Hi, I have a daughter that just started high school this year and we have talked about traveling Europe for a long time so I would love to take her in 4 yrs when she graduates. I know I'm probably posting this too far in advance but I am a single mom on a fixed income (who isn't right) and so I'm looking for ideas on cheaper ways to travel and stay. I thought about backpacking (we both love to camp but have never done the whole backpacking thing) But I also know that going that way might slow us down on how much we can see. The places we've talked about seeing are Ireland, Scotland, England and France. I was thinking of taking 1 month to do this in. I would appreciate any and all suggestions!

Thank you!
Redroses4me

You can go "backpack" style without actually camping out. Staying in hostels in various locations.

That said, sometimes with two people a room at a B&B or a 1* hotel can be as reasonably priced as two bunks in a hostel dormitory. Depends the location what's available.

What a delightful way to celbrate her graduation!

Take a look at Paddy wagon Tours, www.paddywagontours.com, as it is an econnomical way to see much of Ireland and it is geared to the younger set. They are based out of Dublin so you could fly in a few days early, take in the Dublin sites, and then join up with their tour.

Also, you can sign up for email notifications with Aer Lingus and they will let you know when they are having good fare discounts.

Slan Beo (Take Care),

Bit

Four years is quite a long time ahead and things could change a lot in that time. But right now the exchange rate is very bad for the UK which will make travel to Scotland and England more expensive than to places like France, Italy and Spain. However, I firmly believe that if there is somewhere you really want to go you should . But if you've just "thought" about Scotland, England and Ireland, you might want to spend the next year or so looking into other countries that are cheaper.

If you plan to go to Scotland - especially Edinburgh, I'd advise trying to go in July. There is a youth hostal, Edinburgh Metro, which is wonderful and very inexpensive. £18 a night for a lockable, single room. Rooms are in groups of 4-6 which share 1-2 bathrooms and a kitchen. Doing Scotland in July and staying there would be very economical, otherwise Scotland is awfully expensive.

There are tons of tips here on this board if you do a search on budget traveling. The biggest ones are: picking the less expensive countries (Spain, Portugal, many eastern European countries - but France and Italy are less than UK and Scandinavia); staying in 1-2 star hotels or B&Bs/guesthouses; eating lots of picnic foods instead of sit down meals; and using the cheapest form of transportation - like metros instead of taxis, cheap airlines instead of trains (sometimes). But it can defintly be done, and planning ahead is very important.

I would just love to say that my son and I just took our first trip to Europe to celebrate his high school graduation. It is a wonderful idea, and I strongly encourage you to do it. You can read some of our trip report; we visited London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Paris, Rome, Florence, and Pisa. We could have done things much cheaper, but I will say that I am glad we planned the trip ourselves. We only spent about 6 months of actual planning, probably about 12 months of starting to imagine and talk about where we wanted to go. We changed our minds a lot during the initial "dreaming," but finally came up with our must see cities for the first tour. Keep us posted, and by all means, save, save, save...it does get expensive. Deciding when to go can really be a factor for the budget. We went during the summer months b/c I am a teacher, and that is the best time for me...I think other times of the year may be a little less expensive.

If you don't have a rewards credit card, you might think about getting one and charging your regular expenses on it. In 4 years you might be able to get a frequent flyer ticket or even two.