Europe- Footloose and Fancy FREE? Finale

THANKS for the update Nate. Glad you had a good time. See how easy it was?

Oh no you don't Nate, we need MORE!! Glad to hear your trip went well( well the e coli thing wasn't so great, but hey stuff like that makes good story when you are safe at home, LOL) ..

Please tell us how you managed to eat and sleep so cheap, especially in the " expensive" places( Paris, Rome ??) .

What was the most important thing you learned.

Where did you get the most for your money.
Where did you get the least?

Where was your worst bed , and your best.. I 'd love to hear it all..... LOL

Thanks and glad you are bad and now likely saving for next trip( yes, there will be another, maybe not for awhile, but once bitten you will always have the " travel bug" !)

Well, as far as living as cheaply as we did...we flew into London where the pound was 2:1, so we really had to make some major cuts in the ol' budget, so we didn't eat any meat while we were there, and actually didn't even have any veggies for over a week. Bread, some cheese, and peanut butter at the time (we didn't discover Nutella 'til later in Spain... :) ) Eating so poorly turned out to be a big mistake and it took us over a week to fully recover from jet lag, and one of my buddies developed pink eye and some sort of throat infection while we were there...lol. The fun was only beginning! That's pretty much where we saved the most money- eating. Although the food is a major part of the culture, if you think about it, living cheaply is, too. We still splurged occasionally (we couldn't pass an ice cream or gelato stand anywhere), but when it came down to eating well or paying a bus fair, well...the decision was simple-we could eat when we got back to the States! Here are a few highs and lows:

Favorite Country: Romania or Switzerland
Friendliest Locals: Greece
Scariest Locals: Germany ;)
Best Hostel: Backpack Guesthouse Budhapest, Hungary This hostel was actually one of the highlights of the trip for me!
Worst Hostel: Some place in Greece with no a/c where they stuffed four of us into a small room with one twin bed.
Best Food: Croatia or Romania- but we had places to stay here, and with locals at that
Clearest Water: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Best Gelato: Venice- everyone raves about Rome's gelato, but Venice domintated that department!
Cheapest Wine: 80 cents- Paris, and it was delicious!
Best Brew: WeissBier; Hofbrauhaus- Sure it's touristy, but it was AMAZING!
Worst Tourist Trap: Mozart's Birthplace, Salzburg, Austria
Most "Oh my God, I'm actually here" moments-
Watching the clouds part exposing the Matterhorn in Zermatt. Walking over the top of the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon. Seeing the Eiffel Tower.Riding a train through Bulgaria. more later..

"we didn't discover Nutella 'til later in Spain"

That has to be the saddest turn of phrase in the English language!

Oh, nutella, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

Hi Nate ! I am glad you went to all those countries, and you are still alive ! The most astonishing part of your trip report is that you liked Romania so much. Most of us Americans think of Romania as a country that was occupied and opressed and strictly controlled by the communist U.S.S.R., and that is all that we knew about it. What was your transportation in Croatia ? Rick Steves recommended only riding on boats on the Adriatic Sea for travel in Croatia (to visit the small towns), and from Croatia to Slovenia. I guess your daily budget of 31 EURO did not include railroad transportation expense : you bought a rail pass before you went to Europe, right ? Were you at the hostel at Gimmelwald in Switzerland ? If yes, were you able to sleep well in that hostel ?

Hey all! It's great to see so much interest in our trip! Here are some details on total costs for the trip: Airfare into London and back from Frankfurt- $670 through Student Universe (incredible, right?), 2 month Eurail Global pass- $1100 (but worth EVERY penny), Hospitalization in Spain- FREE! I don't know how we pulled it off, but I didn't get a bill, and they said they were going to mail my friend's, but it never happened! PLUS, for 4 prescriptions, I only had to pay 4 euros. Spanish healthcare is phenomenal! Spending money to cover everything else- $3,600. This puts the total trip cost at a bit over $5,000 which may sound like a lot, but honestly, an experience like we had is absolutely priceless. The trip was well worth over $100,000 in my opinion! We generally ate for about 6-12 euros/day (for all of us, not per person, and there were three of us). I know that sounds very unbelievable, but it's definitely doable. For traveling through Croatia, we took a train all the way to Split, and then took a bus from Split to Dubrovnik. I would HIGHLY recommend seeing this beautiful country. Dubrovnik is such an amazlingly beautiful city. It is true that they are fresh out of a major conflict, but it is so safe now. We actually had to bus through Bosnia for a bit to get there, but there were no problems at all. I expected to catch a bit of anti-Americanism at some point, but we were pretty much accepted everywhere we went. And as for Romania, besides the heat (it was hotter here than anywhere else), it was an amazing experience. The people were so kind and everything was soooooo cheap. We stayed in hostels for around 10 euros (compared to around 21-23 in Paris, Venice, Rome, etc.). I'm so lucky to have been given the opportunity to take this trip. If anyone has any other questions, I'd love to share more!

Nate, you said you were hospitalized in Spain. Was that still from the E. Coli? I'm so sorry that happened to you! I'm just wondering. Did you have health insurance to cover that cost? If not, that must have been a very expensive trip after all!
About Mozart's birthplace being the worst tourist trap, I enjoyed it because I'm a professional musician.
But I do agree it is a real tourist trap, like Elvis in the USA! LOL!
I hope someday I get to spend that much time in Europe! Would love to hear more about your trip.

Nate: Thanks for the additional information. If your $3600 was the dollar cost (euro cost x 1.5) and not in euros , then your $4700 total cost, except airfare, is about $70/person/day and that beats Rick's "rock bottom budget traveler" suggested budget in his latest book: his cost is about $110/person/day for what he calls student and rock bottom budget travelers and $180/person/day for his more typical travelers who prefer to sleep in hotels and eat one eat one meal a day in restaurants. So, good job! (although I think most of us will pass on the e. coli and the hospitalization, which may have been partly a result of cost-cutting?)

Nate, thank you for sharing! Great experiences and you'' have wonderful memories forever. Start saving for the next trip!

Just remember....like any bureaucracy, the medical bill could still be on its way. Don't forget...it's only mid-September.

Spain has National Health Services, so Nate may not get a bill. From my own experiences, my daughter had to be treated at a hospital in London and we were never billed, only had to pay for medicine we picked up. Serveral years ago my brother and mother was in the UK and my brother was hit by a car (drivers fault), he was taken to the hospital and again the only thing they ended up paying for was the crutches.

National health services, like those in Spain and Canada for example, are for nationals of those countries. Foreigners don't get free medical care on a regular basis, because then the country would be flooded with people coming in for such care. Vancouver General would be flooded with people from Seattle! Maybe they figured it wasn't worth the trouble for smaller cases. But that doesn't mean everyone will be so lucky.

I had the same experience in the UK of not being charged. I got sick and visited a Doctor. The only charge was for the medicine and I asked. This was in Dunkeld Scotland.

Pam

Hey Nate,

Thanks for posting about your trip. Scariest locals... Germany? Where in Germany? After 7 trips to Bavaria, we've had almost no bad experiences. Actually, we found the "locals" to be very friendly in general. Would love to hear more about Romania, Switzerland and Croatia. Put it this way... the more you write, the more I'll read!

Paul

On our RS tour this summer, in Rome, one of the kids got a cut over her eye and needed stitches. Assistant tour guide took her and her parents to hospital.
Parents couldn't gush enough about how wonderfully they were treated, no waiting, taken care of gently, and ,, no bill, they were not billed, nor told they would be billed. They were told to go and have fun.

Honestly, that wouldn't have happened here.

Hospital must be rather lax about collecting on bills, since they knew he was a foreigner they knew they would not be able to collect from him once he left the country. For small charges I bet they write it off. I suppose for a larger bill or long hospital stay they insist on some sort of guarantee of payment( a CC or something)

Rick Steves idea of rock bottom travelling and many others ideas of it are two different things. Rick is pretty middle of the road, middle class, middle budget, middle aged, etc.
Young folks can easily spend less( most have no choice) by sleeping in hostels, and not expecting sit down meals.

Nate, you spent less on your two month trip this summer then it cost my daughter and I on only the 14 day portion of Rick Steves tour,, ,, I won't even go into the airfare and other 12 days of food and hotel.. LOL

Pat, you are remarking on how little it cost Nate compared to your trip with your daughter, but A) you ate properly and did not suffer the consequences of not doing so (infections, pink eye, etc.), B) you did not sleep in a park ever, but always in a hotel, and C) you did not get E-Coli from who knows what nasty hostel or dirty restaurant. The thing is, Nate had a grand time, and good on him, but I never did, and certainly do not now, want to travel like he and his friends did. Spending time in a foreign hospital is a good story to bring home with you but not a lot of fun at the time.

Well, the whole e. coli/hospital incident seems to be a hot topic, so I'll elaborate a little more. We got e. coli from our last meal in Morocco. We ate undercooked chicken (I actually remember commenting on how tender it was...lol)and my buddy drank what turned out to be tap water they put in a bottle. I didn't drink it because I noticed the seal was broken when they served it, and instead settled for about 3-4 ounces I had left in my Nalgene from Spain. Either way, it hit me like a train in the middle of the night. I ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor, and it hit my buddy in the early morning as we were leaving. We had to endure an un-airconditioned train from Fes back to the coast (about 5 hours) and then the "Super-Fast Ferry" back to Tarifa. The ferry actually takes almost two hours for the whole process...not that fast if you ask me! Anyway, when we pulled into port, my friend Jim was unable to leave the bathroom. There happened to be some other Americans on the boat who had an ambulance called, and they took him to Algeciras, Spain. By this time, he was having cold chills, his arms were numbing, and all the other grand things that come with severe food poisoning... I was suffering everything minus the chills and numbness. We had to wait in the hospital for two hours before they saw him (although he was hooked up to an IV already), and during this time we took turns occupying the bathroom. Since I wasn't as severe as him, they didn't even know I was having a problem, and didn't admit me 'til the next day. He ended up staying for three nights, and I was only in for one whole day. During that time, I couldn't afford the only hotel near the hospital (50 euros), so I spent my nights finding places to sleep (as well as a VERY sick person could)without being kicked out. There were only two English speakers in the whole hospital, so communication was VERY difficult. At the time, it was the most miserable I've been in my life, BUT viva adventure, right? :)

Pat: You've said: "Rick Steves idea of rock bottom traveling and many others ideas of it are two different things. Rick is pretty middle of the road, middle class, middle budget, middle aged, etc." I think your description is a fair one of the previous Rick budgets which may have implied there was only one standard of living for European travel. But I think it should be noted that Rick's latest thinking on this subject, in the Sleeping and Eating on a Budget section of his recently revised Europe Through The Back Door 2009, presents two budgets: a middle of the road budget and a student or rock bottom budget traveler budget. Rick's "rock bottom" of $110/person/day total cost (except airfare) is based on the traveler having a clean, safe place to sleep and adequate food; and his estimated budget is worked out in some detail. His figures are based on $60/person/day for sleeping and eating: the $60 is $30/night for a hostel dorm bed or bed in a private home, $10 for a picnic lunch and $20 for dinner. Rick's rock bottom figures are based on his belief that travelers using his information want to "get 8 good, safe hours of sleep and 3 square meals", emphasis on good, safe, staying healthy, and 3 square meals a day. I submit that Nate's story is evidence in favor of the proposition that if you cut costs below a certain level, you risk having things happen on your trip that all of of us would want to avoid (read Nate's latest post). And Nate gets credit for being very candid with us about what can happen when you try to cut costs below a certain level. I believe there's sound and realistic guidance in Rick's book on how to do a safe, healthy trip at a rock bottom budget--but there is a lower limit and if the traveler goes below that minimum it increases the risk of unpleasant consequences.

Kent, no, I have not read RS revised budget recommendation for budget/student traveller. I am glad he is expanding his recommendation suggestions.
I must admit I do find reading the amounts in American dollars annoying. Everything costs euros, so I think he should list it in euros. Otherwise I just read your post and spent ten minutes trying to convert into euros..

Anyways Kent, you may recall me mentioning a trip I took when I was 23, a hundred years ago, a young persons budget trip to europe for almost 3 months. My friend and I certainly did NOT eat three square meals a day, and we certainly did not eat sit down dinner every night. No way.. We had a yogurt from a street shop on the way to the beach in the morning in Greece, we had a baguette from a street vender in Paris for lunch, we ordered a slice of pizza to go from a deli in Rome for dinner ,, you get the idea. We rarely could eat sit down dinner..we rarely ate breakfast, just soda to rehydrate after partying the night before. We smoked back then, and smoking and coffee were more important then meals,,, NOT GOOD,, I totally agree, but at that time I could have cared less..

We most obviously did stay in some dumps. We saw cochroaches, we shared toilets, and we always wore our flip flops in the showers to avoid fungus that we swore moved,, ,,LOL

But, we had a great time.

BUT!

I do agree with you Kent, Nates budget was TOO TIGHT if he had to sleep on the street when sick.

Nate, shame on you!! Budget or not you should have spent the 50 euros and got yourself into a clean bed.

We always had an emergency fund back up,, VISA ,, which we only used for emergencies.. After almost 3 months away I think I only came home with $200.oo of charges, but if I had needed more I would have had assess to more.

Budget is one thing, being too cheap to get out of the rain ( so to speak) is another, consider yourself thoroughly scolded.

Nate: You showed courage in doing your trip in the way you did, and also get credit for being so candid about your hospitalization from the e. coli you got from the restaurant in Morocco. You may not be aware of it, but some of us here were a bit worried about you as you went off to Europe a few months ago. At least we were able to help by convincing you that you needed more money than your very first budget, and you had the good judgment to accept our suggestions and take more money than your very first budget.You learned a lot, had unforgettable adventures, and survived to tell the tale! I thought you might get a chuckle--now--to read what Rick has to say about staying healthy in Morocco, in the part of his Spain book that covers Morocco:"Morocco is much more hazardous to your health than Spain or Portugal. Eat in clean--not cheap--places. Peel fruit, eat only cooked vegetables, and drink reliably bottled water (Sidi Harazem or Sidi Ali). When you do get diarrhea--and you should plan on it...."

You had a very amazing trip.Very cool.
Hmmm. EUR 31/day ???? How did you do that? Did you visit any museums? I assume you didn't stay in hostels all the time...

Well, I didn't read all the way down. He said in his 1st post his budget was 31 euros/day.

Nate, thanks again for a great summary of how you spent your summer vacation! A little too adventuresome for me but I applaud you! I wish more people would share their trip memories here. I felt like I was reading your journal/looking at your scrapbook. Happy and safer travels in the future!

You could have saved more money by hitchhiking. LOL.

Glad you made it back and weren't arrested.

I usually travel around Rick's rock bottom budget. I eat and sleep well but not lavishly or expensively.

For me Eurail passes have become an unneccesary luxury as I can find cheaper transportation options (I was only kidding about hitch hiking) like regional day passes or point to point for shorter trips. A rental car or lease is also cheaper when you are traveling in a group.

Our last family trip was under $10,000 for five people for a month including airfare, a car lease, gas, lodging, food and site seeing. Eating can get a lot cheaper when you do it as a group (except that I paid for everyone). We traveled comfortably, lodging ranged from the occasional splurge hotel to very basic hostels (often hostels aren't the best deal for a group). We ate at restaurants occasionally but most often just bought our food at grocery stores. I also take advantage of free things to do and rarely pay admissions for things we don't all want to see unless we split up for different activities.

My next big budget tip? Leave the kids at home (I'm only half kidding on that).

Brad those are some good points. Especially about hostels not being always the best budget choice for groups. Since they charge per head, it is sometimes cheaper , or only a few euros more to get cheap hotel room.
Also, for long trips( over 3 weeks) leasing a car is a sometimes a good option, especially for groups of 4 or more. And, if you rent a car you can throw a tent in the trunk and camp out, saving money on sleeping, ( which then you can spend on gas, LOL)