currency in Eastern Europe

There are online currency sites that can give you precise exchange rates. Google "exchange rates" and you'll get up to the minute information.

I can't give you a good estimate on a "decent" meal for Eastern Europe any more than I could for New York or Kentwood, Michigan. What kind of restaurants do you like to frequent? What sort of food? Do you drink wine with the meal? Are you willing to eat in restaurants without English language menus? Would you prefer to eat in touristy areas or elsewhere? Too many variables for an answer.

In my opinion, Prague is the most expensive of the cities mentioned, then Budapest, then Warsaw.

Greg, the day before you leave you need to go on line to one of the currency exchanges and make a written note of the exchange rate for that day for the currencies you will be using. It is the ONLY you will know if you are getting screwed or not. The rate will change slightly every hour but it you should be accurate to within a few pennies or even a nickel.

What is the cost of a decent meal in Kentwood?

Here's a website that has exchange rates, look at the menu items on left side of the page http://www.oanda.com/

Thanks everyone for responding. I think I confused each of you with my question. What I want to know is let's say a bowl of beef stew averages ($7.00) dollars in the states, using the currency in the cities I will be visiting is a bowl of stew ( example ) equivlent to american currency $12.00 / $5.00 or whatever? I'm trying to figure how much money in general I need to budget. If I'm still confusing anyone please send me a private message.

Thanks,

Greg

As of April of 2006, when I last visited Poland and Czech Republic, I would say a nice dinner in Warsaw averaged about $10-15, not including drinks. Prague was a little more expensive, but prices varied greatly depending on the venue, with most of the cheaper options being the beer halls, where I might spend the equivalent of about $20 per meal.

If you really want accurate information, here's what I would do. Buy a guidebook that covers those cities. Check the websites (if available) for the restaurants listed in the book for the most accurate prices, then use a currency converter (like www.xe.com) to get the dollar amount. Otherwise, you'll probably get a whole mish-mash of answers from people (like me) who only have a vague remembrance for prices.

Tom,

Thank you very much, I'll try to pull up some menu's on line. I had a friend who just came back from Prague and I was surprised what she told me about her experience in exchanging american currency for currency in the czech republic. She said she exchanged 2000 american dollars at a bank and in return she received 1300 czech dollars.

Something is wrong with that story. Today she should have received about 34,000 Korung minus some fees. Fees could be as high as 10% but still should received around 31,000. But this illustrates my earlier point that you absolutely must know the exchange rate so that you will recognize a scam. If that truly happened to her, then she was severely scammed in the worse way.

I returned from 3 weeks in Eastern Europe on Sept. 6, 2008. I usually do the "Big Mac Price" (in US $) to see how each country compares to others. My recent findings:
Prague: $10.00 Krakow: $5.50
Budapest: $5.00 Vienna: $5.00
DON"T take US $ to Europe to convert to local currency. Us ATM machines using debit cards from financial institutions with low fees.

We will be in Budapest in three weeks and have similar questions. Is an ATM available at the airport? Our hotel advised us to let them pay the cab driver to avoid a scam so will take advantage of this. From Budapest we will go to Vienna and really don't want to leave Budapest with much of their currency.

Greg, I just returned from a visit to Prague, Krakow and Warsaw and the exchange rate was most favorable in Poland. I found that I can live on less than $100 a day US in most places. In Prague, I purchased food from the grocery store to avoid the high cost of food. In Poland I found the food to be very reasonable and comparable to what you would pay in the states. In Prague the exchange rate for US dollars was around 14-16 CK to US dollar and in Poland it was around 2.50 Zloty per US dollar. Hope this helps! Being from Seattle, I found that looking at the price of Starbucks helped, one tall mocha in Prague cost 95CK, a little much IMO.