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Old 01-16-2015, 11:17 AM
 
Location: Savannah GA/Lk Hopatcong NJ
13,384 posts, read 28,660,475 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallybalt View Post
I think you've all been had.

The OP is clearly the former "I'm Retired Now" who used to regale us with similar threads in the past, always featuring a dubiously hypothetical couple or family member.

That aside, it is very doable to spend $10,000 on a ten day trip. I have, but we stayed in top of line hotels in prime locations. Dinners at a good quality Parisian restaurant, with wine, can easily cost as much as $200 for two people, and goes up from there.

And it's also very doable to spend half that on a ten day trip too. As I have also done in the past.
followed by "Office Politics"

Yes I'm sure $10K for 10 days has been done by many.....not me though
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Old 01-16-2015, 11:32 AM
 
Location: Delray Beach
1,135 posts, read 1,764,294 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jaypee View Post
Just for laughs, I priced a 10-night trip (flight and hotel) to Paris (probably the most expensive city on the itinerary) in a 3* Best Western in Montmartre (popular and central area) in Feb and it's around $1400 pp.

As far as food, $100 per day isn't unreasonable from an absolute perspective, but it's not required to eat well. If I eat well (at restaurants) on $40 per day back in my home city, I don't see why I need to spend 150% more than that while I'm on vacation.

So instead of $7500 on air-hotel-food, I'd budget $2200-2500 without sacrificing comfort.

$1000 for tours/attractions is purely discretionary.
The whole trip is purely discretionary.
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Old 01-16-2015, 02:13 PM
 
3,570 posts, read 2,510,879 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Investor View Post
A couple I know just returned from their first trip to Europe visiting France and Italy. After talking about how great of time they had, the conversation turned to how much money they spent. They insisted they traveled moderately and did not splurge at all, but the total cost for the ten day trip was about $10,000.

$3000 for Airfare ($1500 a piece)
$2500 for Hotel ($250 a night average at Comfort Inn quality spots)
$2000 for Food (An average of $30 for breakfast and lunch and $70 for dinner per person for ten days)
$1000 tours and attractions
$1500 for trains and buses and inter Europe (Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome)

TOTAL $10,000

Is this a logical number for a nice trip to Europe for a couple?
It's an easy amount to spend for a couple, though tastes and budgets vary. With a weak Euro and evidently poor hotel and airfare choices, it's certainly high. And I have no idea how one couple would spend $100/day on tours and attractions in those cities, and the $1500 in European transportation seems excessive, as well.

When the Euro was stronger, I spent a similar amount for 2 during a 4 week trip. I live near an int'l airport and typically can get intercontinental airfare ~$1000/person.

I would probably spend $200-250/per night in hotels, but they would be an awful lot nicer than Comfort Inns. New Year's and Christmas can actually be pretty expensive in these locations for hotels, with high season rates.

I'd expect about $125/day for food, drinks, and coffee for two (12 for coffee and pastry, ~50 for lunch, ~60 for dinner & drink). That's for two people. Probably a little less in Paris and Rome and a little more in Venice and Florence.

Probably $30/day for attractions, maybe another 5-10 for Transportation

$800 for a flight from Paris to Venice plus two high-speed trains to Florence & Rome. That could come down by $200 if there is a workable low-cost air carrier flight available.

So I'd expect to spend something more like $6600-6700 for 10 days in those places.

Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli View Post
$100 per person every single day just on food??
$250 per night on hotel, and only at comfort Inn level?

that sounds very high. Unless of course they are wealth. I wouldn't splurge like that unless I made $150k+ a year.

Having some great food on a trip is necessary. But is it necessary to have a full 4 course meal every single day? I don't think so.

$250 for hotel is only reasonable for cities like London and Paris (maybe a bit too high for Paris). Practically all other cities are much cheaper. a Budget of $150 is sufficiently comfortable for cities like Rome.

This is why Americans keep saying "How do people have the money to travel?" - because they just assume whenever they are on a trip, they HAVE to live like a prince eating $70 dinner every night.

$1500 on trains/buses is absurd too. Did they book the ticket on the same day for every trip, and first class? I remember my TGV trip from Paris to Avignon cost only something like $35, and my Rome to Salerno train cost about the same.
Florence and Venice are so heavily visited that hotels are on par with a city like Paris. A Comfort Inn in Paris and Rome should certainly be closer to $130-150.

Most high-speed trains are in the realm of $100/person, though there is variation. If you can take a particularly inconvenient time of departure, then prices can come down a lot. I would fly from Paris to one of Rome or Venice. Sometimes you can get a discount carrier for those routes, and sometimes you cannot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Amelorn View Post
The airfare sounds right for peak season, which January is not.

The hotel bill of $250/night seems astronomical for "comfort inn" (2-3 star) quality. For that price, I would expect boutique 3* in an ideal location, 4*, or even a deep discount 5*. This goes double if they "just returned". Paying $250/night in low season should include a breakfast. $30 pp would buy breakfast at a 4 or 5* chain hotel.

These numbers seem off.
I'm with you on the hotels. For flights, I could see that price if the origin airport is particularly expensive. Maybe a regional airport in a relatively affluent region.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WildColonialGirl View Post
Ironically, by living as if it's a once in a lifetime trip they've ensured it will be a once in a lifetime trip.

All that money on food! All that money on tours and trains! What's car hire for a week running these days?
I would not want a car for any of these four places (unless day tripping out of Florence or Venice).
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Old 01-16-2015, 05:04 PM
 
3,205 posts, read 2,612,796 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DefiantNJ View Post
They spent an insane amount of money for the reasons already mentioned multiple time in this thread. I guess you did not mention if they tried to have a budget trip or it was kind of a once in a decade splurge? The prices they paid are possible only if they spend no time researching anything and just took the first, easiest option.

One other possible way to save money is to get an apartment instead of the hotel. We did this in Barcelona, Budapest and a few other cities. You get bigger space, working kitchen and spend around $100 - $150 a night. You don't get daily maid service and a fancy lobby. But you can save on food by let's say having breakfasts in your apartment. Going to a local market or supermarket to buy food for breakfast/lunch is a worthwhile experience that will tell you a lot about the every day life of people in the country you are visiting...

It is of course possible to spend $200 every day for food. But this means huge meals every day in expensive restaurants wasting a lot of sightseeing time. When my wife and I travel, we tend to go out to a fancy restaurant a few times a week. Try very hard not to go in touristy area. We tend to probably spend about $100 for both of us for fancy meal. The rest of the time we try to eat in the apartment, if we have it, or picnic lunches if weather allows.
First, this was the very first time they have been in Europe. Ever. If they wanted to save money by cooking their own meals they could have stayed home. And the idea of learning about the everyday life of the people in the country you are visiting is charming, for the 3rd or 5th time you go to that country. In France, Italy, UK, the everyday life in the everyday cities is pretty close to the everyday life in an American city of the same size and climate. They work, they shop, they go to school, they eat, they are born, and they die. Most of which you can't observe or join in when you are on vacation. A first time visitor WANTS to see the 'tourist traps' like Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, The Eiffel Tower. You know, the same way tourists to the USA want to see OUR unique sights (and sites), not sit in an apartment making borscht and walking through a working class neighborhood to soak up the lives of the 'common people'.
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Old 01-16-2015, 05:58 PM
 
Location: Honolulu/DMV Area/NYC
30,562 posts, read 18,061,935 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrats2001 View Post
First, this was the very first time they have been in Europe. Ever. If they wanted to save money by cooking their own meals they could have stayed home. And the idea of learning about the everyday life of the people in the country you are visiting is charming, for the 3rd or 5th time you go to that country. In France, Italy, UK, the everyday life in the everyday cities is pretty close to the everyday life in an American city of the same size and climate. They work, they shop, they go to school, they eat, they are born, and they die. Most of which you can't observe or join in when you are on vacation. A first time visitor WANTS to see the 'tourist traps' like Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, The Eiffel Tower. You know, the same way tourists to the USA want to see OUR unique sights (and sites), not sit in an apartment making borscht and walking through a working class neighborhood to soak up the lives of the 'common people'.
I don't know, I'm happy to do this on every trip I take, whether its my first time visiting a country/continent or not. But, then again, I'm not rich, so budgeting is a must. Note, me having to cook my own meals (or store breakfast items in a refrigerator) hardly ruins a trip for me; but, note, breakfast in many of these countries is often very simple, and not anything that should require all of that money that the OP's friends spent (dinner doesn't have to be that much either). But at the end of the day, let's be clear here: the OP made it seem like his friends thought they got a good deal (no splurging), but myself and others are bringing up ways the trip could've been done much cheaper. A first time visitor may want to see all of the "tourist traps," but it certainly doesn't cost what the OP's friends paid to do so. The OP's friends certainly splurged on some things, even if unknowingly, to be spending that amount of money at this time of year.
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Old 01-16-2015, 09:46 PM
 
Location: Canada
11,770 posts, read 11,986,606 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrats2001 View Post
First, this was the very first time they have been in Europe. Ever. If they wanted to save money by cooking their own meals they could have stayed home. And the idea of learning about the everyday life of the people in the country you are visiting is charming, for the 3rd or 5th time you go to that country. In France, Italy, UK, the everyday life in the everyday cities is pretty close to the everyday life in an American city of the same size and climate. They work, they shop, they go to school, they eat, they are born, and they die. Most of which you can't observe or join in when you are on vacation. A first time visitor WANTS to see the 'tourist traps' like Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, The Eiffel Tower. You know, the same way tourists to the USA want to see OUR unique sights (and sites), not sit in an apartment making borscht and walking through a working class neighborhood to soak up the lives of the 'common people'.
I cannot stop laughing at the bolded. Haven't laughed this hard in ages, thank you!

You do make a great point though. Sometimes people are put down for going to the touristy sites, as if only travel off the beaten path counts. Would you really go to Rome and not see the Colosseum, just because everyone else was doing it? You should actually want to see it, not turn your nose up at it because it's popular.

There are all kinds of budgets for Europe, but it would be a shame if they spent that kind of money because they didn't know any better, versus making a conscious choice to do so.
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Old 01-17-2015, 09:49 PM
 
Location: The High Desert
16,059 posts, read 10,652,114 times
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The $10,000 cost is excessive. If I remember right, on our last two trips to Italy (10 days each), most hotels had a breakfast set up as part of their service....nothing fancy but it worked. That wasn't the case in Milan but that was a crummy hotel anyway. I think we had some stuff from a local pastry shop in Venice that lasted a couple mornings and just got coffee. I recall baying an $8 coke in the piazza San Marco but that was the exception and everything in Venice is expensive. Lunches were usually simple and inexpensive. We'd grab a coffee or gelato sometimes at a cafe mid-afternoon. Suppers might run into some money if you buy wine and splurge. It was more fun going where the locals or students went. I found that paying a little extra for hotel location was worth the cost but there are a bunch of little places that will not cost so much...certainly not $250/night. Train travel was relatively cheap and convenient. We rode the metro everywhere in Rome and Milan and walked in most other places because the hotel location made it possible. Every place that I saw a Comfort Inn, or a similar American style hotel, it was at a most inconvenient location and costly. I don't have experience in Paris but I suspect it might be more costly but still within reason.
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Old 01-19-2015, 11:58 AM
 
2,401 posts, read 3,249,270 times
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Time is money. Figuring out how to travel on a budget consumes a lot of time and energy. The aforementioned couple probably did not set any limit on their budget and just paid as they went. If I were rich and had never traveled internationally before, I probably would rather spend that much than invest the time and energy in setting up a budget.

Speaking for myself, if I were to make a week-long trip to Europe at this time of year, I would pay less than 3k for myself. I've seen such tours going for 2k or even less. But then again I'm an experienced and budget-conscious traveler. If I used hotel and flight points I could probably do the trip for less than 1k. But flights to and hotels in Europe are so inexpensive that I would rather save the points for domestic travels.
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Old 01-19-2015, 01:44 PM
 
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That's about right for us. We wouldn't spend that much for food every day, but would have a few really nice dinners where we would spend more which would balance it out.

Our upcoming trip we are budgeted for just over $10K for two weeks. We will eat over half our meals in the flat we rented, but we still need to buy groceries. Milk and meat aren't free.

The flat we rented is 40% of the budget, and the taxes to fly into LHR are another 10%+. I might be over in my estimates for meals, admissions, ground transportation and such, but I'd rather end up with money left over at the end of the trip than run out in the middle.

Yes, we could have found a cheaper flat, but the one we found was tastefully decorated, extremely well located, and had a washer/dryer--important to us as we don't check bags.
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Old 01-19-2015, 01:49 PM
 
26,585 posts, read 61,931,227 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrats2001 View Post
First, this was the very first time they have been in Europe. Ever. If they wanted to save money by cooking their own meals they could have stayed home. And the idea of learning about the everyday life of the people in the country you are visiting is charming, for the 3rd or 5th time you go to that country. In France, Italy, UK, the everyday life in the everyday cities is pretty close to the everyday life in an American city of the same size and climate. They work, they shop, they go to school, they eat, they are born, and they die. Most of which you can't observe or join in when you are on vacation. A first time visitor WANTS to see the 'tourist traps' like Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, The Eiffel Tower. You know, the same way tourists to the USA want to see OUR unique sights (and sites), not sit in an apartment making borscht and walking through a working class neighborhood to soak up the lives of the 'common people'.
Well put. I'd also add, why is anyone concerned with how others spend their vacation money. The only thing I can think of is that they are jealous because they don't have the same amount to spend. Rather sad, actually.
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