Budget is $60...so how much have we spent in the Schengen?
I'll give you a hint. Quiggy is walking down the stairs of Albert Einstein's school in Aarau Switzerland, demonstrating his theory E=mc2 and it's resemblance to our budget. You see E is the energy we've used to travel 12 countries in 3 weeks. M is the mass of money we saved to do such a momentous adventure, and c2 is the speed in which we have burnt through our mass. Oh well, like Quiggy following in the footsteps of genius', what goes up must come down.
So how far down did the mass go?
About $50 a day... each = Budget blown in the speed of light.
C'mon, we've travelled to and through 12 countries since we last did the budget so surely we can be forgiven for doubling (blowing) the budget over the last 7 weeks. And I've got really good reasons for suddenly turning our 'adult gap year' into an 'adult gap half year' other than the fact we're running out of money.
1. No more house sits.
Our last house sit was in the beautiful region of La Marche, Italy. We lived 2 weeks with 2 waggy companions soaking up the great Italian lifestyle with fresh food and good wine while surrounded by beautiful scenery and making wonderful new friends. All was lovely until the phone rang with an emergency situation at home in Australia. This one call changed our path from calmly house sitting our way around the world at a relaxed pace to being unable to commit a day, week or month in the future for fear the phone would call again and we'd be dealing with our travel insurance company to get us home quickly. When the news calmed a little, we decided not to plan more than 2 days ahead, not commit to any house sits so we didn't let anyone down, and enjoy each moment we had to the fullest while we remained abroad. We'd already planned and paid our leisure trip to Crete prior to the emergency and after some positive news, I decided to continue with those plans. Guilt of course came with me.
2. Today may be our last.
When you're faced with life and death situations, you realise how much you love life and how little you've done with it. My Dad had travelled extensively in his young life and he wanted us to do the same. I knew he was in good hands and that much was out of my control whether I was there or not. In Europe we had so many amazing countries within our grasp yet if I'd gone home these places would not be seen by me for a long time, if ever. Each day given was another country to see. Although we did try to cover as much of the Schengen countries as we could, and at a reasonable cost, time was of the essence and that costs more than planning ahead.
So what have we spent the money on and how have we saved? All figures are in AUD.
*Read our recent article here to see which countries we visited.
1. Food. Food and drinks in most of the Schengen countries are either cheaper or on par with Australia but when you're on the move and aren't cooking for yourself, every meal of the day purchased adds up very quickly and we never go without a feed. A cappuccino is around $3.50-$4 (Switzerland $7), but alcohol and cigarettes are cheap, pity Quiggy doesn't drink and both of us don't smoke. It's confusing to handle so many currencies in a few weeks, not all businesses accept Euros or have card facilities, and it's easy to get caught out. We naively asked a Swiss burger shop if they accepted Euros, which they did, but failed to ask if they'd be converted, which they weren't. I actually felt sick eating our $45 burger and chips lunch served with $12 worth of tapped water.
2. Trains, planes and automobiles. Unlike our last budget check where most of our money had been spent on planes, trains and buses, travelling across 10 countries has been pretty cheap at $1,700. In the past 7 weeks we have caught 5 x planes, 12 x trains, 7 x busses, 2 x Uber, 1 x taxi, 1 x private shuttle and a few trams (not including those in airports). We hired a car in Crete for $45 cash a day including insurance. It wasn't brand new but did the job and no credit card was necessary which is great as we don't have one! Flixbus has been the cheapest and easiest way to get around and if we didn't have luggage, planes wouldn't be far behind. Our Ryanair flights have cost around $40 each but add luggage and other extras and suddenly your up around $100. Still reasonable but you can see how cheap it would be if you only had carry on luggage. Trains are the most spacious and scenic of travel options and still our favourite way to get around. Sometimes we score cheap train tickets, sometimes we don't. Uber is cheap and really convenient but isn't allowed in many countries. Taxi's unfortunately get a bad rap and don't seem to want to change. Trams are great for short trips and usually you can buy all day travel between them, busses and ferries.
3. Accommodation. Between our lovely homesit in Italy and a fabulous stay with our wonderful friends in Switzerland, we have used Airbnb and booking.com for our overnight stays. Hotels are just way too expensive, their rooms are too small, and they don't offer enough choice. We only book entire homes through Airbnb and have had very good stays for around $40 a night. Booking.com through us a curve ball one late night in Bologna. What was advertised as a hotel was in fact a shared apartment of 4 bedrooms with 1 bathroom. Wasn't Quiggy happy about that! Not even the round bed with the mirrored ceiling and invitation from the heavily tattooed host to use the rooftop Jacuzzi could impress him from the disappointment. I felt like I was in a 70's B-grade movie and had a laugh but when you arrive at midnight after a long day of travel the laughing doesn't last long. These are the realities of budget travel.
4. Phone/Internet. I renewed my French Lycamobile plan for $23 which really is cheap for 10 gig of data but the company is very painful to deal with. Quiggy decided to buy an Italian 3 sim with 15 gigs at a cost of $40 upfront but $15 per month thereafter. These plans are terrific in their home countries and although they promise it will have coverage throughout EU countries (no coverage in Switzerland), changing settings is not as easy as they advertise and getting hold of them is impossible. We didn't sign up to recurring recharges and must manually recharge each month. Trying to translate French and Italian websites is difficult. Calling them is more so. You know those "for help with recharge press #1" automated services? Try deciphering that in another language. These are the realities of budget sims.
5. Everything else. We haven't spent much money on stuff outside of the above. The Szechenyi Baths in Budapest cost $60 with a private cabin. A bus tour of Bratislava city and castle was $30. We do all the free stuff, you'd be surprised how much you can do in a day. Generally just walking the streets of towns and cities provides enough entertainment through sights and human encounters. We meet many people along the way who give you tips on where to go and what to do. These chance meetings save you money and time.
Since the call from home we have totally blown our budget and most likely cut our travels short but we wouldn't change a thing...except for the Swiss burgers.
People always ask us "which was your favourite country?" to which we always reply "all of them". Each country has impressed us for different reasons and we have been exceptionally lucky with the weather. Being able to walk the streets without rain has been a huge benefit to our experience. Many things we've done may not have happened if the weather was bad. Travelling in the off-season is not only cheaper, it's quieter. Some cities are already overrun with tourists, I can only imagine how busy they must be in the high season.
We've lots of stories to tell and passports full of stamps. So many memories were made on our Schengen journey, all for less than $60 each a day. Imagine what you could do.
#Back in the red
#Skip across 12 borders
#Go make some memories