Hi everyone,
I was just seeking some advice... I am planning on going to Europe in June - August 2007, for about 2 1/2 months and am wondering how much money i will need to take.. I know what you are all thinking.. another thread about money... but... I am planning on doing busabout around all of europe - Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Greece (Athens & Island Hopping), Croatia (Split & Island Hopping). I will be staying three nights in all cities, except Croatia will be 7 days and Greece will be 10...Also planning to stop over in Ibiza for 3 nights whilst staying in Barcelona...

Well my main issue is money... i am planning on staying in hostels the whole trip and eat on the cheap (not many restaurants) but i will be doing the usual touristy stuff like museums and other sightseeing escapades... Just wondering if you have any advice for me. I monst likely will have about 5,500-6,000 Euros to play with.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Thanks :cheers:

Your budget seems reasonable, but my personal opinion is that you're going to be TOTALLY exhausted with only 3 nights per city for 3 months (with the two exceptions you mentioned). :blink2: With 3 months you could easily spend a couple weeks in each place, really getting a feel for it. This would be much easier on you physically and mentally, IMO.

But yes, your budget seems like a good starting point. :cheers: Welcome to the boards!

i remember reading a post that joanofarc had posted a while back about planning to spend about $75 a day if you're staying in hostels and eating cheaply. KCL and i just got back from a 12 day trip to england, ireland, scotland & wales...and her estimate was pretty true....it was more like $60 a day. (taking into consideration that we booked & paid for all our flights and trains ahead of time) $60 was just eating, place to stay, anything we did that day. (*$60 per person mind you)

$50-$75/day is a good rough guesstimate for any European trip. Prices for acommodations, food, and attractions vary WILDLY by country, and even by city. And don't forget to budget drinking money.

In Paris, you'll pay roughly $20/night for hostels, hardly anything on meals (self catered meals can come in for less than $2 if you go to local markets!), and probably an average of $10 for attractions like museums & such. Add local transport to the mix at around $8 a day. Drinks: pricey, except for wine.

For Amsterdam, you can bump the figures up a bit, and drop the transport cost - trams are cheap and the city is very walkable. Beers are relatively affordable. Don't spend all your money on weed.

Spain is super-cheap compared to much of western Europe. Barcelona hostels tend to book up in peak months (summer) and the prices go up, but everythign else - food, drink, clothes, transportation - is very affordable.

Ibiza: Take your budget for everywhere else and quadruple it. 40€ to get into clubs, 10€ drinks, not much by way of cheap sleep, but you won't be sleeping anyway, will you?

SV gives some great advice - give each city more than 3 days... You really want to spend some time and get a feel for them, since they're all so drastically different. You'll also learn that the longer you stay in places, you wind up spending less as the days go on.

Thanks for the tips, appreciate it and i have taken some time to look into an itinerary that reflects a bit about what was said about time. So let me know if what i have come up with is ok:

London 3 days
London - Paris (Travel day)
Paris 2 days
Paris - Amsterdam (Travel day)
Amsterdam 2 days
Amsterdam - Berlin (Travel day)
Berlin - 2 days
Berlin - Prague (Travel day)
Prague 2 days
Prague - Vienna (Travel day)
Vienna 2 days
Vienna - Munich (Travel day)
Munich 2 days
Muich - Venice (Travel day)
Venice 2 days
Venice - Athens (Travel day)
Depart Athens for Greek Island Hopping 10 days
Athens 2 days
Athens - Split (Travel day)
Split 1 day
Depart Split for Croatian Island Hopping 7 days
Split - Venice - Rome (Travel day)
Rome 2 days
Rome - Nice (Travel day)
Nice 2 days
Nice - Barcelona (Travel day)
Barcelona 2 days
Barcelona - Ibiza (Travel day)
Ibiza 3 days
Ibiza - Barcelona - Madrid (Travel day)
Madrid 2 days
Madrid - San Sebastian (Travel day)
San Sebastian 2 days

If i should stay longer is a certain city or erase one all together please let me know.
This trip is mainly to get my barings as i will hopefully go back for 6months to a year sometime after this.

Cheers :cheers:

hi i just wanted to comment on the length of your trip to Berlin. This city is fab, there is so much to do there and 2 days is surely not enough time. Personally i would cut out some of the places you are going and try and stick to the 3 day rule. By the time you have packed, unpacked and found your hostel thats nearly half a day gone

I agree with some of the other folks that your schedule seems really aggressive - it makes me tired just looking at your list. Of course, I am someone who hates to pack and unpack and deal with constantly checking in and out of places.

Personally, I would take your list and break the cities into two or three groups. Group 1 would be cities you MUST go to. Group 2. would be cities that you are very interested in, but they are not quite in the same class as the 1s. Group 3 could be cities that sound cool, but if you missed a few of them, you wouldn;t reget it for life. I would then do a rough schedule based only on the number 1 group and try to figure around 5 days per city. The time you actually spend in that city could be adjusted depending on how much you like that city after you get there. It might be hard to do this, but I would plan to focus more of your trip on the 1 group, build some time into your schedule so you initially plan to stay in Paris for 4 or 5 days, for example. However, if you think Paris stinks, you have some group 2 or 3 cities nearby to zip over to to spend a day or two at (or head to your next destination early) but will not throw off your overall schedule.

It's obviously up to you, but the bottom line is you can never see everything and you want to be careful of spending so much effort just trying to bag cities that you don't actually stop to enjoy what you are seeing and experiencing. A huge part of the experience is meeting other travelers and so you should give yourself some flexibility to hang out for a time with cool people when you find them instead of rushing off after one day to get to the next city. Good luck! :cheers:

i would also agree that 3 days a city for 3 months is pretty extreme. i love fast paced trips and thats pretty much how i like to travel but after about a month your going to be pretty worn down traveling at that pace, espceially traveling by bus.

my suggestion would be to plan the trip so you do three days in smaller cities, like brugge, brussells, some swiss cities, venice, milan, etc. and then throw in other cities like paris, london, amsterdam, barcelona where u can stay for 5-7 days. that way you will be able to slow down occasionally and get a feel for some of the cities a little more. also in a city like paris you dont want to feel rushed to see everything because there is no chance u will be able to. its best to just get there, get a feel for the city, and do what you want to do, not neccessarily everything you've ever heard of doing in that city.


i would also suggest looking at the Eurolines bus pass. www.eurolines.com you can get 30 day passes for pretty cheap and it would give u freedom to go where u wanted to go. im not super familar with busabout but i have used eurolings and when i looked around before and found it to be cheaper than busabout and way cheaper than eurail, while bus travel is a bit exhausting, it can also be cheap.


you might also want to consider ryanair or another discount airline for some of the long journeys. i used ryanair a few times even when i had my eurolines pass just because it was cheap and the thought of a 20 hour bus ride as oppossed to a 3 hour flight was much more appealing. it allows u to cover alot more of europe. i basically did eastern and western europe thanks to ryanair and eurolines. although ive never been so exhausted when my trip ended.


its safe to say the trip took about 10 years off of my life, but the experience and memories were so worth it.

Ding Ding Ding!!! Everybody here is gonna say it, so I'll chime in.

2 days is not long enough. Play it more by ear. Too many folks (self included) attempt to cover ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING in a specific spot, and its impossible.

Relax! Have fun! Take it in at a slower pace, and try to see some stuff in each town and not be stuck on an impossible schedule.

Just once I'd love to see some of the folks that post these types of schedules report back and post the amount of time they REALLY spent in each spot! ;)

I am not going to say it.....

My advice, mainly for Italy.
ROME: spend at least 5 days or you will walk 8 miles a day trying to see it all.
VENICE: 1 day should suffice there, not all it is cracked up to be but, great city none the less.
FLORENCE: what happened? didnt make the list? Great city and you will definatly be missing out if you do not go there. It is a Venice with more to do, and cars.
GREECE: Last summer I went to Greece, athens and mykonos. It takes a long time to travel to the actual islands. It says you are leaving from Venice...plane? 100 USD to fly from Venice to Athens. Traveling by boat takes for ever then u have to get on a 5 hour train ride. Eat some gyros for me, amazing there!
SWITZERLAND: If you love beautiful scenary u can miss the alps, Interlaken, Lucern, the smaller towns at the base of the alps. I will be there in July.

Good luck. I planned a lot of this same trip last summer, plans totally changed when i was there.

cya...lilchappy :party:
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