Rosalinda

We tend to travel at both ends of the scale. We mix splurges with "saves" and both are appreciated. The $125 a night "shabby chic" hotel on the harbor in Schleswig was as wonderful as the $300 a night splurge hotel in Copenhagen in a beachy suburb with a balcony and view of the sea.
I enjoyed these responses but want to note that we just got back from 8 nights in Denmark where we spent 1816 Danish kroner for admissions for the two of us. That is about $150 per person.

ilovetotravel29

It does depend on the length of the trip, but for airfare, hotels, and spending money, almost 2000 bucks for about 2 weeks. But that includes buying little gifts and must haves to bring home.

c2Paris

Paris October 2005 for 10 days

Airfare $650 (from Toronto, Canada)
Hotel $700 (45euro/night)
Food, Metro, Tickets, Shopping $1,200
Total: $2,550 Cdn (for one person)

WillTravel

c2Paris, what hotel did you stay at?

LoveItaly

My trips to Italy are such that my expenses probably wouldn't help any other traveller. When I have hotel rooms they are around $90.00euro per night but that is thanks to a friend who heads a tourist association so she always gets me discounts. Or I stay with friends in Italy.

A lot of my meals are had in the homes of my friends (such fantastic food!) but I always make sure I treat them to several restaurant meals. I buy bottles of wine (so inexpensive to what wines here in CA cost), flowers from the weekly market (again so inexpensive compared to buying flowers in CA). I do not do a lot of shopping, when I do it is usually clothes and I would be buying clothes at home so sort of look at that as a wash. Except for my daughter and SIL I don't buy gifts for anyone at home.

I will try to keep a record when I go to Italy next year..this thread has me curious what I do spend. I am sure it will be more then in the past due to higher airfares, inflation etc.

travelinsue

I think the $5300 is not unreasonable for a couple. We went to Germany, Austria & Switzerland, 23 days, and the total cost came to about $8000. That included airfare, hotels, Eurail pass (8 days of travel, 3 countries), about 5 days of VW car rental, food, shopping, sites & entertainment.

Given the exchange rate, I don't think $5300 is too bad.

mjs

I Too think $5300 for a couple without transatlantic airfare is reasonable. We are a family of four so our costs are similar to two couples traveling as we have teenagers. We are currently in Prague and although I do not keep a close tab on expenses but I can tell you that airfares and airport transportation costs for us this month from the west coast is about $1600/person including SFO to LHR and 7 flights within Europe. We also tend to stay at 3 to 4 star properties with the costs for the four of us are averaging somewhere around $300 to $350/night.
So, airfare plus hotel/apartment costs for the four of us for a 3 week trip is costing somewhere around $12500. I would than imagine an additional $5000 to $6000 or so for daily expenses like car rental, food, and entertainment. So, similar costs to yours Wekiva. These trips used to cost much less when the dollar was stronger and we could travel off season and the overall costs were 40 to 50 percent less.

CRAZY4TRAVEL

We had frequent flyer miles and only had to pay the tax and a service charge. Our 10 day trip to Tuscany and Umbria cost us CAD $4200-4300.00.

missypie

I admit that I can't stand to add it up. The plane tickets were paid for months ago. I guess I'd get a good idea if I added up our credit card bill and our ATM withdrawls. We are a family of 5; the kids are 15, 13 and 10, so they are charged full price for almost everything. (It was funny - the 10 year old's plane ticket was literally $2 less than the rest of ours!)

To get over my sticker shock at pretty much everything, I kept making myself divide by 5. 118 euro seemed like a lot for dinner (more than we ever spend at home) - I'd tell myself: 23 euro a person isn't bad. What's hard when you're paying for 5 (or more) is paying admission for the "minor" attractions. It's fine to pay 50 euro for all of us to tour a musuem that will be memorable and will take us hours to tour; it's harder to pay 15 euro to tour something for 15-30 minutes.

halsar

18 days spread out over ireland france belgum germany and greece cost us $1000 per person. We got $2000 for our wedding, we decided that what ever we got is what we had to spend..incedentally we slept in the rental car 3 nights and in the airport a couple of times and luckily had a freind use his Marriot points for a night for us in Brussles...In ireland we brought bread and had pb and j's for breakfast and lunch. Ths was ok as we were not slowed down any by having to find a resteraunt as we had a whole can of peanut butter and jelly to get through. We didn't feel to destitute as we had eachother. The nights we slept in the car we paid a hostel a couple of euro to use the shower. All in all we had a great trip and are glad we went. A few more dollars ($200) would have taken the worst off and been enough for us to be completly comefortable and get the basic things we desired

bettyk

Usually between $5,000-6,000 for the 2 of us. Our 2-week trip in May to Germany and Switzerland cost $3,000 for airfare and all hotels. Our rental car was $450 for the entire 2-weeks and gas probably ran us $300-400. Food and misc. expenditures added another $1500.

seetheworld

Our costs for upcoming 13 day trip to London/Portugal are mainly airfare (still have FF in the bank, but didn't use them this time)

RT airfare for two to London: $2100
RT airfare for two to Portugal: $675

Hotel Ritz London: $0
Condo Portugal: $0

Rental car: $575

Trip insurance: not exactly sure, but will say $150 (less, I think)

So, I'd say by the time it's all said and done, approximately $5500.

Luhimari

Our trip to Spain this Spring came to about $400 per day, including every expenditure that had to do with the planning and the actual trip: airfare, car and insurance, gas, hotels, food, communications (fax and telephone),museum passes, tolls, presents and goodies, film, film developing, dog sitter, etc... It came to around $40 dollars per day more than last year due in part by the strength of the Euro against the dollar.

nho9504

We are going in Sept, 14 days, fly in London and fly out Paris. Train from London to Scotland. We will have an Avis rental car for 4 days to tour Scotland. Fly on EasyJet from Liverpool to Paris.

TransAtlantic Airfares: $950 for both of us.
Liverpool to Paris: $110 for both of us
Rental Car estimated cost: $230 (incl all surcharges/taxes/one-way drop off)
Gas cost estimate: 1000 miles - 40 gal?
$6x40=$240
One night B&B at Lake District100?
Public Transportation in UK approx $100?
Public Transportation in Paris approx $100?
Museum admission approx $250?
Food $70x14=$980
0 hotel cost for 13 days - all on award stays!!!!!!

Total estimated costs $3010

Have to admit the 0 cost for hotel is a big big deal as in London we stay at Marriott Grosvenor House on Park Lane. In Paris we stay at InterContinental Le Grand at L'Opera. Edinburgh we have to settle for Holiday Inn Express and then Hilton in both GLA and Liverpool.
That part easily worth $2000 to $3000.

LeDoutre

For a two week trip divided between a big European city and a smaller stay in a small town or rural area:
Week one:
Hotel--about 200 euro per night
(1400 total)
Food about 100 euro per day, but we usually eat basic one day for half that and then splurge the next
(700 euro)
Drinks, coffee: about 15 euro per day(about 100 total)
Transportation, museum fees, concerts, magazines, odds and ends: 20 euro per day
(140 total)
Big city total: about 2400 euro
The second week often ends up costing about the same because although we spend 50% less on hotels, we spend about the same amount on meals and we usually rent a car and do our shopping there.
Our total for a two week trip usually amounts to 5000 euros, excluding airfare, but including transportation to from airports by taxi or car service.
Although we use our credit cards extensively on our trips, we pay off the entire amount promptly. We don't like to be paying for an old trip while planning the next one.

JAGIRL

How much do my European trips usually cost me?

Way...way too much!

cammci

I just added all my credit card receipts and our final tally for the 16 day European Whirlwind Tour (drum roll please) is $11, 188.36 USD, the price of a good used car! My husband begged me to never disclose the amount. This is a good idea as he'll never let me go back if he knew. The amount includes all transportation (for 2) including airfare there and within the countries. Also includes hotels (up to 200 euros/night/3 star hotels), any sightseeing, souvenirs, purses and jewelry, food and drinks. This also includes the pesky $5 charges per ATM/cash withdrawals socked to me each time I used my card. This amount is what was charged to my cards, after transaction fees. I did splurge and go Business Class instead of coach on United. I don't regret that part. Now I wished I had gone and rented an apartment instead of hotels. Think I could have saved a bit more money, at least got more room for my money and saved time by washing laundry at the apt vs trekking all over the city. Cities visted were Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna and Prague.

JAGIRL

cammci,

Add another $5,000 or so to that and you'll come close to what our last trip cost.
But I must admit, we packed a lot into three weeks...lots of trains and driving and we did ship stuff home, including a suitcase.

EmBee

You folks in the US are so fortunate to be able to travel to Europe so inexpensively. Imagine what it is like coming from Oz with our dollar worth 74cents to the US dollar - I think about 58c to the Euro! I am very envious!

ms_go

We just returned from a two-week trip to France - Dordogne, Provence, Languedoc and Nice - and I just tallied up the costs for our trip report. Note: there are three of us, including our 13YO:

RT airfare from Chicago-Nice, including one revenue ticket and taxes on two FF tickets: $1,490

Accommodations for 13 nights (a rental home for one week and 3* and 4* hotels for six nights: $2,450, or roughly $188 per night

Expenses* for 14 days: $2,700, or roughly $65 per person, per day.

Car rental for 13 days: $850

Expenses include restaurants, groceries, admission fees, parking, tolls, gas, taxis, souvenirs, etc. I did not keep good records of cash expenditures (about 60% of total), so I can't break this down any further.

Our most expensive meal (and certainly not the best one) was about $125; the only meal over $100.

In terms of daily averages, this trip ended up being a bit less expensive than our trip to the Amalfi Coast last year.