Budget Tips For Our Two-Week Europe Trip
When Matt and I got married, we always knew that experiences were something that we wanted to prioritize. That said, we’ve been focusing the last few years on saving for a house, paying off debt, and now saving for a baby. So, we knew if we were going to make some big trip happen before a new life stage (hello parenthood) it would have to take a crazy deal and a whole lot of savings… But we did it. I wanted to start this by saying that because I think a lot of times, people are under the impression that international travel has to be crazy expensive and almost seem impossible when you’re on a budget. That’s just not true. Honestly, this two-week trip to Europe ended up being only a little bit more than our one-week trip to Cali we did back in 2019. That to say, if you’re determined, you can make it happen! I wanted to put together this list of tips that helped us and our itinerary in this other post for whoever else wants to do a similar trip.
That said, I am by no means am I a travel expert over here, but i think the tips that we learned along the way will help someone in hopes that it helps you save some money on a trip like this as well! And to show that you do not have to be rolling in money to do this kind of trip. At the end of the day it came down us getting a steal on plane tickets and finding the cheapest (but highest rated) Airbnbs we could. So if you’re a budgeter like we are, know that taking a few months to save for a trip like this is not only very doable but also so worth it!
Okay, now let’s get down to the details…
How We Saved Money
Flights
This tip alone is the whole reason why we got to go on this trip to begin with. We found a roundtrip deal to and from Paris for $325 a person!(!!) That is seriously around the same price we pay to go see my family back in DC from Austin. When we found the deal, we knew we had to commit right away. After we got the flights, we planned the trip around that.
How to find cheap flights:
The secret to finding that deal was that I am signed up for the free version of Scott’s Cheap Flights. They send you emails alerting you about flight deals as they come up. The free version will just show you examples of flight prices to somewhere from certain airports. I think if you get the pro version, you can click on it and it’ll bring you straight to the deals. Using the free version was no problem for us because all we did was refer to the email then jump into Google flights and searched flights in Paris until we found that cheap deal later in the year. For context: we bought these tickets early spring and planned them for September so it was far enough in advance to catch a deal and have time to save up!
Here’s an example of what I mean by the emails they send (first pic) and what you can see in Google flights once you start exploring dates (second pic). This is an email I got about Germany (peep the part where it says the normal round trip cost) and from there I can see some of the airports that I have pre-picked in my preferences. From there, I just went to Google Flights and explored different months/days and other airports. If you know of some cheap flight you can get to a common international airport (like New York or Atlanta) that will likely save you a ton of money as well!
The flight we found was out of Newark, so we just found super cheap flights there first. That opened up a lot of savings for us vs. flying straight from Austin. We wouldn’t have just stumbled upon this on any given day, it was because of a same-day deal we saw from the email that we jumped on. It can take some trial and error to see what you can find in your price range, but it was so worth the effort to stumble upon that deal one day. All that to say, you just have to keep your eyes open! A lot of times, these deals only last for a day or so.
The one we ended up choosing was with French Bee, a newer airline that was running a deal. Which by the way, ended up being a great airline to choose. We expected it to be like Spirit or Frontier (if you know you know) because the flights were SO cheap, but honestly they had more leg room and TV options than most flights we’ve been on so we were super impressed.
Packing tip: We split a carry-on suitcase between the two of us and it worked out SO well for us. We did this partially to save money on not spending to check a bag on each flight, but also to keep things light when we were traveling between cities. We had a backpack as well for our flight things. As a rule of thumb, we brought 7 outfits each and one pair of shoes (yes, we wore our Hokas the whole two weeks). I wore a dress almost every single day because they are so light and compact and it worked out great for us. We just washed clothes halfway through the trip. This made it so easy as we were going from city to city (and between trains) without lugging huge suitcases with us.
Lodging
There are a lot of ways to do this that can be done cheaper than the traditional hotel route. Airbnb ended up making the most sense (and saving) for us because there were two of us, but hostels are another great option for cheap sleep options especially for those traveling alone.
Airbnbs have SUCH a wide range of prices, but there were certain things we looked out for in the process to make sure we were actually saving money by going this route. We focused on searching by location being city-centered everywhere we went, while also looking at the service fees. I think that’s where a lot of people miss the good deals on Airbnb is seeing the base price but then when you click into it, seeing that there’s a $30 service fee and $20 cleaning fee that just ruins the whole point of it saving money. Just like with the flights, it can take some digging to find exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s SO worth the effort. Some cities were a little pricier than others, but when I did the averages, we ended up spending $72 a night.
There are a lot of cheap options for Airbnbs of people who simply open up their guest rooms! Meaning, the host may be in the apartment at some point as well, but you have a private room (with a separate key). This was perfect for us because all we really wanted was a great price, location, and bed. Especially since we were hopping around from city to city, we didn’t need anything fancy. And even then, all of the Airbnbs we found were more than 4 stars, too! Here’s an example of one Airbnb we stayed at.
Something to note: in Europe (at least where we went for this trip) they generally do not use AC in apartments and a lot of bathrooms are on the smaller size. So if you go the Airbnb route, just be prepared for that. That said, even during summer and me being seven months pregnant, it wasn’t a huge deal since the nights cooled down a lot. Just something to keep in mind!
Traveling between Cities and Countries
Like I said, we started off with buying our plane tickets and planned the rest of the trip around that. So, once we knew we were flying in/out of Paris, we came up with a list of places we’d like to see along the way. We ended up visiting cities mostly in France, but we also visited Switzerland, Italy, and Monaco as well. If you’re curious about our itinerary specifically, check out the other blog post that goes into detail on each day.
Initially, we thought that with all of that ground to cover, it would make most sense to rent a car and go that route, but soon learned that trains are absolutely the way to go when you’re in Europe. We used Eurorail and could not recommend it more. It’s essentially a network of trains that, once you get a Eurorail pass, you can choose as many trains as you want in the amount of days your pass is for, and it’s included in the price.
We got 10-Day Eurorail passes for our trip since it was so long, which ended up being around $315 each (normally $340 but we caught a sale in the months leading up to the trip). It’s $245 for a 5 day pass if that’s all you need! That ended up saving us so much time and money because not only did that handle all traveling for us, but rentals between countries would have ended up being a lot more, not to mention gas. Using the trains was so simple because the app makes it so easy to find routes between cities. The only times we didn’t use the trains were when we used metros in the cities themselves (like in Paris and Milan). It worked out great because you have two months to use the 10 days of Eurorail passes, so it was pretty simple to coordinate the schedules around what days we wanted to use the passes or not. More on the details of how Eurorail works in my other blog about the trip!
Planning Day-to-Day and Excursions
We did a lot of planning to find things that were free to visit in each place we went. A lot of what we wanted to do anyway was to explore the towns we were in. And in other cities, there were some non-negotiables we wanted to see, like the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Monte Carlo, etc. For Paris, there are museum passes that you can get to save money if you’re someone who likes visiting a lot of museums! For us, we simply picked a few spots and prioritized those, while visiting a lot of spots on the outside. We walked a ton on this trip, and where we didn’t, we would use the local transportation like metros and buses rather than spending extra on taxis.
All that said, we didn’t go the route of choosing a bunch of TripAdvisor excursions to do like bus tours or things like that. Like I said, most places we went were places we wanted to simply walk around and explore. The only time we did an excursion was when we did Pisa/Tuscany. It was $80 per person and was 12 hours long (including lunch). That was definitely worth it to us because we wouldn’t have gone to see Tuscany or Pisa otherwise and it ended up being a cheaper day all around for us!
Other than that, we had the best time having a planned out agenda of spots we wanted to hit in each city while giving room for us to simply explore different parts of where we visited. It was the perfect mix of getting to do the touristy things, like museums and cathedrals, without going overboard.
Budgeting As You Go
This is what made the trip all-around not feel like a huge commitment for us: we spread out the finances over the months leading up to the trip. Like I said, when we found the flight deal, we jumped on it immediately. (Major shout out to my Young Living business for making it possible to not only have the extra funds for this trip, but to jump on that deal when we did!) Over the course of the months leading up between spring and September, we were saving a few hundred dollars each month. Three months before the trip, we booked all of our Airbnbs and paid for those up front. Two months before the trip, we paid for our Eurorail passes.
By the time the trip itself rolled around, we only had to worry about whatever we would pay for that day-of on the trip. That meant museums, metros, meals, coffee, etc. We budgeted $150 per day for while we were there and it was perfect! We ended up between $100-$150 a day when all was said and done with everything we paid for throughout the days. This made it so low stress on us because not only did we have that money saved back, but we of course were also not spending our normal grocery budget back at home, so that helped us along the way to have that wiggle room in our normal budget as well. Oh, and as for money, we simply used our Visa card the entire trip. There was only one scenario we needed actually Euros in hand. That made it super easy because the exchange fee would end up being $.13 – $1 on each purchase, which wasn’t a huge deal to us.
At the end of the day, finding those deals along the way, having months to plan in advance, and spreading out what we spent on the trip over the course of those months, all made the trip feel extremely tangible for our budget. When everything was said and done, we ended up spending right under $4,000 total for both of us over the course of two weeks. So that’s right at $1,000 per week per person including all travel, lodging, food, sites, etc. Which, if you’ve traveled before, you know things easily add up in trips that would’ve made a two-week trip MUCH more expensive! I mean, round trips normally to Europe are easily $1,200 per person alone.
That all to say, it was worth all the effort to find the deals and corners to cut to make this trip happen. I hope this helped you in your planning endeavors! Check out the other blog post about the itinerary if you want to know more specifics. I’m always happy to answer any DM questions about this because I truly think anybody can do a great trip like this and it will be so worth the saving leading up for the memories. 🙂
