Budget for one month of slower travel in Europe

$5k for two people for 30 days is $166 per day. It's shoe string budget for sure but it may be possible. Even a hostel will cost you about $80 to $100 per day for two people, which is half your budget. Even if you picnic for most of your meals, food for two will probably run you $40 per day. That's not much left over for transportation, attractions, or an emergency expense.

RS has a page on this site somewhere about money-saving tips. It may be worth reviewing.

The trip you describe is more in the $7-8k range at a minimum. As FastEddie says $5k won't leave you much left over in terms of discretionary spending. If you want to make the most of your dollar your best bet is to plan, plan, plan. Map out a realistic one week itinerary and look up the cost for everything including accommodations, travel, food, museums and anything else you think you might spend money on. Then add it all up and that should give you a better $/day budget.

DJ

In Bavaria and elsewhere in Germany, if you stay in smaller towns you can get by on a $50 to $60 budget for overnight stay including breakfast easily. Just don't book via one of the big booking machines; search for rooms on the websites of the local tourist offices or call them for help.

We found food to be much more reasonable in Germany that we expected, certainly cheaper than France, and very good quality. Don't order water though, it's more expensive than beer! :)

Smaller towns are typically cheaper and off-season brings more discounts, so your strategy sounds budget-friendly.
I can't see a hostel costing $100 for two people; in a Paris hostel you'd pay €60. In Budapest, www.guestbudapestapartment.com rents whole apartments for €44-52-60/night, depending on season. Rick's latest guidebook editions list hotel price ranges (no longer trying to trying to nail down exact prices) and the intro to each country book includes that daily budget overview. This is excerpted from the latest Budapest/Hungary book:

Room and Board: You can thrive in Budapest on $100 a day per person for room and board. This allows $10 for lunch, $25 for dinner, and $65 for lodging (based on two people splitting the cost of a $130 double room that includes breakfast). Students and tightwads can enjoy Budapest for as little as $40 a day ($20 per hostel bed, $20 for meals and snacks). If you’re traveling beyond Budapest, accommodations cost much less in smaller Hungarian towns and cities (a comfortable double typically costs no more than $90, bringing your budget down to $80 per day per person for two people traveling together).

You can quickly estimate lodging costs using web sites like Expedia and Airbnb. Be sure to use the actual dates as prices in some locations vary widely from day to day. There are travel guides geared toward inexpensive travel, such as Lonley Planet's & others.

One point not touched on by others: High vs shoulder vs off season. High season (late june-july-aug-early Sep) has premium prices and crowds. Warm, even hot. Shoulder - April-Early June, late sep through oct - pleasant temps but may be chilly, med prices, some crowds somewhere. Off season - Nov - mid Dec Jan-March - no crowds, many things closed - low prices to amazing deals - quite chilly to dang cold in some places. If you travel shoulder season you do very well.

Also region. We were just in the Finisterre part of France. We had a dinner one night - 31 E menu - amazing. In Paris, easily double that. In the non-touristic parts of Europe, things can be much much much cheaper. And just as scenic and fun, and also you get closer to authentic native life.

"...travelling roughly one month at a time... smaller cities/towns... slowly moving on to other nearby regions, staying in pension/privatzimmer type accomodations... landertickets."

$166/day (math per FastEddie) = €145 - that ought to be doable if choose carefully.

I see you are already doing just that in your "Thüringia" thread on the Germany forum. That's a good place to look. We were in the area for 5 nights last year. Spent one in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg (Acron Hotel, €69/2 w/ brkfst.) and four in Herleshausen (1-BR apartment, €35/night/2.) If you find similar prices, you'll average €41/night like we did.

Let's assume a Länderticket every single day... The €30 Thüringen-ticket for 5 days brings your daily expenses to €71 or US $81 at current rates.

With $166 daily that leaves $85 for those daily expenses you mention...

• groceries for breakfast in your apartment and maybe light evening meals or packed lunches

• one meal out every day

• admission fees every day to this or that.

Totally doable, with room to spare, IMO. You'll have cash for a few splurges as well. Even if you average €60/night/2 for accommodations, you'll have €55 - $63 - for those additional daily expenses (which probably will not include a Länder Ticket or admission fees EVERY single day.) As long as you don't need exotic digs, you can likely keep such a budget pretty easily in the smaller towns.

I like Privatzimmer but not all the time... Apartments have become more common over the years than private B&B's. They offer more room and convenience IME - there is no agreed upon breakfast time you must work around, and you can address your own dietary preferences and needs for 1-2 meals per day with your own kitchen. The local tourist offices are your most complete sources for both apartments and B&B's.

You don't have to spend a lot on accommodations.

In 2013, we (2 adults) spent a week in an apartment in the German Alps (Oberallgäu) for 299€ or 43€/day Of course, we still had to buy fixins for breakfast (fresh rolls on our doorstep each morning for 0.35€ each, etc).

This spring, for a trip that I had to call off due to my partners health, we had planned to stay in an apartment for 2 in Franken for 35€/nt and another for 2 in the Oberallgäu for 43€/nt. Add a splurge of a night in Lindau and 2 nights in St. Goar and my average accommodations was 47€/nt. Transportation for 3 weeks (mostly regional passes) was estimated to be 21€/day and I know from experience that meals (lunch, dinner, drinks, and tip), with at least one sit-down meal per day, cost me 20€/person/day. That's 88€ plus breakfast groceries, admissions and incidentals, but I have over 15 years experience planning 10 trips to Germany.

BTW, I always figure costs in euro, then convert to US$ at the exchange rate at the time. I've found that prices in Europe have been fairly stable, but the exchange rate has varied a lot.

Rob I look at budgeting for our one month at a time trips to Europe differently. I don't actually budget for food because we have to eat no matter where we are, Europe or home in California. We usually have one restaurant meal per day in Europe and in smaller towns it will be less expensive than cities here or abroad. Just last summer we spent 10 days in an off the beaten track hill town in Italy that happened to have wonderful restaurants. We ate very well each evening. We only spent one night in Rome prior to a flight where a similar meal at a restaurant cost almost double what we'd been paying in our small town.

We averaged about 80€ for a double hotel or B&B room this summer in Ireland. We found that we needed to investigate locations and prices carefully in the tourist popular areas we were visiting. If you are in less well known towns you shouldn't have trouble getting rooms for less. Booking apartments or calling a hotel proprietor and asking if they have a lower or special rate for longer stays will often get you a discount.

Transportation is something you don't have to pay for every day if you have centrally located lodging. Otherwise investigate regional options and don't be afraid to ask at a ticket window for the best rate and fare-- often time they know little booking tricks to further reduce train tickets--it happened to us at Bodensee last summer.

Be sure to budget for admissions and attractions. It can vary a lot but it is one of the wonderful pleasures of travel.

So in summary...we buy airline tickets as soon as we find a good fare. Sometimes that determines where we go for the summer. We don't really budget for food but do plan lodging, admissions and transportation costs to maximize and stretch our money. I think your budget is realistic given your desire to stay in lesser known areas.

I agree with Lee, I figure expenses in Euro and then convert to US$. That way I don't have to keep track of the exchange rate too often.

Best method for me is to "walk" myself through a day when planning the trip. How am I getting from city X to city Y? From the airport, train or bus station into the city? Hotel bill? Sights? Meals? Coffee/cocktails/snacks? Transportation from one sight to another? This can be tedious or fun, but it's important to not just pick a number and stick to it, expenses vary by city. Bargains can be had, though (museum cards, bus passes, etc., if you use them enough).

Categories for my expenses are: lodging; meals/snacks; transportation (planes, trains, long distance buses, local buses or metros, taxis); admissions or sightseeing; laundry (this can add up on a long trip); miscellaneous.

My budget is €100/day average, not including airfare. In some places, lodging is €35/night single, but usually around €60, breakfast included. (My hotel in Roma is €75/night including breakfast, in Firenze it's €90; both through booking.com.)

One full-on restaurant meal per day, one simpler meal, but a coffee/cocktail break or two as well. I budget an average of €10/day for museums and other sights. Another €3 for buses.

Make sure you have miscellaneous costs covered (like replacing something that breaks or gets left behind).

Looking at Zoe's budget, I rather doubt if $5K would be enough for two. It seems that most of Zoe's stays are in single rooms. Double rooms would cost more, certainly not twice as much, but perhaps 30-40%. $5K at today's rate is about €145/day. Based on her "budget" budget, that extra €45 would not cover both the the extra cost of rooms and the doubled cost of meals, sights, transportation and incidentals. Zoe plans her trips carefully so she can find the "bargains". It sounds like you're thinking of winging it, at least in part. That can mean higher costs.

Do you speak German? I wonder how enjoyable it would be to spend time in towns and villages where you can't converse. In Burgundy in France, being able to communicate with locals made all the difference when English was rarely spoken.

Do you speak German? I wonder how enjoyable it would be to spend time in towns and villages where you can't converse.

Well, where did you find that lonely place where nobody was able to communicate with you at least in some rudimentary English? In eastern Germany maybe, but certainly ten years ago. After 25 years of compulsory learning of English you will even in the deserts of the Oberlausitz find easily somebody who can you help out. Just don't expect them to speak Oxford English or to understand any variant of US slang.

Some days ago I was having dinner in a small Gasthof not far from Nürnberg when a Danish family in search of a room showed up. They didn't speak German, and the English vocabulary of my brave landlady, being in her 70ties, was confined to the most basic 20 or so words. But within a fews minutes a couple of other guests were ready to assist her and after a while everybody was happy. That's quite a normal situation, so don't worry. At any rate, you will both be a more valued guest and get more value for money than in the average soulless chain hotel.

"In Burgundy in France, being able to communicate with locals made all the difference when English was rarely spoken."

I can understand that. For a developed Western nation, the French possess a relatively low level of English proficiency. This is not so in Germany, where English skills seem to be much more important, and which ranks much higher in this study. The French were dead last in Europe. As long as you speak English (which you obviously do) I would not worry about being locked out of conversation in Germany.

Of course, small towns are different, and not everyone speaks English. But in towns that are commonly visited by tourists... Cochem (Mosel River, 5k population) or Prien (Bavaria, 10k population) for example... you will probably be very successful launching a spontaneous conversation in English with strangers on the street or in a cafe. The Brits and the Dutch tend to visit Cochem a lot, and neither of those tend to know much German, so the Germans there will normally use English with their visitors.

Now, if you visit a remote mountain town in the former East Germany where visitors rarely tread, you'll be perhaps less successful, especially with older folks. But these days, even in the former East Germany, towns like the ones Martin suggested on your other thread in the Germany forum, have been teaching English in their schools for decades. And they have generally adjusted quickly to the idea that foreigners want to come visit and spend their travel money there - and to the fact that those foreigners will NOT know German but probably know some English, even if they come from Asia or South America.

Anyway, while knowing the local language enhances the travel experience, I don't think it's a prerequisite for enjoying oneself. I've enjoyed my time in rural France where English was as helpful as Martian. And I know an American with almost no foreign language skills at all who has spent much of his life enjoying small towns all across Europe.

Yes, I do speak German fairly well and can read it better (writing is another matter). I travelled to Europe a lot as a teenager and spent time with a German family over two summers in the Nurnberg area.
I like hearing people's real life budget stories as it gives me a perspective on what to plan for. I like the idea of having a lower end budget target, but it wouldn't be a big problem if we went over budget. My basic idea is be thrifty on accomodations and food, but don't skimp on attractions. If we are in a town for a day and there is some obscure little museum about the development of snow ball making machines, or the birthplace of some long forgotten poet or revolutionary leader, we are buying tickets for it unless its way overpriced. OTOH, we don't need to try the latest fusion cusine at some hip and trendy restaurant near our home base.

In April - May 2015 we spent one month in Germany (except for 2 nights in Salzburg and a day trip to Colmar). We landed in Frankfurt, rented a small car and drove around much of Germany, turning it in when we reached Berlin, our last stop before flying home. We mostly stayed in family run small hotels or B&Bs/pensions, ate in some restaurants, at street fairs and outdoor markets, and sometimes bought lunch from grocery stores, as the mood struck us. We bought a SIM card for phone and wifi and we visited the attractions that interested us: castles, museums, sights, etc.On this trip we spent about $5,000. At that time the exchange rate was $1.12 or so. I do hesitate to state the dollar amount we spent as it might seem we stayed in dives or starved ourselves or didn't actually see anything. I should mention that at that time we were active seniors of 68 and 71 years of age, but if you're younger you may fit in more attractions than we did, though we did have full days. We don't have a written budget since we know the way we travel and know we won't go overboard, if we spend a bit more or less on any trip it's ok. We didn't feel we skimped on anything and had a great time. Based on your comments it seems you could meet your budget goal as long as you're also prepared to spend a bit more to see what you want. Hope this helps.

Our last two trips to Germany have been about 150 Euro for the two of us, staying in apartments or privat zimmer, eating sit down dinners maybe twice a week, using Lander tickets.

Hi,

Based on your experience I really do not believe you will encounter problems budgeting or otherwise while spending a month in Germany and then another month set aside for Austria, etc. I wouldn't. On the expenses, depends on your definition of luxury, ie, comfort level, such as A/C, own WC, etc; and if these words describe you...anspruchsvoll, waehlerisch; verwoehnt. I don't they do. In Germany and Austria no need of A/C or WC in the room for me since you end up paying more.

I suggest spending a good portion of your time in the eastern part of Germany, where you will have the most chance of meeting locals not speaking to you in English, even after they know you are from here, don't bet on their switching over to English just because they knoe you are from Calif...they won't. You talk to them in German, they will stay responding in German.

@ rob...Keep in mind that going in August to Germany and Austria is not considered high season in reference to prices; You will find rates to be lower in Aug. I've experienced this. I have had hotel proprietors or staff in Vienna and Germany tell me this. Their definition of high season is Sept.

My Wife and I will be starting on our 28 day drive tour of England and Wales in about a week. We are not staying in London this time.

Have a car rented for $1200 for four weeks that includes a nav system and it is an automatic.

Have B&Bs reserved with an average cost of $130 per night, but breakfast and parking are included.

We will spend on admissions to some locales. Also, dining will be a major cost.

My estimate for the entire trip, meals, lodging, fuel for car, car rental, admissions and all is from $12,000 to $14,000 for the entire trip.

I would recommend apartments. We find we can stock fridge with a few things for breakfast, picnics, and snacks. With a bit more space we feel less need to go out as often to sit and hangout and spend money in cafes. We often buy a bottle of wine and have cheese, bread, salami, and fruit for dinner at "home".

To give you an idea on what can be found with a lot of research, we spent 500€ in Cortona Italy for a week for a farmhouse with a pool and awesome view. (Sept). Last June we rented an apartment (lower floor of a house) with pool for 750€- May would have been 500€. Renting for a month might give you a better rate.

My husband and I can easily do a month in Italy (not counting airfare) for $5000, staying in apartments. We eat dinner out every day, but moderately priced places. We do our own breakfast and usually just have a sandwich for lunch. In May this year, we did a three-and-a-half-week trip in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands for $5000 - all public transportation, no rental car.