Hello,
I'm sure this has been answered on this forum before but I cannot find an answer anywhere.
We are planning a trip to the Bavaria/Munich region for Summer of '17. We are trying to get a handle on how much to save. How much should we plan on spending per person/per day? This would include middle-of-the-road accommodations, one sit-down meal per day and entrance to various landmarks. The four people include 2 adults and 2 pre-teen age kids. Thanks for your opinion!
You will get such a variety of answers here as there is no real answer. Do you intend to travel more frugally or extravagant? Most travelers here try to stay on a reasonable budget, but the best way to figure this out would be to pretend you are going now and try to look at rooms, transportation, flights, etc. for the 4 of you. Are you traveling by train or car? Most hotels in Germany include a hearty breakfast, so that helps with food costs. I am always on a budget, but do most of my travel by car. Gives lots of freedom and spontaneity. I usually have food for roadside picnics in my car and avoid expensive restaurants. Bigger meal at lunch and a light supper can also save $$.
If you have an exact itinerary and no car there are ways to book train tickets ahead and family plans to save $$. I prefer the car in Germany, but that is because I love road trips and off the beaten path locations.
You can take a look at a number of lodging options on booking.com to get an idea of rates.
My last trip to Munich I averaged this:
DJ
Rough idea - maybe €75-120/person/day, but it depends a lot on where you are going and what type of room/s you need and what sights you want to go into. I was a solo and accommodations were my biggest cost so, splitting the cost per person, you should do a little better than I did. I spent about €50-70 for rooms, maybe €25 or less for food (I'm not a foodie, anything that will give me energy to carry on sightseeing will do), maybe another €25 or so for entrance fees and local public transportation. I averaged right around €110/day and I stayed in nice 2 star hotels and small inns, usually with breakfast included and ate one meal a day in a restaurant or cafe and one meal picked up from a grocery or market and ate as a picnic or in my room. I didn't do a lot of high priced attractions and I don't drink a lot when traveling, mostly just water and a glass of house wine or beer now and then.
Things change as the value of the $ fluctuates, but I can tell you our experience.
Ten years ago we spent two weeks in Switzerland with our daughters, a teen and a pre-teen. Our cost, excluding airfare, was $300 a day or $75 per person. The Swiss franc was around 80 cents then but now it is much higher.
Five years ago we went to Italy together as a graduation present to both. One daughter was then an adult and we sometimes booked a separate room for them. Our lodging costs ranged from €120 a night for a Verona apartment to €500 for two hotel rooms in Milan. Our average for that trip was more like $500 a day for the four of us.
Since then my husband and I have traveled on our own without the girls, although one met up with us in a Rome apartment last October. Our expenses traveling as a couple are not really relevant to a family so I won't try to figure them up.
In Bavaria you should be able to find reasonably-priced self- catering vacation apartments ( Ferienwohnungen) which would be the way to save money. Some are only available by the week, but you may find others with a 3- night minimum.
I agree with Terry Katherine in that you should pick some dates this summer and see what it would cost. I looked at a random week day date in August for Munich and really didn't see anything less than 150€ for a quadruple/family room per night. Many hotels were charging 250€ + per night. The 2 hotels I saw for this price happened to be some I'm familiar with and would be OK with staying there again. If you are staying in an area for 3 or more days you could look at apartment rentals too.
I think you can eat for about 100€ per day since breakfast would usually be included in your hotel rate. You can get an idea of museum prices, bicycle tours, etc by checking what you are interested in online.
You don't say if you are renting a car or using public reansportion but there are some very cost saving train tickets, regional tickets, that will make traveling very stress free and cost effective. Price out a rental car, parking and fuel cost to compare.
My arithmetic also comes at around EUR 100 as a minimum per person per day:
- EUR 40 hotel (EUR 80 for a two persoon room)
- EUR 25 decent dinner
- EUR 10 coffee and lunch
- EUR 10 public transport
- EUR 15 two attractions (musea and the like).
This is all on the minimum side of things. It would be better to reckon with some EUR 125, still without extravaganzas.
A lot depends on transportation. In Bavaria (and Germany) children 14 and under travel for free with their parents. Sound like your kids meet this criterium. This applies to advance purchase discount tickets as well as full fare. For short hops in Bavaria, there are all day passes for regional trains, most notably the Bayern-Ticket. (28€ for two adults and their own children under 15). In cities, like Munich or Nürnberg, there are also all day passes for travel in the metro district.
Learn to use the German Rail (Bahn) website to see how to get to where you want to go by train or bus, and how much the cost will be.
A couple of years ago, my partner and I spent 3 weeks going from Frankfurt to the Black Forest, then across southern Bavaria to Berchtesgaden, finishing with 4 nights in Munich. One week was spent in a vacation area in the Alps (near Oberstdorf) where all of our transportation was covered by a 40€ Vacation Pass. The rest of the time we made extensive us of Bayen-Tickets. For the other 14 days, we spent 310€ for all of our transportation. We traveled some every day. That was a daily average of 22€/day, for two.
If you plan well using public transportation, you'll spend a fraction of what you would with a car. I usually compare what I would spend single or with one other person on public transportation vs a car, and I find public transportation to cost 1/3 to 1/2 what a car would.
When figuring out a budget, track all the expenses in euro. The USD/euro rate fluctuate, but the cost in euro shouldn't. When you have all of you expenses figured, then convert the total to dollar using the current exch rate. My dollar per day rate was a lot higher when the euro was $1.40 than it would be for the same trip today at $1.14.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I really appreciate it.
I believe we would use public transportation exclusively.
Using public transportation you should be able to figure out just about what you will need... just plan the trip for this summer and figure things wont change too much.
A few of the estimates here seem to be a little more than I would spend, but if you read some of the posts about saving money while traveling I am sure you will get a better handle on how much you will need for food and admissions.
You should be able to get the cost of admissions online from the websites.
Someone suggested 25 euro for dinner and 10 euro for lunch. I pretty much average 20 euro a day for lunch, dinner, beverages, and tip, but I tend to enjoy German specialties (Schnitzel, Paprikawurst, Käsespätzle, etc), which are usually less expensive than the dishes most American recognize. Still, I think that, as long as you're not eating in big cities, 25 euro a day should suffice. They don't expect big tips in Europe; 5% to 10% should be enough.
As for accommodations, the worst would be to use big name hotels, like Hilton, Sheraton, etc. Better would be to use booking websites like Booking.com or HRS.com. Best would be to figure out the town websites and book with them. Or use a guidebook, or get recommendations from here. Forty euro a night per person would be doing pretty good.
We were in this region of Germany last summer with our 17 year old son - so 2 adults one teen. For accommodation, sights, etc., we were averaging about 250 euros per day. Hotels ran us around 120 per night including breakfast, we ate out for lunch and dinner (we ate at very touristy places in towns mostly...just because it was easier), and saw 2 - 3 sights per day (museums, churches, palaces, etc). Some days were less expensive and some more expensive just depending on where we ate and what we chose to do.
Unless you are using a rail pass, which is cost ineffective to begin with, 2 adults and a 17 yo is three adults.
If you stay in vacation apartments ( ferienwohnung ), the kids will cost only an extra 5-10 Euro per night each. Take a look at some triip reports at www.bensbauernhof.com
Thank you to everyone. This forum is incredibly helpful.
I think you would be best served by sitting down with Rick's guidebook (which of course you have, right?) and selecting hotels you'd like. You don't need to book them, just places you like the sound of. Add them up. See what price range you usually choose. Now you have a sense of what your lodging budget should be.
Then turn to the restaurant section, do the same thing. Now you're getting a feel for what your own personal style of travel costs in Germany.
And please, don't get hung up on sticking to a budget at the expense of enjoying your trip. If you can't really afford to go, you probably shouldn't go right now.
Hi,
I find a good deal of the expense once you are settled in the city, say Munich depends on the type of accommodations you choose. In Munich itself for me as a solo traveler, I can can keep the budget on the average per day under 80 Euro which includes my stay at the Pension, plus lunch and dinner with a museum also. That's if I am determined to watch the max expense limit, which is not always the case, just depends. Souvenirs are limited to my buying postcards to write and send.
Your family can stay at a Pension, which cuts down the accommodation cost. Seeing an American family such as yours age wise in a Pension is extremely rare. I have only seen European families at Pensionen, parents and pre/teenagers.
There is a great variation of room rates, depending on location, season, weekday and special events, i.e. congresses, fairs, Octoberfest. With the latter, even budget hotels may charge way above €200 for single room/occupancy. On the other hand, rural tourist destinations on weekdays (less domestic tourists) or large cities on weekends can be very cheap (less business travelers).
We have found Germany to be less expensive than most other countries. Often in Germany you can find B & B or small family run hotels that will charge for a room, then adding a third or fourth person is a fraction of the cost. Some charge per person and others just add maybe 20 euros for each additional person. If you plan to stay in one room, make sure you book ahead because there are not as many "family rooms" as double rooms. If you can find family rooms you would save money over getting two rooms. Often the family rooms will be more like a suite with two bedrooms.
In RS books, he usually will give a suggestion of what a trip will cost per person. We have always been able to be under his budget. We do rent a car, and I would imagine a car is cheaper than public transport for 4 people, but I'm not sure.
Look up and track airfare. Start checking it with some regularity so you will know if a good price comes along. I use kayak.com for international flights and I like googleflights.com too.
With research, you can easily come up with a good idea of what you will spend. Use Trip Advisor to scout out accommodations (go the actual hotel website), you can look up train travel (de.bahn), admissions to sites (on-line just look up). We usually eat a big breakfast (included in B & B cost) have a snack for lunch ( 5 E pp) and then go out to a nice moderate price dinner (20E pp or less) You can even look up restaurants on Trip Advisor for the area you are staying, check out their websites and menu and see what you might want and how much it costs.
I was really nervous about eating in London since I knew it was really expensive. I was able to scout out restaurants on Trip Advisor and found great places that we ended up going to. I had mock pre-chosen meals and knew what we would spend ahead of time. After looking up a few places I had a very good idea of what we would spend. I always plan high and we always come way under budget.
After a couple hours of research I think you will be able to get a fairly good idea. Plan a higher budget than you think and then it will be much more fun when you are not pinching pennies.
Have a great time! You will love Germany!
Here are prices for 2 adults and 3 teenagers:
17 days 2015: Denmark/Italy/Germany $130/person/day including 3 airfares @ $1100 each: 2 transatlantic + 1 DK to ITA ($65/person/day without flights) >>This was a train and public transportation vacation
23 days in 2014: UK and France $115/person/day including 3 airfares @ $1060 each: 2 transatlantic + 1 UK to FRA ($68/person/day without flights) >>This was a driving vacation, car rental in each country (car not used in Paris or London)
I guess that is pretty consistent! I'm surprised that the car and train vacation styles worked out to cost the same. Both vacations averaged 1.5 meals/day eaten out.
Hi,
Relative to other countries, if you how to do it, Germany is pretty cheap to travel in with Berlin as the cheapest big city/capital. I know Berlin is not on your itinerary this time.
