Who has gone on a euro trip before? Need advice!

J

JamesEarlRay

Member
SO I am looking to travel a bunch of parts of Europe on the CHEAP. Obviously the plane ticket will be expensive but I was wondering if anyone had any tips in terms of the cheapest places to fly into, cheapest modes of transportation, etc. Any insider info that travel sites don't provide would be greatly appreciated. I want to incorporate rad places like Beligium, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Finland, etc. instead of the basic France/Italy agenda. Would love to visit those places as well though.

Anyways, ANY advice for those who have traveled that path before would be greatly appreciated. Anything to help me get started in planning would be awesome. Thanks guys!
 
On mobile so will make this quick. Skip Belgium and France they both suck IMO. I spent 4 months in Europe studying and went to 12 countries. Check out a EuroRail pass. Idk what your budget is but trains dominate travel over there. Flying with RyanAir is also cheap as hell. Ill elaborate more when I get on a computer
 
Thanks man! How much ground does the EuroRail cover? Is it the type of thing where I can get like a month-long pass and I can cover a certain amount of countries with it?
 
The Eurail pass has a few different variations. I believe that there are 15, 21 and month long options, each of which let you travel by rail any day within the allotted period. The month long pass is 850 ish Canadian dollars if that helps. Oh, and the pass itself covers a ton of countries. It doesn't get into Eastern Europe really, but it didn't seem like you wanted to go there. I know it does France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark etc.
 
Fuck, there was another super sketchy one way I took from Paris to Barcelona. They fucked a ton of shit up. And everyone cheered when we took off and landed. I had to sit like 4 rows back from my family and was next to some middle eastern mafia guys that had flowers and like 30 people waiting for them with limos and suits and shit
 
guy who said France sucks didn't actually go to France.

but Paris is usually one of the cheapest places to fly into and a good hub for the rest of Europe. Last time I flew there I had a round trip ticked from Montreal for $667 CDN after all taxes/fees. Can't get much better than that for trans-Atlantic.

But definitely do some eastern countries. Places like Croatia are cheap, beautiful, and unforgettable.
 
This, lived there for 4 months and traveled east and west. love that country and its people
 
Buy Eurail.

Stay in hostels.

Eat pasta every night.

Excess money on booze.

Most hostels have free tours around the city, which then you tip the dude a few bucks. Good way to see stuff.

I spent 6 weeks in Europe.

Went...

Sicily(all over), Rimini (italy), Munich, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Galway, Dublin.

Flew into Sicily, flew outta Dublin.

Had 6 weeks to get there.

Prague is cheap as fuck. Everywhere else, not so much. Check out non- Euro countries (IE eastern Europe for the CHEAPY CHEAPY my friend.

PM me if you wanna know more.
 
Public transport can get you almost anywhere in Europe, no need for planes.

Go to Amsterdam, the Hans Brinker hotel is dirt cheap, this is their actual commercial:

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Croatia is a great option. Cheap and awesome. And yes, that France comment was stupid.

If you try to go to 600 countries like every classic Eurotrip, you'll spend a lot more time and money travelling when you could be enjoying a location. Pick a small number of places you want to do right and really experience them. Going to 10 countries and doing a bar crawl in each one before you go to the Colosseum is fucking retarded.

 
My friends went on a euro trip in the summer and they all said brugge was the best place they went to. Talked it up a ton, and I've heard from some others that Brugge is super cool
 
1. Airplanes are public transportation.2. Flights can be had for $50-100, much cheaper than $900 train passes that are good for wasting several days of the trip on a train. Mixing and matching planes, trains, and buses is the way to go.
 
1. The definition of Public transport in my language doesn't include planes as public transport.

2. $900 rail passes are stupid, never said that.
 
So if you eliminated trains and planes, I can only assume you are suggesting he stick exclusively to buses.
 
How long are you going to be there and how many countries do you plan to hit? Eurorail is only a good deal if you're 1. Under 26 (It's notably cheaper). 2. Moving around a lot 3. Taking either a number of trips either that are in the same country/region so you can get the cheaper regional or extremely long so your total pass pays off. I have generally found that I can do my travel cheaper without the Eurorail pass, but I'm also not usually planning trips that jump to a large number of cities. If you are going to be bouncing around a bit, the 10/15 days over two months might be a good deal, putting you at ~$60 a trip, which is a good price if you're doing a long trip.

A benefit to long train trips is they make an ok place to sleep if you book one overnight.

Other hints:

Check buses. In some European countries buses are plentiful and cheaper than just about anything else as well as being nicer than US buses. It was this way in Spain.

As other people said, check RyanAir, EasyJet, etc. as well as smaller national carriers. If you're flexible, plan your trip around flight hubs. Check the details though. Sometimes a flight that is $25 more will end up being less if the more expensive airline lets you bring more luggage.

Skyscanner.com lets you check a bunch of airlines at once, including budget ones.

You want to go to a lot of expensive countries. Scandanavia is a bitch price wise. Check out Eastern Europe if you want more bang for the buck. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia (can't personally vouch for this one), Croatia, all have good infastructure but are much cheaper than the western part of the continent.

Use the hostel review sites and pre-book if you want to end up in the best quality/price fit, but I haven't had many problems anywhere I've stayed.

Are you going in a group? Sometimes private rooms (often in the same hostel or small hotels) can work out better on a per person basis.
 
i just did a europe trip.. i did 23 days for under 2 grand including airfare.

1. for airfare, be flexible on your dates and where you fly in/out of. stalk the airfare for a week. you can usually find stuff for 850..

2. i personally like to not make plans and just see what happens.

3. i did not buy euro rail. i always heard more cons than pros with it. most round trip train/bus tickets are under 20 euro, even less if its local to the country. i dont know how much the euro rail pass is..

4. usually buying round trip bus/train tickets is only a few euro more and it is usually open return date. so i always got the return, just in case i wanted/needed to go back to where i came from. (like a major city, airport, etc.).

5. lodging, even if it is hostels will be the most expensive part. 15 to 30 euro a night adds up.. if you have ANY connections over there, hit them up and crash on the floor for free. i only paid for 4 nights worth of lodging my whole trip.

6. when you stay at the hostel, they usually have a "free" shelf in the kitchen, get creative, make pasta and tuna. or spaghetti. or meet some people and pitch in and make a big dinner.

7. as far as converting money. go to your local bank before and have them do it for free. or if you do go to a currency exchange place, just take out the 500 or whatever you need to take out to get them to do it with no commission.

8. dont drink too much. alcohol will add up fast.

9. ryan air or aerlingus or the weird german one are usually cheapest if you want/need to fly somewhere. i picked up flights for 12 euro, 28 euro, and 46 euro. again, be flexible where you fly into.

10. i've never had any luck with couchsurfer.. but you can try that out. i've heard good things about that.

11. take the free tours at hostels. pub crawls are a good way to meet people and you usually get free drinks/cover with them.

12. ONLY BRING A BACKPACK. seriously. if you're flying different places, it will save you money on checking baggage. also. lugging a suitcase around everywhere would suck. i used a kelty redwing 44 inch built in spine backpack. worked perfectly, and you can just bring it on as a carry on. its also only like 75 bucks. plenty of space, and tons of areas to strap stuff onto the external. bring 15 feet of chord and hook on some caribeaners. it seriously will save you.

this was mine not even halfway through the trip. it had way more strapped to it by the end of it.

228056_10151179530913166_128833091_n.jpg


13. dont buy a phone. just bring your smart phone, leave it on airplane mode, and use internet calling, texting. (google voice, skype, etc). it works fine, and you can find internet pretty easily.

14. dont keep all your valuables in one place. i used a wallet chain. and i kept my passport and the other half of my cash in a leather wallet thing in my inside breast pocket of my jacket.

15. if you're going with just the backpack route, i would try to not bring a laptop and opt for a tablet. smaller, lighter, and just more efficient.

i think thats everything. and this is personally based on my experience. i went to ireland, england, germany, the netherlands then back to ireland. i rented a car for a few days. saw friends. met awesome people. and yea. definitely going back sometime.
 
I travelled Europe for a month a couple summers back with my girlfriend. One of the best experiences of my life.

We got a Inter-rail/Euro-rail ticket for about £300, which allowed for a months unlimited train travel. Some trains (sleepers usually) asked for a supplement, only about £10 though so no big deal. I also did the whole trip on about £1000.

We flew into Budapest for a reasonable price, loads of great self-catering accom there for cheap and a great city. So much history and it’s pretty modern with loads of cool bars.

Travelled down to Split, Croatia, and from there got a bus to Dubrovnik (cheap). Dubrovnik (and all of Croatia to be honest) is probably one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and somewhere I would HIGHLY recommend going. It’s probably too expensive to stay in the Old Town, but there’s lots of stuff outside in short walking distance. If you go, make sure to visit some of the islands around there, Lokrum etc.

Make sure to spend a few days in split too, more of a party town as it’s a port but there’s some nice things to do there. Also head to Plitvice lakes just north of Croatia. We never got a chance to go, which I’m annoyed about, but it’s meant to be incredible.

From split we got a cheap ferry over to Rome. Good deals on self-catering accom in the city if you can find it. We split our time there in the city but also at one of these places - http://www.plushostels.com/ - Incredibly cheap and they do free shuttles into the centre.

I know everyone says it’s overdone, but definitely do Rome, Venice, and Florence. You can do them cheap as the Plus Camping has sites in all those places.

I’d also recommend visting the Cinque Terre on the West coast of Italy. It’s a UNESCO protected national park and absolutely incredible. We based ourselves in La Spezia and visited it from there.

Did Cannes too which was cool to see. Too expensive to do much though!

Anyway, that was a bit longer than I thought! Hope it helps. Enjoy!
 
Is the age cutoff for good Eurail prices 26? Because I'll be 26 when I head over there most likely.

Also, I am looking at visiting the Netherlands, Belgium, possibly some of Germany, Austria, Croatia, possibly Italy. Looks like it's a nice line straight down the continent and it would be ideal if I flew into London but flying into London looks pretty pricey. Is Paris noticeably cheaper to fly into? Also, would the Eurail still be a good option for that stretch of country? Thanks man!
 
Anybody from the US(West Coast) ever have any luck with the $800 plane flights? Maybe it's just me but I can hardly find anything under $1500...
 
It says you have to be 25 on the first day of travel. Kind of sucks if you're missing it by a little as the ten travel day pass might work out for you.

Flying into London shouldn't be too bad, though I don't know what it's like coming from the West Coast. It's usually one of the cheaper places to fly to from the East. Do a random check of other Euro cities though if you're flexible. I ended up flying into Milan on my last trip even though I was ending up in Germany.

Here's a site that's helpful for gauging overall bus fares:http://www.eurolines.co.uk/

It's just one company/site though, so you might be able to do better using other/regional local bus/trains. I looked up the Amsterdam/Berlin bus and it looked like it would be around $75 bucks.

What time of the year are you going and what kinds of stuff do you plan to do? Just touristing?
 
I just looked for the heck of it with departure and return out of San Francisco for dates on June tuesdays.

The best I could find was to Dublin for about $1000. Next was in Germany around the 1200 mark. For what it's worth, Bing's price predictor generally said wait to buy for that timeframe.
 
i flew out of san diego to dublin for just under 875 after taxes and fees. i booked prolly 3 months in advanced.

its really just a matter of airports and dates. and what day of the week you book on. booking on wednesdays or thursdays i think are generally cheaper. i think.

 
In my experience, Zurich is the cheapest place to fly into, but expensive to stay, so leave sooner than later. I've had roundtrip air fares for $160 (yes, that is correct) $450 last winter, then I've bought 2 one way tickets which are always more, both in summer. One was $600 purchased a week before I left, the other was $450 purchased a week before I left. check out Iceland Air. They let you have up to a 7 day layover there for free and fly out of paris and a few other cities.

I did eurail pass. I was 26 so I had to buy the first class but fuck it was so damn nice. The highspeed trains had fancy meals and were super cozy and so stress free. It came out to about $70 per long stint that I did and they were all country to country high speed trains that I took. If you book farther out or dont mind sitting on a bus for 12 hours when the high speed train could get you there in 4... then do that. For me it was worth the cost. Eurail pass also covers the ferry from denmark to finland.

Something to note about flights is they often seem cheaper, but you end up paying for the train ticket to get to the outskirts of the city and same for when you land. there are usually bagagge fees, they are less consistent for schedule and you have to do annoying security and all that. Trains take you to the heart of the city, no extra shit needed. Busses are cool too but not awesome when you have to be on one more than a few hours.

Also, Couchsurfer.com I had so many stay with me while I was livin gin Switzerland. Great fun and then you have a local host for free and don't need to pay anything for a hostel or hotel. Pretty much everyone who stayed told me they had a hotel/hostel reserve budget but most had only needed 1 or 2 nights in a hostel. When I traveled I stayed with friends so I only have the experience of people staying with me. I did however have 1 amazing host in Annecy France for IF3 that I actually found on Newschoolers. That was the only person I stayed with that I didn't already know. Then I booked a pretty baller hotel in Iceland to end my trip with a bang. $140 got me a 4 star hotel, paid another $60 for dinner then $40 at the spa but damn it was fucking amazing to be classy for a night and cheep compared to every other country I had been in.
 
Threads because I definitely plan to do this when I graduate.

My main concern is the language barrier. The only places I went where English wasn't the primary language were Puerto Rico and Quebec, but 99% of the people there spoke English anyways.

Is it difficult at all if English is your only language? Since I want to visit a variety of countries I really won't be able to memorize words and phrases of so many different languages. I've heard its nothing to worry about but it still makes me nervous and I don't want to offend people.
 
Learn how to say, "I'm sorry I don't speak French. Do you Speak English?" Same thing but for German and then maybe Swedish and you will be presently surprised by how kind people are that you have made an attempt at communicating.

Any country you go to, the person is going to speak their language and either french, english, or german. I have yet to encounter someone that hasnt.

I even had a conversation with a german person that spoke italian and I spoke spanish so we had enough words that we could communicate. It's really pretty crazy but not bad at all.
 
I havent gone yet. But I am currently planning my trip to europe. From my research so far if you are doing lots of small trains around 200km's its not worth it to get a eurail pass. trains are cheap as fuck. and so are hostels. do your research man there are plenty of websites to help you figure out your trip. im going for about two months (56 days) and bringing around 6,000 euros that works out to be about 107 euros a day. and from what i have found out through talking to people and research that is plenty.

depending what you are going to europe for you can probably do it for around 60 euro a day. only if your prepared to cook all your own food and not drink alot. even though alcohol over there is dirt cheap.

also for places you want to go i have heard that the pink palace in corfu is a awesome place, prague is a dope ass place also and both are dirt cheap.

just do your research man there are plenty of resources out there and you can find out alot of good information
 
i was gonna do Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Austria this summer. but my car got totaled so there went my bank account....
 
Another +1 for couchsurfing. My friends have had great experiences with it. You get to stay with cool people who are generally super friendly and know the area.

Also check out wwoofing if you want a slightly different experience from the typical jumping from hostel to hostel and getting drunk. My friend worked on an olive farm in Italy for a couple weeks for a family and had amazing home cooked meals every day. It was remote, they spoke zero english and involved a decent amount of work but was an experience she wouldn't find anywhere else.
 
Be ready for the idiots who work at the airport to search your suitcase without telling you, strip search you, and make you late for your flight if you don't get there 5 hours before it leaves.
 
been living in germany for about 2 years now, and have traveled to about 15 countries. if you're looking to go to belgium, i would suggest hitting up brussles. only real place i have enjoyed. great city, and you have to go to the delerium cafe. they have 2004 different beers from all over the world cold and ready for you. and then the celtic club is a legit place to pick up some bitches. As for the netherlands, amsterdam is not as it's all hyped up to be. I like rotterdam, and den haag. great cities with just as much weed as amsterdam. Also much cheaper. Paris, is cool but expensive IMO. Austria, go to insbruck, or salzburg. that entire country is nothing less of beautiful. Sweeden is amazing, but expensive. czeck rep. is cool, hit up prague there. cheap drinks and an awesome city. a lot of rich people there, and i saw nothing but lambos, ferraris and bentlys there. I also enjoyed poland. sketchy country, but cheap and HOT ASS BITCHES ERRWHERE. Germany is the tits though. munich, berlin, frankfurt, kaiserslautern, hamburg, hannover, koln, nuremburg all amazing beautiful cities in germany.

As for transit, the euro rail is amazing, also for cheap flights you can use ryan air, or wizz air. super cheap, but pack light. they charge out the asshole if you have more than one bag. Europe is amazing man. If you have any more questions pm me and i can give you a bunch of insight on what to hit up depending on budget and interests.
 
definitely don't skip france !

as for belgium, maybe it's because i live here, but besides the beer and our famous fries there isn't that much to admire ... (except for the indoor skiing)
 
Well as cool as finland and norway are, if you wanna stay really cheap, there are better places to go. The northern countries tend to be quite expensive. If you have some plans figured out beforehand, travelling by plane can be quite cheap. Although you have to check the stuff closely, mostly the cheapest tickets don't allow you to bring any luggage except carry-ons, so I imagine that would kinda suck.

As far as I can say, train connections are quite good (at least in the german, austrian, french regions, don't know about the rest, but I guess its not that different), so travelling by train is also a good option.

You should work on a plan on what you want to see when, I believe that would save you a lot of money (there are insanely cheap train tickets if you book early enough etc.)
 
Don't worry. You can try your best to speak the local lingo and most will just smile sympathetically and then speak to you in perfect English.

Other than that, just point and repeat words really loudly
 
haha I came here to defend belgium against the first post, but then realized theres really not much to defend.

if you stop in belgium, drink yourself silly and eat truckloads waffles and frites.
 
wow that price is fucked, it costs less than that to fly to florida from the uk and you get accomodation/transfers/food for 2 weeks.
 
For airfare look into a cheep southwest flight or jet blue to a major east coast hub (wherever the cheapest is to get to the euro zone), sometime you can find flights for 100$ each way. A little more work but you could save some serios cash.

I've always wanted to do a euro trip but cant justify doing it when i can do central America /south america/India/Asia for about 40% less.

Ever think about central America? You could fly to Nicaragua for like 350 bucks do Costa Rica from there, than panama, take a boat to Colombia, .50$ beer, 8-10$ a night to stay. A lot of Spanish cities in nicg have European architecture. For the amount you would spend on a 2 week trip with flight to Europe, you could easily do 4-6 week in central/south America with flight for the same exact price. Just something to think about.
 
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