Europe for 6 months
 

Hello,
My husband and I have been contemplating a tour of Europe for about 6 months. We are thinking of visiting about 8- 10 countries.
Ireland
Scotland
England
Spain
France
Southern Italy
A Danube river country or 2 (not sure where yet, any recommendations?)
Greece
Jerusalem (Holy Land)

What is a fair estimate for a trip like this for 2 ppl?
We would be interested in culture, architecture and history, not looking to party and drink.
We are looking at about a $12K budget after airfare from east coast to Europe, and we are willing to stay at cheaper hotels (probably not hostels) , eating on a budget with an occasional decent restaurant meal once in a while.
Are guided tours in each city worth it or could we do it on our own? Any recommendations, tips or advice would be appreciated. Any other web sites for additional research could help too. Thank you!

Within the 12K, are you planning to contain your travel within Europe? And is that 12K per person - or total?

If it is 12K total - I don't see how you can do this. That breaks down to 2K per month - or 1K dollars per month per person. And that is just over 30 dollars per day per person.

With that budget, I think you would need to cut the trip down (in both duration and number of countries) and perhaps visit more of the eastern part of Europe.

On the Danube, I live in Budapest Hungary and love it. It is quite inexpensive - but still could not be contained within your budget.

An alternative could be to pick a handful of places and secure longer term apartment rentals...

Your budget is way too small for what you propose.

Also, keep in mind that unless you get a special visa that lets you stay longer, you can only stay in the Schengen zone for 90 days out of 180 -- so staying in the Schengen zone for 89 days then going to Jerusalem for 2 weeks does not reset your Schengen clock.

Could you exist for six months in the U.S. for $12K, even living at home? Travel is always more expensive than staying home, even if you leave out the actual cost of airfare, train fare and car hire.

Why do you want to travel for six months? Do you know how well you will cope with dislocation from your home life, your family and friends? Have you previously lived amongst strangers, who mostly speak a language you do not understand, and who have customs and practices that are foreign to you? You must be prepared for culture shock in quite unexpected matters, and also for price shock. Goods and many services are generally cheaper in the U.S.

My advice is to first try something much more modest and less demanding. Perhaps come to Europe for a month, visiting only 2 or 3 countries and making sure you visit both cities, with their cultural and historic attractions, and parts of the countryside. You should only move between places every 2-3 days, or you will lose too much time travelling.

Finally, I am always concerned with statements like "eating on a budget with an occasional decent restaurant meal once in a while". If you avoid the obviously tourist-oriented places, most restaurants will give you an insight into the food culture of a society, and the way its citizens behave. Go at the times the locals do, and don't try to use the menu to get an American-type meal, and don't think that the most expensive dishes or wines are the best or most typical. Descriptions on this site of dinners in French restaurants never mention the cheese course.

Chartley brings up some great points. It might be helpful to note that $12,000 is a little over 9,000 Euro. Not a lot of money for a couple for 6 months, even if you stay in hostels (which you will grow sick of after 2 weeks).

Eating on a budget, aka, eating bread and cheese every day from the market, is going to get old very, very fast. Can it be done? Absolutely. Will you be miserable? Very probably yes.

Also, England and Scotland are very expensive (compared to Spain and Italy).

. Any other web sites for additional research could help too.>

not sure if you are going by train or not but if so check out these IMO superb sites - www.budgeteuropetravel.com (downlaod their free European Palnning & Rail Guide - a great primer for planning a rail trip with rail itineraries in each country, etc.); www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com - if traveling around that much by rail look into railpasses.

"after airfare from east coast to Europe", but no provision for the travel between places that you want to see. That will take a big chunk of your $12K on its own.

You need to approach this from the other direction if $12K is what you want to allocate to this trip. A realistic daily budget amount for food and accommodation, staying in max. 3 star type hotels is IMO $200 (and that's cutting it fine). So you have a maximum of 60 days away. You need to reduce this to allow for travel costs once you've arrived in Europe and need to move around.

Pick 4 stops and you might be able to negotiate discount stays for longer periods and it keeps your travel costs low. The UK and Ireland is more expensive than your budget allows as is Italy. In these places you will need to seek out B&B accommodation (UK definition of B&B not the US version)or 2/3 star hotels. Spain is cheaper but France is not. Eastern Europe more so.

Two issues:

You are allowed only 90 days total in schengen and must then leave, UK you are allowed 6 months - but you will have to balance this carefully.

As for yuor budget - I fear that it simply isn't realistic unless you are willing to do couchsurfing and eating picnic meals from supermarkets in a park bench.

Remember that the dollar is low versus the euro and pound - so all expensee can be expected to be abuot 1/3 more than in the US. And what you have allowed will barely cover the cost of 2 beds in a shared dorm rooms in a hostel - never mind food, local transport, transport within cities and sightseeing. Granted some places are free - but other major sights will take almost your entire daily budget.

Suggest you look at super budget travel guides - Let's Go Student Guides etc to get an idea how to live as cheaply as posible - but then do run the numbers based on realistic costs.

What time of year are you thinking about? What is your thinking about doing such a long trip involving so many places?

Although given the places you want to go you can probably make it work to have only 90 days in the Schengen countries it still might make more sense to split the trip and perhaps do three months and then the following year do another three month trip. Yes it would cost twice the transatlantic airfare but in many other ways it would make for a more pleasant experience (for most people) Touring around for 6 months is a long time - and given you have nine countries that's only a few weeks in each country - not to mention different cities/regions of each - so that means you will be moving around frequently. Six months is a long time (to be on the move every few days) - and at the same time it's NOT a lot of time to see nine countries.

Have you thought about how long in each county, what parts of those countries you want to see? How you will get from one country to the next?

You mentioned you want to stay in 'cheaper' hotels. I would figure about 75€ per night double. That's average, with cities being more. That's $100. So for 180 days that's more than your 12K right there. The average price for a hostel bed is over 25€ per person so even that would break your budget. And apartments for short term (less than a month at a time) will be well over that.

Figure on food costing about what it does in the US - eg food from a grocery store for a picnic, inexpensive restaurants, etc.But then you have to figure in the exchange rate.

Transportation from city to city is also not insignificant -it can be greatly reduced if you plan your itinerary so that you can purchase train/plane tickets 90 days in advance. For example, if I want to buy a train ticket from Rome to Venice for tomorrow it will cost between 40 and 80€ (depending on time of day, how fast, etc). But I can get a 'smart' fare ticket for only 9€ if I buy it 90 days ahead. Same kinds of discounts are available in most countries. There's lots of information on this forum about getting cheap train tickets is various European countries but that's one example. For longer distance look at Easyjet.com and whichbudget.com for sample airfares. But same as with trains it will vary hugely depending on how far in advance you purchase, time of day, day of week, month, etc.

Admissions fees is yet another cost - again, varies widely but 'major' sites figure on at least 10€ per person. In the UK museums are often free but churches charge admission, opposite in other countries. You can really plan though as almost every site/church/etc has a website with hours and costs for admission.

Good luck and have fun planning - traveling around Europe is wonderful and can be done relatively economically compared to what some people spend. But bottom line, no I don't think you can do 6 whole months for two people for 12K.

Hi sammikins ,
We spent thirteen weeks in the UK, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy in 2009 and spent right around $20,000 (not including souvenirs). This did not include airfare (we had free flights), but did include a two month car buy back for $2000.

The exchange rate at that time EURO/US$ was 1:1.40 approximately.

We stayed in very budget minded accommodations: $100 or so per night, apts and B&Bs. We rarely ate out: did picnics daily which we loved, bought food for dinner at local markets and groceries and did not do really expensive activities.

I did the budgeting ahead of time and we stuck to it. We had our accommodations booked ahead of time to save money. I ball parked the activities for each of the areas so I knew the expense involved with that. I estimated other costs based on this forum.

We knew our budget and stuck to it and actually when the trip was said and done I had actually come in a few hundred under budget.

For a trip of this duration you really have to crunch the numbers ahead of time. You cannot just wing it or you will be in for a really big shock (and probably an early return from your trip). You also have to figure in day to day expenses, like laundry, batteries, medications, misc things like that. they all add up. Even a few dollars a day times 180 days can add up to thousands.

IMO, like the posters above mentioned, 60 days is probably the max you can do, and even this is a very budget trip.

Don't get me wrong. We absolutely loved our three month trip and the reason we did it on a budget was it was more important to us to spend more time and less money in each area, than more money and less time in each area. That is our basic travel philosophy.

Michele

<i>We are looking at about a $12K budget after airfare from east coast to Europe, and we are willing to stay at cheaper hotels (probably not hostels) , eating on a budget with an occasional decent restaurant meal once in a while. </i>

I just added up all our expenses for 9 weeks (credit cards and ATM withdrawals), and they came out to about $1000 per week, with 5 weeks on a lower budget than normal for travelers because we did not pay rent and ate at home for the most part. We do not stay in the cheapest hotels, nor eat in the cheapest restaurants, but I believe that we travel modestly. I would therefore count on $1500 per week as a minimum. At some point I'll be coming out with a report on our trip in Germany which will give some greater precision.

Guided tours are more expensive than doing it on one's own.

Unless you have EU citizenship, your stay in the EU will be limited to 90 days for every 180 calendar days.

First post ever.

Semi-loony concept (50E budget per day for married couple seeking to visit all of Europe).

No real notion of where they want to go.

No response to suggestions and replies.

Add all of the above = T R O L L

Michael, no their stay in the Schengen zone is limited to 90 days in 180 days. Not all EU countries are members of Schengen, and not all Schengen countries are EU members.
Assuming they are US citizens they can stay 6 months in the UK. I assume Ireland has a similar time allowance.

Obviously, you need to shorten the length of your trip. But you could still have a lovely and rich experience in a trip of 6-8 weeks. A luxury most of us never get to experience. Moving around every few nights will get tiresome and expensive, so I would suggest securing apartment rentals of 1-2 weeks in each of the locations you select. Make sure to book everything in advance to save money, time, and frustration.

Think about a mix of city and non-city locations, as well as places that will allow for easy daytrips. For example, many people like to stay somewhere in Belgium because it has easy transportation options within the country as well as to France and Netherlands. With careful research, you should be able to plan a lovely trip.

Thank you all for your answers! Lots of great info! We're obviously in the very beginning stages of recently thought of idea. We haven't given it a HUGE amount of thought, I'm aware we need MUCH more info to even begin to plan in more detail and am very much relying on help from fellow travelers and more extensive research, budgeting and planning.
So I'm really not even understanding your rude, judgemental and unnecessary comment BigRuss. I'm not sure what "troll" even means. Isn't this what this forum is about? Asking for tips and advice?
I'm not a complete moron. I'm a successful business owner and we are in our 40's. We HAVE done some traveling outside of US before. Quite a few times to my parent's native country of Italy and I speak fluent Italian, Spanish and quite a bit of French. I'm first generation Italian, I was raised with European culture and influence. I was just "asking" for some advice. 12K was just a ball park figure, just curious how far that would stretch.

But, again I wanted to thank everyone that took the time to "kindly" explain some important points. Thank you for not being condescending and scoffing at a "first time poster".

S.

Oh good, a response from the OP. So you're not a troll after all.

<<I'm a successful business owner and we are in our 40's. We HAVE done some traveling outside of US before.>>

And yet you think 50E/day is a workable budget for your plans?

<<Isn't this what this forum is about? Asking for tips and advice?>>

Yes, but not having us do the work for you. Did you not even consider lodging, food, transport and visitation costs before throwing out a 2k/month budget? Did you even check on the travel rules for Europe as US citizens? Are you asking for help, or for the board to do your research and work for you? The original post leans far more toward the latter.

Don't let a few condescending comments ruin your enthusiasm for planning your trip with this Forum.

Every trip begins with a 'seed' of an idea. Yours just needs a little tweaking!

I'd be happy to share anything with you regarding our 3 month trip. Sure 6 months is a long trip, and people scoffed at us and told us that we would not enjoy being away from home for three months, but we absolutely loved it.

I think the biggest thing we learned from taking a long trip like this is the absolute need to stay in each area for a minimum of 4-5 days and schedule several week long stays in different locations. A few quick stops of 2/3 days can and and should be mixed with longer stays.

Additionally, you will need/require a 'vacation from your vacation' occasionally. Plan to visit a very quiet/relaxed area where you don't plan to do much for that week. This will give you a chance to recharge your batteries for the next leg of your journey.

It is very exciting planning a trip like this. Just be aware of the Schengen rules and the weather aspect. North to South or South to North depending on the season, so you can try to avoid nasty/hot/rainy weather as much as possible.

Happy planning.

I meant to say I was first generation American not Italian in my earlier post. I'm not expecting anyone to do the "work" for me. I have only a limited time per day to "troll" the internet so I imagine it would take a bit a time to plan accordingly. Just asking for some direction.
Why are you on here if you don't want to be helpful?

People are here to learn themselves as well as to offer help.

But sometimes when a person comes in with a very broad request - and parameters that are imply not realistic - and then asks people to do all the work they are considered a troll (someone asking the question just to get a rise out of people and no actual intent of traveling)

I must admit that I found your budget shocking - and even more so if you have actually been to europe- but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.

But now I think you need to do a lot more work yourselves - as to how much you are willing to spend and how much time that will allow you to travel.

My intent was to simply ask for guidance not to have my complete itinerary set up for me. Okay, so I realize I need to cut down considerably on either time or countries or increase my budget considerably. When I traveled to Italy I didn't have a fair idea of expenses because I stayed, traveled and ate mostly with relatives, and it's been at least 10 yrs since I last visited.
I didn't realize I needed to have all my ducks in a row before asking for advice. In truth I did not do a lot of research before posting. I only thought this up this past weekend.
I just don't understand the hostility. If I had more experience with traveling to Europe, I would be more than happy to give as much insight, recommendations or suggestions as possible.
Thanks anyway.