Budget is $60...so how much have we spent in Europe?
I have 2 answers for this question. Answer one - $53, is in EUR and makes us look, for the first time since we packed up our house at the end of November 2017, like we are budget champions who can take on the world and have a long term champagne holiday on cheap beer wages. Answer two - $84, which I don't like as much as answer one, is in AUD, my least favourite currency of this trip so far.
Ok so the budget is going downhill rapidly, unlike Quiggy on the snow in the French Pyrenees, but we've enjoyed every $24 over to the fullest and have had a priceless time.
When we last looked at our budget we were in America. After 6 weeks travelling the West side of the USA we had clocked up around $100AUD a day. We then flew to the East side and after only 8 days our budget had severely blown out to over $250AUD a day! How? Flights, accommodation and car hire.
This may seem very unfair to Florida, our last destination in the States, but the 8 day car hire alone cost $1,000AUD Ouch! Florida has the highest insurance rate in the country, so the salesman told us after we'd signed the contract. We really had no choice as driving is the easiest way to get around and we wanted to see as much as we could before we left. Our very unhappy budget then decided it was high time to move on to cheaper destinations. We'd been researching the house minding sites and knew our chances of free home sits in Europe would be high. We picked Barcelona for the weather, price of flights and proximity to many home sit opportunities. Sure enough, within 2 days of our arrival in Spain, we had secured 2 home sits in France.
To Australians, the thought of arriving in one country for 3 days and then heading to another is crazy. In Europe, the next country is only a bus or train ride away. Flights between countries are relatively cheap but as any frequent flyer will know, they are stressful, cramped and often delayed or cancelled. Trains have been our preferred method of travel as they are comfortable, relaxing and do not require arriving 2 hours before departure. You can also cancel up to the day of travel, with a full refund, just by selecting the cancel button on the app. Good luck getting that from the airlines.
We've now lived 7 weeks in Europe, travelled across 3 countries and are currently in our 3rd house sit. It's been amazing and we have done so much (if you've been reading the blog or following us on facebook and instagram you would know) but how much has it cost and what have we spent it on?
1. Trains, planes and automobiles. Most of our money has been spent on actually travelling from A to B. Flying the long distances, including Florida to Barcelona, Toulouse to Lisbon, and Lisbon to our next country...Italy (we've paid for this already but it is a future trip), has been the highest cost. We try to fly as cheap as we can but last minute bookings are a challenge. We don't have credit cards so reward points are not an option. Long distance trains are priced like flights, the earlier you buy the cheaper the ticket. We've caught several and would happily travel everywhere on them but it depends on how much time you have and sometimes they can be dearer than flying. Long distance buses are cheap, quite comfortable and great for seeing more sights but they take much longer to get to your destination. We've caught the odd taxi and a couple of Ubers with the rest of the travel money spent on petrol for the cars we've been kindly left by our house sit hosts. We haven't hired a car in Europe yet but expect we will in the future.
2. Food. Most food and drinks in Spain, France and especially Portugal are very cheap. A coffee is often less than (all in AUD) $1.50, as are loaves of bread, and 1lt milk is less than $1. Although I'm not a fan of plastic, bottled water is around 30 cents. We also can't believe how cheap fresh meat, fruit and vegetables are compared to Australia. And it tastes better.
Here in our Portuguese village, 6 x fresh baked bread rolls are delivered daily to our door for less than $1.40. The lovely restaurant in town has a set menu of soup, main meal, bread, olives, desert and coffee for about $13. We feel like criminals every time we pay a bill thinking they must have forgotten to charge us for something but the price is always right. Quiggy tries to leave tips but it is always refused. We haven't been brave enough to try the roasted kid with gizzard and liver rice but the suckling pig is yum (sorry vegans).
We've been inspired to cook many meals during our home sits but we also want to indulge in the local cuisines and experience food that we: a) don't know how to cook and; b) have never seen before.
3. Hotels. We have been very lucky to have stayed most of our time in 3 wonderful home sits in France and Portugal but we have had to pay for 6 nights in hotels in Barcelona, Bordeaux and Lisbon. We always use websites for reviews and the ability to filter hotels to our budget but most stays cost our daily allowance. We haven't braved a backpackers yet but at $60AUD a night for excellent hotels, we think it's money well spent. If you use my booking.com code (karain10) you, and us will both save $25. Can you imagine a high rated hotel for just $35? It can happen in Europe.
4. Phone/Internet. When we landed in Barcelona we headed to Vodafone and paid 15EUR each for a sim, 6gig data and free calls to each other. The next month in France, thinking we'd found a better deal, we bought 14.99EUR Lycamobile sims offering 10gig of data, unlimited national calls and texts and 1 hour international calling. This plan was great until we flew to Portugal and lost our calling credit but the great thing about mobile phones in the EU countries is roaming is free while travelling between them. We have had the luxury of free wifi at all home sits but we still rely heavily on the internet while out and about, especially our translate apps.
5. Everything else. We actually haven't spent much money on anything else. Good wine is very cheap in Europe, hair cuts are cheap and thanks to our hosts wet weather wardrobes, we've not needed to buy any clothing. There are so many free sights to see just walking around. Some of the most beautiful artwork and sculptures can be seen just walking into one of the many churches across the countries. If the doors are open I encourage you to step inside. Often you have the place to yourself, where many historical figures once stood, and you can marvel at the enormous oil paintings that hang on gold gilded walls in old stone and block buildings surrounded by manicured gardens with views across the towns.
It's been 14 weeks since we left home, and although I made the ridiculous statement that we could travel on $60 a day, $84 a day to travel across 4 European countries, stay in beautiful homes, eat delicious food and see sensational sights has been quite an achievement. There's no doubt you could save more money on travel if you book ahead but as we often don't know where we'll be from one week to the next, we have to get creative on ways around this. For instance, our next home sit is in Italy. If we were to fly direct from 'A' to 'B' it would have cost 3 times more than our creative way:- fly from 'A' to 'C' (a big city nearby), spend a night in a cheap hotel, see the sights of city 'C' before catching the much cheaper train to 'B'. We can do this because we have the luxury of time and we really want to see 'C' too.
We could also save some money if we didn't eat as well as we do but that's a yeah nah. We fell in love over a dinner date, then a lunch, a breakfast and a brunch. Food is our thing.
Besides, some of the best things we've seen and done have been free. Tobogganing on the French Pyrenees, walking the narrow streets of Lisbon, visiting medieval towns and old world villages and just trying to have a conversation in another language has made for some funny and wonderful memories that have made this voyage so special.
#Back in the red
#Skip the budget for another month..or 2
#Go see Europe on $84 a day