how much would it cost to back pack through europe?
Posted: March 9th, 2011 | Author: Mitch | Filed under: Camp Sites | Tags: europe, hotels, money, train | 2 Comments »i want to waste as little money as possible, i dont want to stay in fancy hotels im good with camping out or staying in a sh!tting room for a night or two and i want to travel on train or bus through europe.
You did not indicate how long you will be there for, which countries, and where you will be flying from. All of these things will drastically change the total cost of your travels. The most expensive part will be flying and transportation if you plan on travelling a lot – maybe you will get a rail pass, or pay for a number of flights. If you are just going to stay in three cities for a week each, obviously transportation costs will not be that high.
As a very vague target, consider about $5000-6000 for a month. This is only a rough target amount to give without knowing more about what you want to do and where you want to go. Remember that big cities like London, Paris, and Rome will be more expensive than smaller places (in general). Also the number of times you want to eat-out rather than picnic or eat-in will change things as well. Finally, the amount you will spend on visiting sites and on alcohol can make the money required swing wildly upwards.
Karla–I backpacked around Europe for three weeks in Spring 2007, and that set me back about $2200 US. The dollar/Euro exchange rate has improved markedly since then (well, for Americans), but I’d still guess that $100 US/day should be a reasonable estimate. Note that that doesn’t include plane fare to or from Europe, but hostels, a Eurrail pass, food, entrance fees to famous sites, and so on.
Some potentially useful websites and general advice:
http://www.hostelworld.com and http://www.hostelbookers.com–you can book a bed in a youth hostel pretty much anywhere. Also have user generated reviews which tend to be accurate. The downside to these websites is that nowadays you pretty much have to make reservations at least a day in advance on weekends and peak periods to get a decent place to stay.
STA Travel–they sometimes have good discounts on airline tickets for students/youths.
Eurrail/Interrail–don’t automatically buy a rail pass. They’re pretty expensive and you have to use them a lot to make them cost effective. But they can save you a lot of money if you are trying to see all of Europe in a short amount of time.
Also you’ll hear about Ryanair and Easyjet. They can be cheap, but just remember that they charge a LOT of money for luggage–such as a backpacker’s pack.
Also I’m a big fan of London, Paris, Barcelona, Interlaken, Venice, Rome and Naples and if you wind up in Nice stay at the Villa St Euxberry. Hope that helps…