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Six week trip-Italy-Innsbruck, Ghent, Brugge, Basel and France

Posted by (Monterey County, CA (formerly Verbania Italy-Lago Maggiore)) on

Seems there are always posts asking about costs of traveling Europe, so I’ll focus on where we were, type of lodging $$ and context around how we travel.

Our trip (husband and myself) was 45 nights, (1 on a plane)

  1. Airfare- we normally travel on miles, but when I found 1 way on United for $453pp from SFO to Milan, I canceled the miles flights(88k miles)
  2. We planned our trip around skiing the Dolomites the end of March, so the cost of those four nights are excluded from the rest of the trip costs. 4 nights ski in/skiout, full board, 3 days skiing including equipment rental $2100. (Incudes cost of shipping box with ski clothing home.)
  3. Itinerary- 6 nights Italy-Verbania, Milan, Bolzano (plus 4 Dolomites), 3 Innsbruck, 6 Belgium, 1 Basel, France 24. Colmar, Reims, Normandy (with friends), Amboise, Dordogne, St Emilion, Paris.
  4. Transportation - rental car - 3 weeks in France -zero deductible- no drop fee for different return location $540. Gas, tolls, parking- estimated at $350
  5. Transportation- trains, bus, trams, metro, gondola, taxi, etc. $875. Train from Milan airport to Verbania to Bolzano to Innsbruck to Ghent to Brugge to Basel. And Bordeaux to Paris
  6. Lodging- averaged $145 per night. Stayed in chain type hotels in Milan, Brussels , and Basel. Mostly in apartments and a couple B&Bs most everyplace else. All in city center except for two night in country hotel in Dordogne. Booked everything on booking.com.
  7. Food and drink- we drink wine/beer on our trips daily, sometimes for lunch, dinner and our happy hour. We had three dinners over $100. Croissants for breakfast, mostly sandwiches for lunch. Coffee in apartments, but coffee in cafes on occasion. We probably ate dinner in apartment 1 out of 3-4 nights, prepared food from local stores or grocery stores. Averaged $90 per day.
  8. Other- admissions, souvenirs, etc - averaged $14 per day
  9. $1000 ATM withdrawals for low cost purchases, room tax if cash was required, or when credit cards didn’t work or were not accepted- $15/day. (Gas and parking paid by cash $250)and included above in rental car expense.

Overall we felt Belgium was the most expensive, then Innsbruck, France, and Italy seemed to be the lowest cost. Most expensive lodging was Paris at $220/night for a great apartment in Montmartre.

Hope this helps with people’s trip and budget planning.

Since we weren’t home for 6 plus weeks, I estimate we didn’t spend $5-6000 if we had stayed home. So that brings total trip (including skiing) cost down to under $10,000.

One other thing is that trip costs are spread out over 7 months, we paid $2000 in 2024. (Flights, car rental, deposit, one train). Another $1500 before we left for lodging and trains.

Posted by
1755 posts

Thanks for the breakdown. We'll be away for the same amount of time, starting the end of August. Flights and car lease in and out of Geneva. First and last night fairly close to the airport, and six weeks split between 3 apartments along the bottom end of Germany. Our longest trip by far.

I don't itemise spending when away, just tally up at the end. Lots of cash, as usual; two of the apartments require cash payment on arrival.

Karen, your car rental was a very good deal. Did you use miles for that as well?

Posted by
3071 posts

Your rental car was quite a deal. We paid that much for five days for Sicily in 2023. Where did you rent through?

Posted by
3754 posts

I really appreciate you posting your costs. So many on the forum don’t do this! I use TravelSpend app to keep track of our costs on a trip. What did you use?

Posted by
1725 posts

We always rent cars through auto Europe. When I see a reasonable price after creating a rough itinerary (after plane tickets), I reserve. Have to pay in advance, but cancelable until 48 hours before for full refund. For this trip, initial reservation was for 3 1/2 weeks for $870. In Feb, tweaked the dates to 22 days for $776, received refund for the $870. Two days later checked and changed dates to 3 weeks for the $500 plus (same dates two days before was $800.)

We charge nearly everything, so easy enough to download from Chase to identify lodging, food, gas, other. ( I’m a spreadsheet geek). For cash spent, I remember numbers to east for me yo estimate larger cash purchases.

I underestimated the cost of eating out, but then eating out is still less expensive than home. (We rarely eat out at home, mostly just good deal happy hours)

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