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TOTAL $10,000
Is this a logical number for a nice trip to Europe for a couple?
It would be easy to spend that much in 10 days, but my wife and I went for about the same price to Italy for 5 WEEKS which included a 7-day Med. cruise at the end. Our breakdown was like this:
$2000 for airfare -- we used Airline points for them anyways but I remember seeing deals at the time for around $1k each -- that was in 2007
$2000 for a 2.5 week apartment rental in Tuscany -- nothing fancy and in the hills betws Viareggio and Lucca, but it was on a winery estate and had 2 bedrooms, a pool and private garage. Great deal for the $$. -- we paid for it with change we'd saved in hard for 10 years though which almost made it feel free. :-)
$1000 for various other Hotels, tours and attraction (3-4 star hotels for the most part, nothing really dumpy nor super high end)
$1000 in food (at least) -- we ate out quite bait but we also cooked a lot of meals in our apartment which save a tone... either way we ate very well the whole time.
$1000 rental car for 3 weeks
$3000 for 7 day round trip cruise from venice via Greece & Croatia -- we paid for that by selling stuff on ebay.
If you add up all the other incidentals like gas, tolls, shopping, tips and so on it was probably at least another $1k, but like I said we were there for 5 weeks so it seemed like a bargain. Oh and I got an automated (camera) ticket for accidentally running a stop sign in Viareggio which cost me a few hundred after I got home, so add that in. Oh and a really nice dress coat in Venice for about $500. OK, it get expensive any way you cut it, but if you're creative and modest about certain aspects you can stay well under 1k per day and still feel like you're living it up. Also, if it's a once in a decade kind of trip you can find ways to save and pay for it without all of it being cash out of pocket right at that time, like the airline pts., spare change and ebay sales I mentioned above. We also picked up some odd jobs in the year leading up to it which we happily put toward the trip. Next year we're planning to go to South America for a month, and we're already well ingot he saving and planning phase of that. We'll be a family of four by then so it will cost more, but with planning and moderation we think we can do it comfortably. We've never accrued debt for any of our trips btw.
We don't spend that in a month! 5-6 weeks will be more likely, with airfare, accommodation, food, rental car, lots of driving - gas, attractions etc.
I guess, "moderate" has different meaning for different people.
$70 doesn't seem like a particularly crazy amount to spend on dinner, and I have definitely spent more than that on food in both countries--it's a big part of my travel experience and while I certainly enjoy much cheaper meals as well, I've also splurged on some truly wonderful (and expensive) meals in Michelin-starred restaurants, particularly in Paris. No regrets, no sense of having wasted money. $70 is about average for dinner at home....
It's also certainly possibly to spend much more than that on a hotel, if you want to. I usually don't, so I spend less (though London hotels are generally more than Paris ones, I've found).
Travel can usually be as expensive or as bare-bones as you want it to be, or somewehere in between. It's not about what is right or wrong.
I'm going to France & Switzerland for a group trip (ski/snowboarding) this February for 10 days and the entire trip - flights, hotel, local transport, lift tickets, minus food is only $2,000 per person.
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?
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.
Exactly... The "they must not have researched" or "they must have only gone to tourist traps" comments are kind of surprising to me...
I don't disagree with that, but you have to agree that $1000 per day is unnecessarily high for middle class, right?
On the other extreme though, we see people (including ones on here) quoting costs that are unrealistically low, and likely not totally accurate. Either they're not including details about where they stayed or how they ate, or they're leaving out a lot of extra costs like shopping, tips, drinks, bike rentals, boat rides, toll roads and so on and so on. If you add everything up, from parking a the airport, to a cup of coffee not the train station it usually comes out a lot higher than what most people count in terms of travel/lodging/food.
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?
They spent way too much money, but it sounds like it was by choice.
You can get to Europe for cheaper if you're not picky about which airport you're flying into and don't fly at peak times or days. You have to research a months worth of flights to see the cheapest option and be flexible.
They could've stayed at Air BnB or smaller nice pensions and saved $100 a night off that price--or more.
I usually stay at places that provide free breakfast also--if you're at AirBnB you can just go to the store and get stuff to eat if your host doesn't provide anything.
You can also just go and eat cheap lunches at little markets or just get some meat and cheese and bread(as I do all the time in France and Italy) and have lunch when ever you feel like it. Also restaurants where they hand you a menu as you walk by or in tourist areas are always expensive and overpriced in Europe. Once you leave touristy areas you get better deals.
$70 per dinner means you're eating out at pretty nice places and probably ordering bottles of wine or cocktails--that's a choice. I've eaten good meals in London, Paris, and Rome for half that price if you're not going out for fine dining. If I went out to nice restaurants every night in the States it would cost an arm and a leg as well.
$1000 for attractions? Not sure what this includes, but there's deals in a lot cities where you get multiple places for admission for one price. $100 a day is someone going to several museums and attractions every single day for 10 days which sounds exhausting. So many cool places and experiences in Europe don't even cost money, you can just stroll around and people watch and enjoy the architecture for free.
$1500 for train costs means they should've gotten a Eurail pass or gotten cheap tickets in advance(or they booked first class tickets everywhere they went). You can also fly for much cheaper these days inter-city routes in Europe.
I just spent 9 days in England with my wife and we probably spent well under half this amount and we spent money on a tour to go to Stonehenge and Bath, saw a Premier League game, went out to pubs on New Years in London, traveled to York for a few nights, and altogether we spent about $4000 between the two of us including flights and accommodations. And the UK is more expensive than Italy. And that was one of our most expensive trips, we've traveled to Italy before and spent much less.
While it is easy to spend that much for a week in Europe, it certainly isn't necessary. In fact, you might have a better trip by spending less.
Like some others, I accumulate FF points for airfare, so my out of pocket costs are much less. Whether you accumulate points by churning cards, gathering the miles on your everyday purchases, or from flying, free seats are not that difficult to come by.
I save money by using home away or air bnb. Not only do the accommodations cost less, but you usually wind up staying in a better place, frequently in a more interesting neighborhood. Costs can drop from $250/night in the OP into the $100-$150/night range.
Food is another place that I would choose to spend my money differently. Cafes in the morning, a deli, farmers market or bakery for lunch, sometimes cook my own dinner at the apartment, occasionally go out for the $70/person meal. I spend 1/2 what the OP does, and probably eat better.
I don't understand how you can spend $1000 on tours. I don't stint on entrance fees and go to some of the most amazing attractions, museums and archaeological sites in Europe. Call it $50/day, which for a week comes to $350.
Similarly with the train. I don't take intercity trains everyday. In a two week period I might take a total of 6 trains. That would include airport:city1, city1:city2, city2:airport, plus a couple of smaller day excursions. Throw in a few more dollars for subways, buses and a taxi or two and you are still well under $1500.
My budget for two is generally about $2500/week plus airfare.
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