Just Playing with Trip Costs

Interesting, but you are comparing places that are far from North America with places in North America, so the airfare will be more significant for places in Europe.

First of all, would you plan to stay the entire two weeks in one of these cities? Probably not, since you could "do" most of these places in a week or less.

I suggest that you narrow down your planning to three places, then add one or two nearby places for a two week trip.

For example Barcelona add Madrid and perhaps Seville, Spain.
Prague, add Munich and Vienna.

Then research what you want to see. Check out TripAdvisor "things to do" and determine how long you wish to spend in a place.
Then using kayak.com, TripAdvisor and Booking.com to find the lodging that you prefer that suits your budget.

If you take day tours, price those as well and add cost of admissions.

If those numbers represent the cost for one person, then, I can tell you that you can find more affordable lodgings than the price represents.

Also, consider taking a guided tour that would include your lodging, fees, most meals, etc.

We love Gate 1 Tours that are a great value with reasonable prices.
Example, my wife and I did a two week tour of Egypt in January that included 2 three day river cruises on the Nile, hotels were five star, most meals, admissions and fantastic guides for $3500 per person. That price also included airfare from JFK NY to Cairo.

If you wanted to do a city like Washington, DC the main sites you can do easily on your own. Further, all the great museums there to see. Still, you wouldn't need two weeks for that.

Enjoy your trip

I used real airfares and the cost is for a couple. But you are right, no matter which choice there would be side trips and other expenses.

This was really to demonstrate that you can spend about the same with a US trip or a European trip.

Cut it back to one week and the range between Eurooe and the US gets tighter because of the airfare difference, stretch it out to 3 weeks and some interesting places in Europe might come to the same cost as the cheaper US destinations.

Really just shows that generalizations about European vs Seeing the US travel this year have exceptions. Food for thought is all.

“Food for thought” … what food costs are included in the above costs, and what kind of food? Higher-end restaurant meals (an attraction in many places) can cost more, but then fast-food can be expensive, too - especially for what you get.

Cyn, all explained in the link.

In 2017, my wife and I did four weeks in England and South Wales on our own.
We rented a car, stayed in BnBs or small hotels and toured on our own.

About 2/3 of our breakfasts were free and about half the time, we skipped lunch. We did eat at nice restaurants about half the time, the rest in pubs or similar places.

Lodging costs averaged about $120 per night. All of our lodgings were very good quality. Location was great for all.
Auto rental, we rented an automatic with a nav system for about $1800 for the four weeks. Fuel costs were only about $200 for 1700 miles of driving.

Meals ran about $90 per day, so for 28 days about $2500 for four weeks.
We spent a little washing clothes twice and did pay some for admissions.
For four weeks we spent about $7000. Airfare was separate, we flew into London and took a transatlantic cruise back to the USA.
This was for two persons.

I know this was 5 1/2 years ago, but I checked some of the places where we stayed and their costs had only increased less than 10%.

Well, I know I often have to explain about travel and travel costs to my friends who don’t do a lot of it. They truly don’t have any idea that airfare to (and lodging in) places in Europe can run about the same as to parts of the U.S. I did a 2 week national parks trip a couple of years ago and spent what I would spend in most places in Europe I go. It used to floor me that I could find an airfare sale to London, or Paris, or Rome for less than I would spend to fly to see my mother-in-law in Illinois (because there was never a sale). But I am surprised by the numbers on Washington, D.C. (would think they would be higher) and Prague (would think they would be lower).

periscope, if you truly interested (and not just being facetious as I suspect), I would be happy to message you numbers on my 2 weeks in Budapest last year doing all the tourist things and eating at restaurants every day. Of course, they would be without airfare since I was using miles.

Can I do a 2 week trip cheaper than these numbers? Yes. But with those being for a couple, they aren’t a ton higher than my average weekly costs. And U.S. trips really haven’t proven to be significantly different for me than European trips. Which I think was the comparison if I am not mistaken.

That's why I said food for thought. There are so many variable that it only demonstrates that there may be more options than what appears on the surface.

As for Airbnb costs, I suspect you would have to log on to AirBnb and compare what you consider to be "similar" (they have great little unit location maps for that); beyond that I haven't got a clue. When I am not at home I prefer hotels for the convenience and service.

Given that list dep SFO the only city I can conceivably spend 2 weeks easily , ie 14 full days, is Paris, which can be done for less than eight thousand. This includes doing at least 5 day trips from Paris, such as Soissons, Rouen, Alsace-Lorraine, Lille, etc..

One only needs to delve into the research to find tons of places, esoteric historical / cultural sites to visit and revisit in Paris itself and beyond.

My informal observation for some time has been that we can stay and eat in Europe for less than we can in the U.S. However, we always spend a lot more on airfare going to Europe than flying in the U.S. I never seem to find the extra cheap ones that others do--probably because I am not flexible enough.