More budget questions

If planning on using trains (probably the best option), you can save on long distance trips by booking 92 days in advance on bahn.com. For shorter trips within one German state such as Bavaria, use the Lander ticket.

When looking for places to stay, check out the specific town websites. Usually this has the form www.town name.de. Some towns will have English versions (e.g. Rothenburg). If not, use a translator. On some sites (but not R'burg's), the Engish site will not have the entire list of accomodations. There is a tremendous difference in accomodation prices.

If you stay in one place for 3 days or so, consider an apartment (ferienwohnung).

Check out some trip reports at Bavaria Ben's excellent website - www.bensbauernhof.com

I see two questions about seasoned travelers: first, about people with travel experience, and second, about people who return to a city.

Having traveled in several countries, I can figure out a train/bus/metro schedule in a dozen languages (not that hard to do), so I can be more efficient with time and money, even if I'm visiting for the first time. Like Ray, I can figure out if a pass is a good idea based on what I want to see and how much time I have. Along the same lines, I know that two major sights and a couple of minor ones per day is all I can do (newbies tend to over schedule, I did). I know I like staying in the historic center of a city, so I do not waste time looking elsewhere for accommodations. I know that I prefer a taxi from the train station over walking more than a mile to my hotel, so that's true for any large city.

First-time in any city, I probably spend a little more time and money because I don't know the neighborhoods. By the second visit, I've noted restaurants, hotels, transportation alternatives, so I am more comfortable and efficient (if efficiency is a goal) with time and money.

Thanks for your replies... most helpful. I am hearing Zone sayi that experience equals knowledge equals choosing a more economical alternative. Thanks. Most helpful. I will also look into the passes that were mentioned. And if i can nail down a hard itinerary instead of flying by the seat of my pants, i can save by pre booking teains. And to answer Ray, there will be two of us, my husband and myself. Sorry i wasn't more clear, i was tired when i posted. Lol.

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate the time you took to answer me.

Judy,

I save money by not staying in 5 star (or 2-3-4 star) hotels, but by staying in B&B's. Airbnb is great, I have found 3 different places for under 70 euros, for 2 people, with private bathroom, for my upcoming trip.

Also, as RS mentions, picnicking will save you lots of money, eating out gets expensive. Go to a local market and get fresh food, then hang out and people watch while you eat. Great ambience.

I also like scenery, etc. not into shopping, so that saves money there!

Train travel is not that expensive, and I have never bought more than a couple of days in advance in case I change my mind re: destination and time.

Have fun!

Like Ray said, my husband and I typically travel for $150 - $200 per person per day exclusive of airfare from Tucson to Europe and back.

Doing the math, it looks like your Canadian dollars might be enough, but getting some specifics will certainly be comforting if you go over the daily average some days.

For us that average includes parking the car long term, leaving the dog at Creature Comforts Pet Resort, travel publications, travel insurance, ground (train, bus, metro, taxi, rental car) and air transportation in Europe, food, sights, etc. I list all these things because many will say they travel much more cheaply, but do not include all those categories of expenses.

We prefer to stay in apartments whenever possible. B&Bs or small hotels are our 2nd choice. We do not stay in very expensive places, but they aren't really cheap either.

I think you will do fine, especially in Germany, but if you find your specifics are creeping up the € ladder, you may want to up the total a bit.

I think your budget is plenty for two people. €6000 (excluding airfare) for 18 days is about €330/day and that should allow you to stay in quite decent centrally located places, whether hotels/small inns/b&b's. If you're not extravagant eaters or heavy drinkers you will get by just fine with one meal a day in restaurant, if you make that a mid-day meal it will be cheaper than dinner. Many accommodations can be found that include some kind of breakfast and you can do a pick-up meal at dinner (take-out, deli type) and that will save a lot. Traveling by train mostly in Germany can be done quite cheaply (even at last minute prices) by cobbling together area lander tickets, which often are one price for the first person and really cheap for second person traveling together. The type of sightseeing you say you like to do will not be terribly expensive.

Once you set an itinerary and know where you'll be staying you can post here for hotel suggestions within your budget.

What might make a new traveler spend more is either not knowing their options or getting stuck without options at the last minute. The purpose of Rick Steves' Germany and Austria guidebooks is to provide all the money-saving tips you need in one convenient package, with many specific price examples listed. All you have to do is to read the whole book, and highlight tips of interest as you come across them. Other planning tools also help you to be prepared, e.g., if you book a hotel through an online search engine, look for a balance between low price and location close to sightseeing.

If you look up train schedules through DB, they will also show you the range of advance-discount fares versus regular fares. A Germany or Germany-Austria rail pass can also be a good value and convenient to use for several days of longer train travel, with advance bookings normally not required; that's math that you should do before you go.

"I LOVE architecture, churches, scenery, castles, OLD towns... interesting, cute, definitively German towns...maybe the cathedral in Aachen, a few days in the Rhine area, over to Rothenberg, make our way down to Munich, over to Fuessen, Salzberg, and finish up in Vienna."

Your budget should be fine. I would be slightly more concerned about meeting your travel goals.

I did not see in your requirements a desire to see cities that were heavily shelled and converted to rubble. 2/3 of Aachen was flattened after heavy shelling in WW II. 80% of Munich turned to dust. Rothenburg was not much better - it looked like THIS. Vienna was heavily hit as well.

"Definitively German" does not characterize the smaller towns you mention - Rothenburg and Füssen. Thanks to the forces of international tourism, you will likely find tons of North American and Asian tourists in these towns, but disproportionately few Germans. Shops and restaurants have the tourist dollar, yen, or whatever in mind (and you don't need to shop Käthe Wohlfahrt shops, right?) Everyone speaks English. And the "castle" just outside Füssen that we all fear spelling - Neuschwanstein - is German-built, but it isn't even a genuine castle (it's a late 19th century fake created by a theatrical set designer.)

Sadly, tour books help you find other tourists, not a "German" experience.

The Rhine - the Middle Rhine Valley - is surely a keeper. Of course it has tons of tourists too, but the Rhine played a huge role in Germany history and in German Romanticism, and it's a place that Germans want to visit. LOTS of real castles and lots of cute towns with half-timbered buildings and old town wall towers and remnants.

Bacharach
Boppard
View from St. Goar
Oberwesel
Oberwesel town wall
Rheinfels Castle in St. Goar
Marksburg Castle in Braubach
Middle Rhine churches

Besides the Rhine, based on the Germany you say you wish to see, I'd suggest the following...

At least a short stop in Cologne if only for the cathedral there.
You may want to spend time in Franconia. That's where Rothenburg is but there's a lot more there too:
BAMBERG (like the Middle Rhine, Bamberg's old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site)
Ochsenfurt and Marktbreit
Bad Windsheim's open-air museum
Iphofen photos

Elsewhere:
Hannoversch Münden has 6 centuries of half-timbered houses
Büdingen is a fine old walled town.

The train hits all these towns.

Thanks Russ! I like the pics and video that you shared. My thinking is that anywhere I go is going to be nice, I have just read more about those cities and places that I mentioned, than others. I live in suburbia with concrete and expressways and all that 'beauty' so to me anyway, even a reconstructed city or town will be something exciting to see. Even Neuschwanstein.... The setting looks beautiful.

So so so many places to see and so little time to cover it all. I don't want to go to too many places and not really get to see them, but I do need to keep on the move. Ugh.... lol

As someone who didn't travel to Europe until 2008, I'm still slightly a newbie. I can tell you after going back three more times, I can think of things I did wrong that cost me $$ (and time) on that first trip that I subsequently now know better.

A big one - I am (slowly) learning that it is better to stay somewhere more than 1 night - moving = money spent on transport. Our trip in 2010, we had 6 (!) one night stays - barely seeing the city/town we were at and spending so much on trains. I still want to see too many places when we travel, but I am def coming to the mindset that you want at least 2 nights in small towns (like Bath or Strasbourg), 3 nights in larger towns (like Nice, Munich or Salzburg) and 4-5 nights is best in majors like Rome, Paris, London. (we've had 2 - 5 night stays in Rome - and it's great not rushing).

Hubby and I are budget accom travelers - I tend to look for B&B (airbnb is my new fav) or places UNDER $125 Canadian a night (under $100 is more my budget). We aren't adverse to staying in homes thru airbnb with the owner present - you can find some great prices and meet some wonderful people! (We are also couchsurfing hosts in our own home, so really enjoy meeting people - it's not for everyone.)

We are also not big eaters and don't drink alcohol. We like to stay somewhere with a free breakfast (or somewhere we can provide our own like an apt). We also learned (especially in Italy) to NOT order soda with supper - stick with bottled or tap water (the price of a glass of Coke is crazy $$$). We learned that we could share one of those lovely thin crust pizzas and that we both didn't need to order one. Eat a light lunch and maybe splurge on a few nice meals.

I do like to be flexible, but as others mentioned I learned booking major train journeys ahead can save lots of $$ (eg...I booked Rome to Venice 3 mos ahead and got a really good price). But you have to be certain and know you are going to be locked in. Travelling light means more opportunity to take metros or a bus instead of a taxi - if you are only dragging a carry on instead of two huge suitcases, it's much easier to take public transport to your accoms (in most cases). And saves money if you have to leave your bags at a left luggage while exploring since you are charged for each bag. There are times a car can be feasible - we rented one in 2012 to go from Paris to Caen area for a few nights and to Mont St Michel - the cost of the car I would say came out about equal when we would have factored in trains and buses and time wasted getting to MSM and the fact that we were able to stay for free for 2 nights with some lovely couchsurfing people in this charming little village unreachable with a train or a bus.

Time also = money. You may get a better rate on a place outside the city center, but you have to factor in money and time spent getting into that city center every day.

I think we averaged for our four trips to Europe about $6500-7500 each trip. Generally the trips were from 20-23 days. And on all four, either one or both tickets were paid for using airmiles, so that gave us some savings.

I agree that your budget is fine. As soon as you nail down your itinerary and start booking hotels, you will feel more confident. I agree with the strategy of staying within the historic center of cities, and finding hotels or b&b's with generous free breakfasts.

If you travel in the fall, consider scheduling your visit to the Rhine to coincide with the "Rhine in Flames" event September 19. This is a spectacular, hour-long fireworks display along the river between the towns of St. Goar and St. Goarshausen. It starts with the Rheinfels castle "catching fire", followed by three separate displays, ending with a grand finale from a barge in the river. Absolutely amazing. We watched it last September from St. Goar. It's free if you stand along the shores (there's also the option to book a ticket on a riverboat ... I think they had 70 lighted riverboats last year, which adds to the spectacle). Here's information on the 2015 event. I'd recommend staying in St. Goar or St. Goarshausen that night, if you can get a hotel. Or you can easily train there from nearby towns (including Boppard and Bacharach).

Hi Judy,

You've received some great advice so far. Here's a couple of other thoughts from how we travel now vs. several years ago:

Souvenirs - think ahead on this category. Is there one item that you would really like to purchase? Then you will be able to pass up all of the other "stuff" you'll be seeing that can add up the $$.

Transportation - others have mentioned purchasing train tickets ahead of time, etc. Also, I enter each of our hotel addresses into www.rome2rio.com to find out what are the transportation options between the train station & the hotel. Usually for us, we're taking a tram or bus. An extra advantage is that this type of transportation gets you "local" right away. We have some fond experiences of taking local transportation. We only take a taxi when we're heading to the airport, if necessary.

Not losing money - wear your moneybelts! You don't want to lose the money you've budgeted. We pull money out of an ATM about every 3 days and pay for everything (except hotels) in cash.

Grocery store lunches - we actually prefer eating lunch by grabbing a few items at the grocery store because it saves time during the middle of the day when we want to be out walking around vs. waiting at a table for food. A roll, yogurt or meat, veggie/fruit, bottled water or ice tea & some interesting local item in the grocery store makes a great lunch.

Pack light - just a carry-on lets you easily board a train, bus, whatever. And washing a few clothes in the hotel sink each night is pennies. You don't need to buy special clothes for your trip, but have comfortable shoes.

The best advice for last: read, read, read - guide books, internet sites w/ transportation maps, check out all of your options at each town or city ahead of time, including the free ones. For each of our trips, I spend several months of weekends planning each year which has saved us a lot of money. Even though we're going to new locations, I feel like each city is familiar by the time we arrive.

Just to answer the 'what do seasoned travelers know that newbies don't', you can compare a vacation trip to a grocery shopping trip.

Some people just know they need groceries, so they go to the closest/most convenient/glitziest/most 'in' store. If something catches their eye, they throw it in the cart - whether they need it or not, and whether they already have one or not. They grab the first &/or nicest-looking roast they see, and then they select a bottle of the one brand of wine they're familiar with. They didn't bring their shopping bags with them because this was a spur-of-the-moment shopping trip, so they pay extra for shopping bags.

Other people go through their pantry and refrigerator to see what they truly need to buy. They look at that week's sale circular and look for the good buys and sales for the products that they need. They ignore the sales for the items they don't need, even if it's a good deal. They bring their coupons with them and their shopping bags. Since they're slow-cooking/stewing the roast on their list, they buy a much-less expensive cut of meat. They're read reviews about other brands of wine, so they buy a very similar brand to what they're familiar with - and on sale.

The first person will spend way more time gathering the same- or lesser-quality haul, plus a lot of other junk they didn't need that also overlapped what they already had, and they will pay 2/3 more for it. The second person will benefit from an efficient trip, buying only what was truly needed, and will save lots of time, money, and energy. Yes, the second person will spend more time up-front preparing for their trip, but this paves the way for a much more relaxing and efficient shopping trip.

For your train trips, Länder tickets could equal some crazy savings for you, and advance-purchase tickets would mean even more savings. Knowing that when you get off the train in 'X' town, the buses are on the north exit and only accept 1€ coins onboard means you've had time to accumulate enough 1€ coins in the days preceding and you don't spend 25 mins wandering around the train station - sweaty, tired and lugging luggage - looking for that blasted bus stop. Experience/preparation means knowing you CAN arrive at your hotel 5 hours before check-in because they will hold your luggage for you while you have breakfast and see the town (I always verify this by email ahead of time) - and that you don't have to sit for 5 hours at an expensive outdoor café with your luggage blocking everyone's path, grumbling that you COULD BE seeing he town instead. Researching your options means knowing that you don't need to buy that expensive bus pass AND that city museum pass...that also provides free bus trips...and that you don't need ANY pass because you only want to see 2 museums, you don't need to ride ANY buses, and that pass costs 2x what your 2 museum tickets will cost. And you certainly don't need to have that pass mailed to you in advance from Geneva. A seasoned traveler knows that the taxi from the Rome airport to downtown costs an exact flat rate of 45€ (or whatever these days) and that's ALL you should pay...and how to tell the official city taxis from all of the non-official (aka 'ripoff') taxis who will charge you 100€. Research means knowing that your cappuccino will cost 8€ at the table situated 7’ from the bar - where you could've stood while drinking your cappuccino for 3€. Just 'waiting until I get there' to buy train tickets means paying 150€ for the benefit of leaving whenever you get around to it, verses buying the ticket online 3 months earlier - yes, with a specific departure time, just like airline tickets - for 29€. Knowing I could have purchased an online reservation to XY Museum means not standing in a ticket line for 2 hours...usually in the blazing sun...AND that I also got to see Blank and Such-and-Such in those 2 hours!

Cha-CHING! Cha-CHING! Cha-CHING!

WHOA! I didn't realize with the new software that One could run up against a maximum character limit...but One can, and 'One' did ;-)

All of the other advice is great, so I won't duplicate it. A HUGE PLUS for Rick Steves' books is that he is heavy on the 'preparation/get the most for your money/don't unnecessarily waste time' angle. If you aren't thoughtfully reading them already, I highly suggest you go no further until you have!

Another experienced traveler tip - spend money to save time and effort where it counts the most. If you need to get all the way across the city but there's no efficient bus or metro option, then spend a few €€€ and take a taxi! Every minute of your vacation costs money, so 15€ and 10 mins in a taxi verses 1 hour of slogging through a city to make your museum entrance appointment means 50 mins more IN that museum. Or 50 mins more sleep that night.

FWIW, you have chosen an inexpensive area for travel in comparison to most of Europe. Your main interests will include just looking at architecture, etc. - all mostly free things! Also the hotels and restaurants are very reasonable. Your (German) hotel breakfasts will likely last you until dinner! (Check with your hotel's website for particulars and TripAdvisor for reviews, photos, etc.) Your train expenses will be practically negligible, if you are smart about them.