Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Cost of a 3-month trip to Europe


Ten days have passed since I finished my longest to date European tour and as always, being outside of Russia was a delight.

As previously mentioned in the post on my travel expenses for a 10-day trip in 4 European countries, I split my expenses into the following categories:

accommodation – this includes the rent that I had for my room in Berlin plus expenses for Couchsurfing (zero), the best travel experience in the world

food – all things grocery

entertainment – umbrella term for a lot of things and could include: movie tickets, coffee&cake or alcohol at cafés and bars, entrance fees, any street food I might leave on – basically any purchase that in a perfect cost-saving world I could do without

transport 1 – airport buses, intercity buses, intercity railway tickets and any single- or multi-trip tickets in any of the destinations I’ve been to (transportation prices in Europe are just too unfair!)

transport 2 – monthly tickets in Berlin

airfare – flight tickets

IT – USB Wireless, SIM-card, emergency laptop adapter…

clothes – it used to be the major spending category, however in the recent months I have found myself to start thinking material possessions like clothing are exuberant and not as important as my travel experiences (although it doesn’t mean I wear shabby clothes, I just don’t shop for the sake of shopping)

other – anything that couldn’t fit into the above category, might include things like shampoo, toothpaste, books, presents, etc.

And without further ado, here’s how much was spent on this 85-day trip (in EUR):


Visa 75
Insurance14,2
Airfare*743,50
Accommodation200
Food315,61
Entertainment 358,80
Transport 1228
Transport 2106
IT87,40
Clothes107,52
Other106,22
TOTAL: 2342,25

So the grand total is 2342EUR which makes my all-inclusive daily expenses 27,55EUR. Or 781EUR per month.

That’s about what I budgeted for this trip, except when I had a certain number in my head, I thought I would spent way, way less than that. But I spent exactly what I budgeted which means for my next trip I will have to budget less money.

I think overall that’s a very good number if I compare my expenses to those of other travelers, some travelers spend way more even in very affordable countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. and we all know prices in Europe are generally high. So I guess I can be proud of myself, except I’m not really – I’ll have to cut down on transport as it pains me to have to spend so much on a service that isn’t even 100% reliable. Generally, discovering Europe by rail is (much) more expensive than flying.

*For this trip I had a total of 18 flights paid for, however I took only 13 of them. I knowingly missed my Berlin-Moscow-Krasnodar in the beginning of January (I could've rebooked them for later, except I didn't know for when and I somehow didn't think of cancelling them), also I had Oslo-Berlin booked, instead of which I ended up flying from Oslo to Paris and then to Barcelona and Porto. And on my last weekend in Europe I was planning to go to Kaunas and Riga, but about 4 hours before the flight I decided to stay in Berlin (and never regretted it!). Overall loss is about 200-230EUR, but these things are mostly unpredictable: if you book too much in advance, you'll most definitely save money and there's a chance you'll want to prolong your stay somewhere else or you can buy tickets last minute and overpay. I haven't found the golden mean yet.

Some statistics from the trip:

Most expensive city: Olso, Norway (go there with your own food)
Least expensive cities: Berlin, Germany and Porto, Portugal
Biggest surprise: Paris, France
A letdown of sorts: Barcelona, Spain (I have Woody Allen to blame for this)
The obvious: I love Berlin

4 comments:

mudassar said...

Did you couchsurf the entire way?

I'm really tempted to do this!
I can go travelling at the beginning of next year and return when I run out of money.

Irina Sazonova said...

No, I just couchsurfed on my trips outside of Berlin. In the German capital itself I was able to find a room for 100EUR/mo only.

I can only recommend having a gap month/year/several of your own and venturing to explore the world. Always a nice experience.

Unknown said...

Thanks

Unknown said...

This is amazing - your photographs are nice! I would like to take a 10 days trip by this agency- guys trip

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