citizen), a free Communist tour (we gave a donation to the guide) from http://www.freebudapesttours.hu/, and a few churches ($1-3 to take photographs).

Total cost of activities and food in Budapest: $206  Eastern Europe is pretty cheap, y’all.

Italy

Italy was where we thought we were going to spend a fortune on food, but a cappuccino cost less outside of Rome than in the heart of Budapest. Cafes were our lifeline with beautiful espresso drinks under a Euro and sandwiches for maybe 2 or 3 Euros. We also went to the grocery store everyday to pick up fresh fruits and beverages. We ate out twice. If you are ever in Bologna, I recommend Two Cooks One Kitchen. Be prepared to practice those Italian phrases and eat some of the BEST food in Italy.

For transportation, we rented a car using Capital One points for a grand total of $2.25. I know this isn’t really fair if you’re trying to mirror the cheap strategy, so if we didn’t have points, the rental would’ve been around $110 and I will include it in the budget wrap up. Gas was a little steep at roughly $80 after all the crazy driving.

We toured churches, city streets, the countryside, a chianti farm, and more for little or no cost at all. The only notable tour was at the Lamborghini factory. I sent my husband on the tour, but did not tour myself because I wasn’t as passionate. One tour for the Lambo factory: $70.

Total cost of activities and food in Italy: $392

This brought our total bare bone cost to: $2421.85 ($1210.94 per person)

We loved it. I took so many photos. We will never forget our trip and because it didn’t break the bank–we’ll be back!