My recent 6-week road trip through Europe.

[explanade]

I always go to grocery, to get bottled water if nothing else. In France, the premium brands like Evian and Vittel and some second-tier brands like Volvic are pretty reasonable. If you find those brands in the US, they're much more.

When I first started going to Europe in the early '90s, I preferred to book apartments, for the room. Also didn't like housekeeping coming in every day and you had your stuff laid out. You can definitely get more room in an apartment than a hotel room and save money. But Paris is trying to stamp out Airbnb and other vacation apartments.

Even in hotel rooms though, I will put some water in a 20 oz. bottle and wedge it in a mini bar fridge.

I rented an apt. in Paris for 3 weeks years ago and made some simple meals. Also figured out when a nearby bakery put out fresh bread so I'd swing by right at that time.

The Bon Marche in Paris, the one in the 6th arrondisement, used to sell these perfect basket of cherry tomatoes for about the equivalent of $2. Not a single blemish on them. They tasted great just on their own. Sometimes went out of my way to buy them. But now, that is a very upscale food market (it was always) but prices are high now, including some of the take away food they're offering there.

Generally though, I won't cook because it takes time away from other things. I'll even take some fast food meals just to avoid over an hour sit down meal sometimes.

Usually won't take out meals to eat in hotel rooms though a place like London is an exception because there are a lot of take away food options which are pretty good.

You can certainly save money by making lunch your big meal. You'll often find restaurants offering set menus for lunch and then you can have something lighter for dinner or some snacks.

I'm not a foodie so I won't chase the famous restaurants. I'm about to go on a trip to Northern Spain including San Sebastian, which has a number of Michelin star restaurants. I think one of them even offers a €40 lunch but there are many cheaper options which supposedly offer very good quality.

 

[Lsbcal]

I like that fact the Airbnb has many reviewed places. The VRBO ones seem to have fewer reviews.

We will be in Vienna for 6 nights and we decided to book an Airbnb there and cancel our hotel. One major advantage of a hotel is that it is generally easy to cancel. There is a 50% cancellation fee on this Airbnb. Here is the link for the curious: the place we selected in Vienna

Thanks again to NW-Bound and others for the comments about Airbnb.

 

[Fedup]

Our hotel in Vienna was 5-star but I think in reality it would be graded less than 5 stars for American Standards. But the free breakfast was very nice. But we got the hotel free for 7 days on credit card rewards so no complain here.

 

[NW-Bound]

...Generally though, I won't cook because it takes time away from other things. I'll even take some fast food meals just to avoid over an hour sit down meal sometimes...

One-hour meal? That's eat and run. Just ordering pizza, drinking beer while waiting for it, then drinking more beer with the pizza took us more than 1 hour. It was great.

In Italy, don't recall how long we stayed for that dinner, but at the end, the restaurant owner poured us free grappa, and then when I went out to the counter to pay, his brother said I needed to try his homemade Cento Erbe and poured me some more. Oh my! Good thing we walked home, and I did not drive.

In France, we made a reservation for dinner at 9PM. We got there a bit late, but when we got home, it was close to midnight.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

The leased car was spanking new, and had 2km on its odometer. It was delivered with only a few liters of fuel in its tank. All this was spelled out in the contract.

So, immediately after driving out of the airport, I looked for a gas station as we would not be able to go very far otherwise.

Found a gas station only a few miles from Orly Airport. Pulled in, and saw that it was unmanned. An immediate use of my two new cards. By the way, I applied for these cards just a few months prior, did use them a couple of times in the US to make sure everything was OK, and notified the banks that I would be traveling soon to make sure no charges got rejected.

Put in the SW card (chip+signature). "Not Approved". OK, I expected that.

Lemme try the Schwab card (chip+PIN). This should work. "Not Approved". Did not even ask for PIN. Uh Oh!

OK I didnt read the entire thread yet, but how did you get gas? Find another station with people pumping the gas?

 

[FUEGO]

Re: dining out costs and accommodations - my take on southern Spain and Portugal. Both countries felt pretty similar for costs of everything. Transit is USD$0.75-1.50 for a one way ride, usually with free transfers within 60-90 minutes. And Transit is generally very good.

Accommodations - we paid an average of $67/nt for a 2 BR airbnb in or near the tourist center of town (medium to large size towns). Hotels probably would have been that much for one night for a similar level of luxury/comfort (and we'd have to get 2 hotel rooms for the 5 of us).

Food - if you go to the grocery store, you can score a ton of food for $10 and probably won't be able to carry more than $20-30 worth unless you have a car (I have 2 kids to help haul stuff and we managed to carry $40 worth of groceries home. I found virtually everything to be roughly as cheap or cheaper than my extreme frugal grocery shopping at home in Raleigh (grocery store sales items + Aldi + Trader Joes for fancy stuff). A big part of that is the fancy European stuff we eat at home is dirt cheap here because it's local. And we're flexible, so don't mind eating whatever fruit is on sale for $0.50-.75/lb (peaches and cherries mostly - not bad considering we pay $4/lb for cherries at home!). I even loaded up on steak one day (not sure what cut - a cheap one, probably sirloin??). Delicious. And they even fileted it for me at the butcher counter for free so all I had to do was take it home and pan fry it in butter and some spices they had at the airbnb. Beef was €5/kg so about USD$2.50/lb - I rarely get cheap cuts of beef for less than $3 at home and never trimmed and fileted.

Alcohol is dirt cheap, at least in Portugal and Spain. $1 bottles of wine are surprisingly good ($0.60 liter boxes of wine are not, however ). We've had some good beers for $0.40-.50 purchased individually at the grocery store. They'll be $1-1.50 at the bar or restaurant (soda is sometimes more expensive than beer!).

Dining out is a mixed bag. Fancy tourist restaurants will set you back $10/person pretty easy and that can double in some places. Inexpensive local places might be $5-10 depending on how hungry you are. Lots of places to get shwarmas, burgers, pizza, sandwiches, etc that might only cost $3-5 depending on whether you drink tap water, want fries with that, or want a beer with that. Here in Spain, the five of us ate a whole meal including seafood for $20 (tap water, 3 sandwiches w/ chips, paella, shrimp fritters) - and that was in a tourist area but at a chain. Buckets of 5 beers was $4.50 total (though we didn't drink).

So if you aren't watching your spending and decide to stop at the first restaurant wherever you're visiting, you'll probably spend $25/person per day dining out even in cheap countries like Spain/Portugal. Pick up some fruit, pastries, or yogurt from the grocery for breakfast and the occasional baguette plus cheese and cured meats and you can easily do 1 meal out per day for $5-10 plus $2-3 at the grocery store daily (per person).

 

[1-31-18]

Yes, there are many variables. But by staying at Airbnb and eating in, one will lower the cost significantly. In addition, I do not want to eat out all the time, when some days all I need is a salad, or a bowl of heated canned soup with some bread and cold cuts of charcuterie.

While in past trips we always wandered into grocery stores to satisfy our curiosity of what the locals ate, we never had a car to haul "stuff", and a kitchen and table to prepare and to eat some simple meals. So, here are some examples of the food cost.

A 1.5-liter bottle of water, sparkling mineral too, costs as little as €0.30 in grocery stores, and becomes €3 in convenience stores next to museums in Florence.

I paid €0.30 for a French baguette at a Lidl store somewhere in France or Italy, I forgot. However, the price of bread varied all over the place. It was as high as €1.20 in Paris, and usually around €0.50 in smaller towns.

In France, I was happy to see many nice bottles of Bordeaux at prices so low. For around €5, you have many choices of award-winning red wines. Hallelujah!

We love to eat pâté and terrine, and these were inexpensive in France. Cross into Italy, and these became hard to find as Italians do not eat these as much.

Forget about ramen noodles. Europeans do not eat them, and if you can find it at all, it will cost you €2-3 a pack. Not that craving about ramen to pay that price? I thought so.

Produce prices were not too bad. I don't recall what we paid for lettuce, tomato, cucumber to make salad, but it did not make us cringe. Usually it was a bit more expensive than in the US, but we were not complaining when thinking of what a restaurant charged for a simple salad.

Meat and fish were expensive compared to US prices. And the lower grades of beef can be mightily tough, so you'd better get the more expensive cuts. I made pan-seared steak only once, as we did not cook heavy meals. Paid €17/kg for the most expensive cut in a Coop store, and it made a good steak. Never bought fish, as we could and did get very nice seafood meals in the seaports of Sète, France, and La Spezia, Italy, for €30 a person with alcohol.

This is helpful detail. I am wondering how much I can "generalize" it because I am trying to prepare a retirement budget and travel is the biggest variable for me -- probably even bigger than health care because I have good data on past health care expenses and can draw a line upward from there. (Also, travel is discretionary.)

Some posters here assert $15K or so is a good foreign travel budget per year. I have no way to judge except that it seems I typically spend $600 or more per day on my vacations, excluding air travel. But that means a good hotel and 2 or 3 meals out every day, plus modest entertainment. I have never used Airbnb in my life nor have I eaten other than in restaurants on foreign vacations.

So I have no idea.... one friend tells me $50K is a good annual figure to budget. Another says $75K. Meanwhile, there are people on this board who Budget those amounts for their all-in cost of living per year....

Airbnb slow travel (or stay in place "travel") in "Airbnb France" (and not in a fashionable neighborhood of Paris, obviously): Is $5K per couple per month a good guess, excluding air travel? Or double that? If not, then what is a good guess in the Airbnb age?

 

[RetireAge50]

Aside from the cost, was it an enjoyable trip driving around and seeing the continent? Would you do something similar via train or was the car the right choice?

 

[FUEGO]

Airbnb slow travel (or stay in place "travel") in "Airbnb France" (and not in a fashionable neighborhood of Paris, obviously): Is $5K per couple per month a good guess, excluding air travel? Or double that? If not, then what is a good guess in the Airbnb age?

Yes, that is probably a good guess. If you're traveling slow as in, most stays are 1+ weeks, you'll get cheaper per night rates at airbnb type places. You can probably find decent accommodation for $<100/nt for weekly rentals ($150-200/nt if you want higher end properties). YMMV on location though - easier to do in smaller cities than Paris.

You won't want to eat out every meal anyway, and you'll probably get comfortable shopping at a local market or grocery store. When you have a kitchen and aren't in a hurry, it's easy to cook up some basic stuff or put together a meal from the hot foods section at the market or grocery store (rotisserie chickens were pretty cheap here in Spain/Portugal, though we only had that for dinner once).

For transport, a lot of places have passes for unlimited rides for 1-3-5-7 days that are much cheaper than paying per ride. Staying in one place for a week means you can buy a week pass and not spend much on transit. And in many places there's uber that's pretty affordable (sometimes cheaper than the bus we've found!).

So you could probably get by on $2500 lodging, $1500 food, and $1000 everything else even in a higher COL country like France if you're traveling slow (and not spending all month in Paris).

We're what you would call budget travelers and still spend about $5000/month but that's for a family of 5. Airfare over here was mostly free (reward miles) so that's just dining, lodging, transportation, museums. If it was just me and my wife we could probably do it on half that. We're here for 9 weeks, and visiting about half low cost countries (Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Prague) and half moderate to high cost countries (Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Austria). We eat out about once every day or two (though take out is more common than dining at the restaurant). We drink but mostly buy it at the grocery and imbibe at the apartment (our current apartment in Seville has three balconies overlooking the bars in front of us and a plaza with musicians, so it's like we're at the bar but it's all private and all ours!).

 

[NW-Bound]

Re: dining out costs and accommodations - my take on southern Spain and Portugal...

I was to Spain some years ago. I remember liking the prices. I have not been to Portugal, and would expect the prices to be lower, but if it is like Spain, I am not going to complain.

At the other end are Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. I had visited Switzerland in 2005, and spent a couple of weeks. I was reminded in this trip how expensive it was.

See a photo I took in a grocery store. A pack of chicken, seasoned USA BBQ style, was 14.15 CHF for 0.393 kg. That's almost US$17 per pound. The photo shows a pack of thin sliced beef for 12.25 CFH for 0.238 kg. I will let the readers figure out the price in US$ per pound.

If food in grocery stores costs that much, what do you think restaurant prices are?

OK, a travel thread cannot just have grocery photos , so I also link in a photo I took of Port d'Ouchy in Lausanne, where the store was located.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Some posters here assert $15K or so is a good foreign travel budget per year. I have no way to judge except that it seems I typically spend $600 or more per day on my vacations, excluding air travel. But that means a good hotel and 2 or 3 meals out every day, plus modest entertainment. I have never used Airbnb in my life nor have I eaten other than in restaurants on foreign vacations...

$15K is good, but how many weeks does that cover? If you spend $600/day excluding air travel, you will do very well and with plenty of money left over, unless you eat two meals a day at Michelin-starred restaurants.

 

[NW-Bound]

Aside from the cost, was it an enjoyable trip driving around and seeing the continent? Would you do something similar via train or was the car the right choice?

We have done plenty of European travel by trains (7 or 8 trips?) in past years. This time, I wanted to do something different.

Prior to this, I only did a week of driving in France down the Loire Valley. Piece of cake compared to this trip. This time, I went gunho and did a whole lot more. I wanted to go places I could not go before.

There is no reason one needs to drive if he wants to visit places like Paris, Barcelona, Florence, etc... You cannot even drive into the inner Italian cities that restrict the traffic to residents only. They have this ZTL thing (Zona Traffico Limitato). Well, if your lodging is inside the inner city you can get a permit or waiver, but why would one want to suffer the crazy traffic? Driving around for an hour because there's no place to park?

I did visit a few crowded cities, but stayed in the outskirts and took the tram in. Even then, the traffic drove me insane a few times. Even with GPS and a digital map, if you do not maneuver to the right lane and miss a turn, it can easily add another 15-30 minutes to your driving time just to go a few miles, due to all the one-way crooked streets. I gave my traveling companion a tour of some unintended parts of some cities that way.

Darn GPS was "recalculating" like mad. And it took me down even more crooked streets. In Nimes, I found myself driving down a street so narrow that I had to inch along to make sure my sideview mirrors would not scrape against cars parked along the side of the road. Damn GPS routing software! There were other better streets, but does this thing know about road widths?

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, I found that narrow street in Nimes, and captured the Google Street View for y'all.

Now, as part of planning I researched the roads and streets around the lodgings to know how to get there, and to study where to park, how far to walk to the car and the train/tram stations to go into the places of interest, etc...

But I in no way could predict the map routing software would lead me down this street.

 

[RetireAge50]

Maybe I'll rent a motorcycle instead. [emoji3] I usually seek out the crazy streets!

Great information. Thanks!

 

[audreyh1]

OK, I found that narrow street in Nimes, and captured the Google Street View for y'all.

Now, as part of planning I researched the roads and streets around the lodgings to know how to get there, and to study where to park, how far to walk to the car and the train/tram stations to go into the places of interest, etc...

But I in no way could predict the map routing software would lead me down this street.

Wow!!! We really enjoyed walking through Nimes. We even walked all the way up to the Magne Tower, and even up the tower, and really enjoyed the springs which still gush forth after all this time! A pair of swans were "surfing" on the water bubbling up. We also had to see the other end of the Pont du Gard aqueduct.

I can't imagine driving through those streets!!!!!

Nimes was one of our Roman sites in Provence locations we visited last year. Really, really enjoyed the arena.

 

[audreyh1]

Maybe I'll rent a motorcycle instead. [emoji3] I usually seek out the crazy streets!

Great information. Thanks!

There are lots of car parks at the edges of these historic cities with small streets. Unless you are staying inside the city, of course.

Folks may not know that denim = de Nimes. Nimes produced the fabric.

 

[Fedup]

Can we use Uber in these places? I plan to just public transportation and taxi when I go to Europe.

 

[audreyh1]

Can we use Uber in these places? I plan to just public transportation and taxi when I go to Europe.

It was super easy to take the train to Nimes from several other cities, and the sites are within walking distance of the train station, so you don't even need a taxi unless you are taking luggage to a hotel.

We spent three weeks in Provence last year and did it all with public transportation and the occasional mini-van tour. Piece of cake. Reasonably fast and efficient too.

 

[NW-Bound]

Wow!!! We really enjoyed walking through Nimes. We even walked all the way up to the Magne Tower, and even up the tower, and really enjoyed the springs which still gush forth after all this time! A pair of swans were "surfing" on the water bubbling up. We also had to see the other end of the Pont du Gard aqueduct.

I can't imagine driving through those streets!!!!!

Nimes was one of our Roman sites in Provence locations we visited last year. Really, really enjoyed the arena.

There are lots of car parks at the edges of these historic cities with small streets. Unless you are staying inside the city, of course.

Folks may not know that denim = de Nimes. Nimes produced the fabric.

You saw a lot more in Nimes than we did. Nimes was a just a stop on our drive to a smaller town in Provence, and I only planned to go see the arena as that was all the time we had.

So, after these scary streets, I happened upon an underground car park on a larger avenue, parked the car and walked one mile to the arena. Also saw the Square House (Maison Carrée).

I usually researched down to the details of the parking lot to use at each destination, but I was debating between Nimes and some other spots, hence did not do enough diligence.

Yes, driving these roads and streets takes much preparation, and I actually enjoyed doing all that study and Web surfing.

 

[audreyh1]

You saw a lot more in Nimes than we did. Nimes was a just a stop on our drive to a smaller town in Provence, and I only planned to go see the arena as that was all the time we had.

So, after these scary streets, I happened upon an underground car park on a larger avenue, parked the car and walked one mile to the arena. Also saw the Square House (Maison Carrée).

I usually researched down to the details of the parking lot to use at each destination, but I was debating between Nimes and some other spots, hence did not do enough diligence.

Yes, driving these roads and streets takes much preparation, and I actually enjoyed doing all that study and Web surfing.

We did a day trip from Avignon on our own. It was a quick train trip over the Rhône into Nimes. We spent most of the day there sightseeing - there was a lot to see. Really enjoyed it.

We stopped at the Maison Carrée too, because they had the important orientation film. And it was quite enjoyable, showing the history of how the local Gaulish culture, which worshiped the springs, melded into the Roman culture, which continued to worship the springs. So it was meaningful to see the actual springs afterwards.

 

[NW-Bound]

That street in Nimes is wide compared to the main street in Bellagio, Italy. Yes, it's a main street that I had to drive through to get to my lodging, unless I wanted to drag my luggage 1 mile from outside of town.

When I looked it up on Google Street View, it did not look that narrow, but then the Google car took photos when there were no pedestrians. I arrived right at the peak hour, and looking at the photo you would think it's an alley and not the only street through Bellagio.

At the second photo, you will see a family preparing to stand with their back against the wall so I could pass. Is that great or what?






It was a ZTL, but I could enter because my lodging was inside the zone. After about 500 ft of that narrow street, I reached a small public parking lot that I knew from researching Google Street View during the trip planning. I was lucky there was an open slot for me to pay to park temporarily, then in the middle of the night drove out to find a free parking spot outside the ZTL, then walked the 1 mile back.

One would ask what is there to go through the trouble. Bellagio is a hot spot on Lake Como, and most of the pedestrians crowding its streets are day trippers. The main street curves around and widens up at the lake front. See Bellagio lake front below.

Bellagio is reached via two narrow winding roads wedged between the lake and the side of the mountains, so that means no train service. Most people reach it via Varenna, Menaggio, and other towns across the lake that are served by a train, then take the ferry to Bellagio. Or they just do a day trip via the ferry from these towns.

 

[explanade]

Yeah I've never stayed in Bellagio itself. No trains up to Menaggio but it's easier to drive to and on that side of the lake, you can drive to Lugano, Switzerland as well as other high vantage points overlooking the lake.

So that street in the first picture looks like the street which is not at lake level. You have to get off the ferry and walk up a bit to reach it. There is some parking along the lakefront too.

Of course some people pay to transport their cars on the ferries, to get across and so forth.

Otherwise, a car in Bellagio, you're kind of stuck unless you drive all the way down and then back up to Menaggio.

Parking is a problem at all the villages though.

 

[NW-Bound]

The street I showed the photos of is the only way you can enter Bellagio proper. It is indeed on the hillside, and curves down to run along the lake front where there's more parking as you said. It forms a loop through town, and the whole thing is a one-way street.

However, all those paid parking spots along the waterfront are still in the ZTL, and reserved for residents and visitors who stay inside. And an open spot is impossible to find. And the parking fee is expensive.

Cars that drive up from the ferry never get inside the ZTL, and there's some parking for them outside the ZTL too. Again, no open spot at all.

Bellagio has the smallest ZTL area that I saw. Well, the whole town is tiny.

 

[Nemo2]

Love your pics NW!!

 

[NW-Bound]

As we stayed in an apartment perched above these busy streets, the noise level was high during the day with all the visitors. But then, we were out during the day too.

At night, it got quieted down after 11PM when all the day trippers were gone. But then, one night at around 2AM, a couple of drunk Italians staggered home in the street below, singing on top of their lungs. I wanted to throw some water down at them from my window, but thought the better of it.

We've got some good experience on this trip, and my traveling companions loved what I planned for us.