Must go in 2013!

As far as the saving methodology, does your paycheck go direct deposit? Will your bank/credit union divide the transaction so some goes in to checking and some in to savings so you don't have to do it yourself? If not, on payday, pay yourself before you do anything else. As far as your new job possibility, I would make it clear up front that you have booked a tour for X date to X date to have that on the table ahead of time.

It would help if you could first come to some sort of decision as to exactly how long you hope to make this trip (2 weeks? a month? 3 months?), and how many countries you expect to fit into that time frame (focus on just 1 or 2, or see parts of the 5 you listed above?). Are you more interested in large metropolitan areas (Paris, Rome, Berlin) or small villages and rural areas? Hotels and food will cost more in the big cities, but some rural areas are impossible to visit without a rental car. Some countries are more expensive than others (Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark) when it comes to how far you can stretch your budget. What's important to you when you travel to other destinations? Visiting a lot of museums or historical sights? Eating at some nice restaurants? Theater? Music? Pubs or nightlife? Developing a rough outline of where you want to go, for how long, and what you might want to see and do once you are there will help you get a better handle on how much money you'll need to budget and start saving to have the kind of trip that you really want. There are people who can make it work on $200 a day, some who need more and some who can make due with far less.

Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Portugal, Turkey, former Yugoslavia and, to a lesser extent Italy, are cheaper. All the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe are also cheaper than the rest. Smaller towns are cheaper than big cities, although reaching them without a car might not be as convenient.
You can find accommodations for under $100 a night practically anywhere in the above mentioned countries without ever setting foot in a hostel. If you stay away from fancy restaurants you can have a full meal for under $25-30 per person. I think $200 a day is very doable without too much effort. It takes some homework and research.

One thing to keep in mind is that the more you move around, the more it will cost you. Of the countries you mention, Spain is probably the least expensive and Switzerland the most expensive. I think you could determine where to go based on your interests. Narrow it down to a couple of possibilities and then see which one would cost less. Maybe let the cost of airfare help you with the decision. It's not a savings to fly where you don't want to go, and then have to pay more to get to your final destination.

I've had this dilemma in the past, but a few years ago I decided to "pay myself first" as suggested by another poster, put that money into a separate account, and watch it grow. I try to be realistic about how much I can put away in a specific time period. How long you plan to travel will have an effect as well; what is "enough time off from work"? I teach at a college and decided to stop teaching summer classes so I could travel for 3 months. This results in a rather simple lifestyle here, as well as in Europe, but I've managed on less than $200 per day (hotel room with private bath, at least one restaurant meal per day, breakfast usually included with the hotel rate, shopping, museums and sights, and transportation within Europe). If you can't get enough time off to do everything you want to do on this trip, consider planning on returning to Europe during the off-season when everything is cheaper.

Look at your spending habits. Is there anything unnecessary? Is there a purchase that can be delayed? Can you go without things like new cars, expensive phones, restaurant meals, book purchases, newspapers, gift-giving, etc.? These are things I adjusted in my spending life. Some people save all their change in a jar. If your job has a connection to a credit union or other saving program, have payments automatically deducted from your salary. It's surprising how much you can set aside without hardship. If it looks like you still don't have the amount of money you think you will need, adjust the time you spend in Europe or change your standards for housing. There are also options for housing that can be less expensive, such as airbnb. You don't seem to emphasize meals in your standards for travel. There are many options for inexpensive eating all over Europe. I rarely have a sit-down dinner in Europe. I buy food at bakeries, grocery stores, and have lunch at inexpensive deli-type places. In Italy, pizza is readily available.

Drop Switzerland from your plans if money is that big an issue. Over and over we see pleas for help with affordable lodging from people who put Lucerne or other places in Switzerland in their trip. Also limit long distance travel and one-night stops. Spain and France would be a good combo; add northern Italy if you have at least three weeks.

Are you traveling alone? Get a friend involved - lodging is a lot more affordable when cut in half. If your goal is to really see and experience places, you will want to spend at LEAST 2-3 nights in each city you visit, especially if the travel between them will take more than two hours each. It wouldn't be possible to see everywhere you listed above in a two week vacation. If you goal is to see a lot of places in a short amount of time don't count out a cruise. These cost around $100/day/person double occupancy and include lodging, food, and movement from place to place. You would only pay additional for what you do in the cities while you are at port. However, you don't get a lot of time in each place so you'd have to accept that. If you're not interested in moving at top speed through the cities every day to see the sights - this isn't for you.
My employer doesn't care how long our vacations are so long as they're on the calendar in advance and we don't take off during our peak busy times of the year. Not everyone has that luxury. I'd talk to your boss ASAP about how long you would be allowed to take off and get something on the calendar. Something i like to do is wrap in work holidays to my travel - for example, i went to London and Paris last month for two weeks and wrapped in Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving day - so i only needed to take 8 days of vacation time to do that, instead of 10. Sometimes traveling over holidays is a bit more expensive, but if you book far enough in advance it usually doesn't make a difference in price, especially for international flights.

Just to give you a rough idea my trip this summer was for 2 months (all in France), one month on the road with a combo of rental cars and trains and one month in an apartment in Paris. My total cost including airfare/other transportation/lodging/meals/sightseeing/souvenirs was approx $170/day. When driving I stayed mostly on toll-free roads, stayed in very inexpensive B&Bs/small family run inns etc. and did most of my meals as picnics from markets. In Paris it was cheaper to rent an apartment for the month than it would have been for hostels and I did most of my own cooking, didn't eat out a lot. I used every trick in the book to save $$ on sightseeing, such as free days at museums, but also did not skimp so as to miss my "must-see" places. I know that the longer you go the less $$/day but I do think you can make it on $200/day especially if that does not include airfare. It takes a lot of research and planning and depends a lot on where you want to go and for how long. As for saving for the trip that's something only you can do. Set aside a certain $$ per paycheck, give up expensive luxuries (designer coffee, eating out, etc). You can do it if it's really a priority for you. As others have said you first need to decide when to go (cheaper off-season), where to go (some countries very expensive, others not so) and for how long. Good luck with the saving and planning - you can do it!

Hi Jeramy, First: "And how do you manage to squirrel money away without it getting sucked into the day to day vacuum of where did my money go?" Create a simple spread shhet with Excel to track your expenses. Have a column of "fixed" expenses (rent, mortgage, taxes, etc.) and variable expenses (food, gas, etc.). Save reciepts, log them in and see where your $$ are actually going. During our many recent trips to Germany and Austria, we've rarely spent more than 60 Euro a night for a nice double room, private bath and w/breakfast buffet included. We stay in family owned/run Pensions, Gasthofs, etc. Dinners in a decent restaurant run us about 40 to 50 Euro for 2. You can get by much cheaper... pizza is usually excellent and costs under 10 Euro. Beer is cheap (IMO) and costs less than a soda. Buy snacks, drinks, etc. for your room/days out at a supermarket. I think you could easily do under $200 a day. You don't need a lot of time, as we normally spend 10 nights on our trips. Key is to pick an area and limit the amount of travel time and distance between destinations. An example would be: fly into/out of Munich, stay in Salzburg, Innsbruck/Mittenwald/Garmisch area and maybe Fuessen and then a night or 2 in Munich before leaving. Just some idea's and opinion's. Paul

Here's my figures, over many years, adjusted for current prices, per-person/per-day. Car the whole time. Channel crossings included. No apartments. Good supper, breakfast and lunch out of a sack. Average trip thirty days. No reservations, no long hunt for a place to sleep, never in summer. Figures not valid for Scandanavia, Switzerland, or Austria. Generally multiple countries per trip. Few museums/paid sites (seen them all previously). Souvenirs/gifts not included: With wife (one-third major cities, one-third minor, one-third, rural - - no hostels): $100. With buddy (one-fourth major cities, one-fourth minor, remainder rural - - budget hotels and rural hostels): $85. Alone (rural, mostly hostels or rooms-above-a-bar): $90 (but almost fifty of which is shouldering the car expense alone). Note: these are goof-off trips - - there are others that make these look like chump change and make me gag when I pay the bill. I keep track of expenses to see how close my guess is, but don't check prices ahead of time. Just less than five percent was my worst miss, and that was an over-estimate.

Have you thought about a Rick Steves tour??
When I went on one I found it easy to save up and since you pay before you go to europe you know what you can spend on vacation. Also you can use his tours as a guide line for how long to spend in places and how much you could spend. I know its hard but I would narrow down where in europe you want to go. Personally I would not change locations very much. Pick a country then pick what you want to see.

A RS tour is nice and great for a first-timer who may be nervous about going on their own, but not really meant for the budget minded traveller. For instance his 14 day Europe tour is $300/day + airfare - not cheap. It could take you a while to save up enough for that. You can do much better on your own, especially if you travel with a companion to split costs and even travelling alone you can do it for well under $200/day as long as you're not going the 'luxury' route for hotels/restaurants/transportation, etc.

I am a budget minded traveler who goes to Europe every summer for a month and while there take a RS Tour - 10 so far - #11 in June. Someone posted that a certain RS tour cost $300/day. His 21 day Best of Europe at about $5,000 costs about $250/day and his 14 day Adriatic Tour, which cost about $3,000 cost about $240/day. HOWEVER, this is the cost for one person in a couple. Single supplements, if available, can add to that cost. HOWEVER, you can sign up for any RS tour as a single person and only pay the amounts that I have shown. On the 10 RS tours I have taken, there has always been at least one single person, sometimes as many as 3 or 4. More homework on your part is still needed. Do Go!

Jeremy:
I've been traveling to Europe since attending in the University of Innsbruck, 1970. I was fortunate to have traveled extensively in my work in the U.S., and have seen 90% of our national treasures. I am now free to travel elsewhere. My wife and I continue to take a cruise every year or two, or when the prices get ridiculously low. A 1 week cruise from Barcelona to Venice runs between $850 and $1,200. At Venice, you could go inland. Cruises are a great value in Europe and a good way to spend 1/2 your vacation. We toured from Venice to Rome Easter, 2012, and found double rooms on agritursimos for E70. Singles were running E50-55. Trains remain the most affordable way to get from city to city. You should be able to easily travel on $150 per day including food. Someone recently asked me what tour company we used when traveling Europe. I am the tour guide, and I study this and other websites in detail for great information from guys like Ken and Roberto. They've been there and done that. With the internet and Mapquest.com, I even know the city streets. My wife and I are the original frugal travelers, preferring to stay not in hotels but in B&B's and individuals' homes. We eat heavy breakfasts and stick to eating one decent meal late afternoon. We seldom see any E50 meals, and don't suffer. We also picnic along the way. We lead a perfectly normal life at home, but we still live frugally. Eating out is limited to once per week, and have curtailed alcohol intake to about nothing. We spend vacations in a travel trailer in the North GA mountains, but otherwise stay close to home. Living a conservative life, saving money and frugal travel is how we afford to European vacations. I usually get a very good airfare, but they're getting increasingly hard to come by. I hope you use all the good advice received on this posting, and put it to good use.

My motto for getting time off work is to make my plans before they make their plans. In other words you need to make clear in your mind when you are going to travel and for how long, and tell your employer ASAP that you are planning to take time off then. I always start this process off informally with my manager. I book it formally into the system when my dates are set in stone i.e. when I have started booking airfares and accomodation. You have to keep them in the loop so they can plan around it. I have always found that if I give my employer enough notice, then they are reasonable about it.

I used to split the direct deposit into a checking and savings account at the same bank. Good in theory, but it was too easy to transfer the savings into the checking if we needed to. So I opened up a Capital One Checking account for ATM use in Europe and now deposit 15% of my take home into that account. Doesn't cover 100% of every vacation, but there's enough in there to cover most of the ATM withdrawals for a trip to Europe. The only rule I have on this account, is that it only can be used to pay for vacation related expenses, whether plane tickets, ATM withdrawals, etc.

You asked about cheap places, and I always recommend Berlin as a destination for saving money. There are an abundance of tourist apartments and they are cheaper than hotels. Stop by the local supermarket and you can eat well for just a few euros a day. I spent 4 days there a couple weeks ago. My apartment in Schöneberg was $64 euros a night (and there are cheaper ones available). I took $200 euros out of the bank when I arrived and still had euros left when I departed for Turkey. I wasn't really trying to save money, it just always seems to work out that way in Berlin. London, Paris not so much.

Usually lodging is my biggest expense. Here are a few suggestions for keeping the cost down: Don't rule out hostels. These days they aren't just for students. People of all ages stay in them, including families, and most have private rooms, many are en suite (with bathroom). Also, most of the dorm-type rooms have their own shower/toilets so the communal ones aren't used by most of the lodgers. You can check them out on websites like hostelworld.com In London, college dormitories rent out rooms at pretty low rates during the school vacation (June to mid-Sept). Many are private en suite rooms and there are cheap meals and/or communal kitchen facilities. The locations are very good for tourists, right in the heart of London. Traveling from city to city can eat up not only time but $$$ too. One way to save is to buy no-refund/no-exchange tickets which go on sale between 60 and 120 days in advance. There are limited numbers of these cheap tickets, so planning is essential. Go in low season. Prices for hotels in Italy in February can be half of what they are in June. (Hostel rates are generally the same year-round.) And there aren't nearly as many tourists, so sites are more enjoyable.

you have to do a little more research and figure out a detailed plan. assuming you'll make multiple trips like this, then you can drop the expensive countries/regions for now, so as a starter you may want to think about south of spain, or a greek island. take buses, plenty people renting rooms in their house, and find a friend to go together if possible. be open about hostel - you'll meet a lot of interesting people and may find it a rewarding exp. It's realistic to keep it under $100/day, exclude the airfare. you'll find eastern europe gets even cheaper, but better to save that as your 2nd or 3rd trip.

Another option for low-cost lodging is convents/monasteries, at least in Spain and Italy; not sure about other countries. I've stayed in very central, expensive parts of Venice, Florence, and Rome for 40 to 50 E per night for a single room, including a filling (albeit simple) breakfast. Sometimes bathrooms are shared, which I didn't think would work for me, but I've always found bathrooms to be spotless and plentiful. Spain should be cheaper than Italy. I book directly with the convent/monastery using the internet and Google Translate. (Little/no English is typically spoken.) For Italy, you could also book via monasterystays.com, which does add a daily fee for the convenience. And as others have noted, $200/d is very practical, provided you are careful about eating and transit costs. Unless you are traveling with a couple of other people, I'd use public transportation, rather then renting a car.

Hello Jeramy. You asked how can you save money before you travel to Europe. My suggestions are : Do not spend money for cable Television or Satelite Television or Direct T.V. at your home. Do not spend money for buying any beverages. Do not buy a ticket for attending a music concert. Do not buy music recordings (Compact Disc). Do not buy any DVD. Do not start a contract for use of a Smart Phone or similar device for communication. Do not spend more than $ 40. for one clothing item, unless you really need to buy a warm coat. Try to spend less money for buying gasoline for your motor vehicle. Would you spend less money if you ride in a bus some days, instead of driving your motor vehicle ? If you use a credit card for paying for your expenses, be certain that you pay all that you owe within 25 days after the date on the bank statement, for you to prevent paying for interest (finance charge). Do not buy any ice cream. Do not buy any chocolate or candy or doughnuts. Do not eat any meals at restaurants. If you save much money for your trip to Europe, you will be glad you did. Put all that money that you do not spend for those things into a separate bank account that is for your trip to Europe only. Now the subject of the price for airline tickets. At some travel web sites that have information of flight itineraries for many airlines, you can tell them the price that you want to pay, and the airports that you want to fly from and to, and the flight dates, and they will inform you when an airline has a flight for that price. Flights from the U.S.A. to Frankfurt in Germany, or to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, have had lower prices than flights to other destinations in Europe. For some flight days, flying to Munich can cost the same as flying to Frankfurt. If you go to Germany, inquire about low priced railroad train tickets or passes for travelling in one region in Germany. Go to not more than two countries, like Germany and France.