5 days on a broke college student budget

You have 5 days in between your time in London before having to be in Florence, is that correct?

Presumably in your 7 weeks in Florence you will have weekends free? If so, you could do Venice, Rome, Milan from there as a day or over night trip.

You could leave London, go to Madrid and Barcelona on your way to Florence.
OR

Paris and Alps/Geneva en-route to Florence. ( as it looks like you will be moving in late Oct., The Alps may have weather related issues to check out before committing to that)

If finances are limited, you need to determine what you can spend and see what you can string together as you move from London to Florence.

Its hard for anyone here to give you specific suggestions when your budget is an unknown.

With only 5 days, 2 places close together is the best way to maximize your limited resources.

Good luck with your studies

Aside from the obvious possibilities of traveling by train or plane, you may also want to check out bus routes across Europe. There are some surprisingly inexpensive busses traveling on a regular schedule all over Europe.

Porto and Madrid are great, but that would require flying twice.

Consider Paris via the chunnel then fly or overnight train to Italy.

You said you are a broke college student and want to spend as little as possible. That's probably the case with most students abroad. Rick Steves' son Andy has a small tour company he runs in Europe just for college students. No idea about the cost or the web address. Sure you can just google it and check it out as a possibility vs doing it yourself.

You have expensive tastes, as none of your destinations with the exception of Porto and Croatia are places that I would consider if on a tight budget!

Flights to Croatia from London maybe severely reduced or have stopped for the winter by the time you travel. One good value option that you haven't mentioned that would be ideal for 5 days would be Berlin.

Paris by Eurostar would also be a good fit.

Hello everyone!

I'm trying to spend between $1500-$2500 on the whole trip (14 weeks/100 days) not including the plane ticket and lodging in London and Florence if that helps at all. I will be traveling from September 8-December 16, with the five-day break from Nov. 1-5.

Cut out Porto and cut Switzerland (one of the top most expensive places that will drain a broke college student budget).
Think you will have a chance again to go.

Can you buy a student rail pass? I haven't purchase a rail pass in years because they cost too much - but maybe it's different for students.

I'd probably not wander too far off a straight line from London to Florence. That's the only way you will have time to stop anywhere.

Obviously Paris is a good first stop. If you stay at the MIJE hostel, you will be in a great location and it's only about 25 a night to stay including a breakfast. You could easily spend four days there and the other in transit. If you do that, it will be one long ride on a train but less cost than any pass. A budget flight might be the best from both time and money perspective.

You might add Lyon to break up the trip or something on the coast. I think even the coast in Provence is too much out of the way unless you make it your only stop.

I wouldn't add anything close to Florence because you can probably pick those up on weekends while you're in Italy.

Food? --Is that coming out of your "$1500-2500"

Yep, food comes out of that unfortunately.

Eurail pass would be about $250-325, for France and Italy and France, Spain and Italy respectively. Not sure if that is worth it or not.

Book a cheap flight to Naples from London Gatwick with easyjet or Vueling. Spend 2 nights in Naples, followed by 3 nights in Rome, before heading to Florence.

If you think you will have opportunities to explore some of Italy during your 7 weeks in Florence, then perhaps drop in to Paris / Barcelona / Madrid for the full five days.

Skip the Alps for that time of year. On a limited budget, at that time of year you risk losing your time to fog and rain. Hit the Alps during high yield times- winter, and mid-summer to early autumn.

Eurail pass would be about $250-325, for France and Italy and France,
Spain and Italy respectively. Not sure if that is worth it or not.

That seems a lot of money if you're only going to be using it for five days and for maybe two or three train rides.

Basically, you only need a couple of plain one-way tickets; or alternatively, plane or bus.

Use the 5 days to see sights along the train or bus route. Stay in hostels. Look at a map and pick the sights along the train or bus route. You could do Paris, Strasbourg (Nancy?), Colmar, etc. depending on the train lines or bus lines that you pick. The farther away from your route you take, the more expensive; i.e. Barcelona, Croatia, etc. Another route would be to Paris down to Marseille and then along the French and Italian Riviera to Florence. But again, buses might be less expensive. I'd recommend not planning this ahead of time because you won't have a feel for your finances until you are into your program in London, and figure out what your real weekly budget is. Know what your options are, but don't plan it until you have your finances in line.

Ouch-- Food comes out of the $2500.

Sure hope you have kitchen facilities at your lodgings otherwise you will need to add "starving" to your title line description

""I'd recommend not planning this ahead of time because you won't have a feel for your finances until you are into your program in London, and figure out what your real weekly budget is. Know what your options are, but don't plan it until you have your finances in line.""

I second this notion from Wray--- you really are living on a shoestring budget.. Do the research, but make no commitments until you KNOW you can afford it

Good Luck on your studies and travels

I'm sort of the opposite. I think you have plenty of money.

You're alone, presumably, so you only need lodging for one. Use hostels or rent a room through Airbnb for less than 50 per night. I found small studio apartments in city centers for under 50 (but hostels are the better deal in Paris).

My last 17 night trip to France was around $2,500 total including flight (a little under $500 round trip) and rental car (right at $200) lodging (average under $50 a night, including some hotels, didn't pay for two nights so $750). The rest was food, gas and admissions, most meals were under 10 euro (mostly sandwiches and drinks), the splurges were generally around 25. I'm not a bar hopper so generally one glass of wine or beer with dinner, sometimes a second glass. I'd seen most of what I wanted to see last time in Paris, the only admission I paid in three days was le Arc de Triomphe so I didn't need a museum pass this trip. Outside of Paris, I generally paid one or two admissions a day, some days none at all (churches and self-guided walking tours are free), maybe 20 admissions at an average of 10 euro.

@ Brad: If I get this right, we are not talking about $2,500 for 14 days, we are talking about $2,500 for 14 weeks.

That's $25 per day. How is she supposed to spend $50 per day on accommodations alone?

$25 per day is not enough money to even feed yourself, much less cover ground transportation in London or Florence or 5 days of travel between school sessions. Unless you get severely discounted prices for food at the places you are studying. Or maybe you can cook at your lodgings. Do you? Can you?

At the moment 1.00£ costs about $1.30. 1.00€ costs about $1.12. You need to start thinking in GBP and EUR.

Well, I would hope that she has accommodations provided for her during her weeks of studying at least.

$25 per day is not enough money to even feed yourself

Now isn't that exaggerating on the other side a bit? I don't know about the cost of food in London or Florence, but provided that you don't eat out all the time, why wouldn't it be enough to feed yourself? I know many people who have to live on less than that.

Hey guys,

I guess I should clarify again. In both London and Florence I will be living in a flat/apartment with at least one other guy. Both flats have full kitchens and my expectation would be to cook most of my meals. I figure if we have three guys and each chips in $50 for food a week I figure we can eat fairly well (based on Tesco's online prices). I would also budget about $20-$30 to eat out once a week. This makes my food budget about $1000. The cost of the flat is already covered so I don't have to worry about that. The main expenses besides food will be things that I may want to buy, and travel and lodging expenses for weekend trips and that fall break five days. I would have about $1500 for those things if I'm budgeting correctly.