I am planning to be in Europe this summer for at least a week or so. Have reservations for the 6th and 7th of August in Dresden. Still planning to stay at the Hotel Tsachenpalais.

From there I'm heading into a small village of Austria. (Small hotel, no English is spoken in this hotel. Cost per night is 32 Euros per person, includes breakfast and dinner.)

I'll finish up with the cousins near Frankfurt.

I remember reading a bunch of past posts regarding cost to travel to Europe this summer.

In January 2002 I got 190 Euros for $150. Today, I am thinking that I'll be lucky to get 120 Euros for the same $150. I am thinking that it's going to be stinking expensive to be in Europe this summer.

Has anybody out there given much thought to planning their budgets. What's everyone looking to budget per person, per day.

I am thinking that alot of first timers are going to be shocked if they plan to see the Vienna's, Munich's, Paris's, Frankfurt's, etc.

To anyone out there that interested, try your best to avoid the bigger cities. Looking back you'll probably be glad that you did.

Happy travelling!

I don't budget really because I'm not a big spender to begin with. So, I guess my normal spending would be a budget for someone else--I mean I don't have to regulate myself or stop myself from spending too much. I'm getting much cheaper air fare than this year (thanks to AA almost going bankrupt) which more than makes up for what I spend on food and museum entry.

None of this is that alarming to me as I've been in Europe during years when the exchange rate for USD was worse than it is now. It's real high point a couple years ago or whenever was really the abnormality, not now. If no one has been there before, it will probably just seem normal. IN any case, I'm going to Paris for a while and hotels there are still a bargain compared to large US cities, even with the current exchange rate.

How did you happen to get 1.27 euro per $1 in January 2002 when the official bank exchange rate (not even retail) had its highest level at 1.16 that month? I think 1.17 was the peak for 2002, around that time period. Unless you aren't talking about US$.

This is the equation that has worked for me in the past 5 years. $100.00 dollars a day plus airfair. We stay in short term apartments instead of hotels. This is cheaper and there is alot more room than a hotel room. We cook in the apartment instead of eating every meal in a restaurant. That is cheaper too, plus it is fun to shop at the local markets with the people living in the area. We do eat at a few restaurants throughout the trip. We switch back and forth with either a rental car or train travel. We have hired a drive yourself canal boat in the South of France. We loved that. It was so relaxing and wonderful.
I hope you have a great trip...

Obviously the Dollar-Euro exchange was worse this year than last, but anyone who is planning to go to Paris (as an example) and is shocked by the cost hasn't done any homework. Your airfare and hotel is a given amount; anything over and above that is pretty much under your control - you can skimp on meals or splurge; the same with buying "stuff". After my first trip to Paris, I stopped bringing home gifts for others; it wasn't their experience and those trinkets meant very little to them.

A can of Coke in Paris was the equivalent of $1.50 and that was 15 years ago...I agree with the nabove..depends on how you choose to spend your money..go now or wait.....wait, and perhaps never go at all.

http://fodors.com/forums/pgMessages....p;tid=34416250

Earlier thread on the same topic. Each of chooses to economize differently, but nearly all of us are figuring out ways to save where we can.

We usually don't really plan how much we will spend, just try to economize when we can and splurge if the spirit moves us. I agree that lower airfares have cut our major expenses this year, but we are attending operas and concerts this time which will bring our expenses up.

Saw the following advice in one of my travel magazines recently and loved it:

Before you leave, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Leave half your clothes and take twice as much money!

To Christina,

I guess I exagerrated a bit on the exchange rate for the Euro, but I was still pretty close.

My mom was able to go to her bank in Germany and get me the exchange rate without paying any commissions.

I specifically remember her handing me somewhere around 175 Euros in exchange for the $150 that she took with her. A Euro was only costing us 85 or so American cents last January. I only wish I had given her more money last year to exchange

As far as exchange rates, I can still remember getting more than 4 DM for an American dollar in the 70's and I remember getting as little as 1.40 DM for a dollar in the early to mid 80's.

In 1987 I was in Scotland and boy was I ever living large. The exchange rate was excellent that year. I think the DM was around 3.40 per dollar.

Things do fluctuate when it comes to currency.

Anyway, happy travelling to everyone.

"What's everyone planning to spend?"

Too much. But who cares; I'm on Vacation!!!

Hard to compare because of income levels not being the same. I did review two up coming trips and found that lodging, food & rental car came to about $250 a day.

We're a family of five, and this is a postponed celebration (graduation x 2 last year; oldest daughter from college; youngest from high school), but we are still planning to spend responsibly and hope to keep the budget at $9000. Still have eight semesters of college in front of us (16 behind us now).

Airfares were $2950. We're trying very hard to stay at $175 per night for lodging which requires some discipline. I'll report back on how well we hit our target.

Best wishes,

Rex

As much as I have. It's a once in a life time deal.