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Budget Travel – Spend two weeks in Europe for $1000
- By Michael Lakus
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- Read Time: 7min
Intro to Budget Travel
After successfully completing my first run at an almost 3-week backpacking trip in Europe earlier in the year, it was time to revisit. However, this time around the trip would be during winter, with a bigger group, and a personal budget travel challenge. Can I plan a 2-week Europe trip for $1000? Let’s find out.
In this post, I’ll walk through the context of the trip and scope of the post, cost allocation, how I book certain items, and some sacrifices that must be made – all while being as transparent as possible. Hopefully this will help in your effort to travel more frequently, for less.
Furthermore, there will be individual posts on each country visited if you want to read about each place in more detail.
$1000 for EVERYTHING
I want to be clear that the budget travel challenge means spending $1000 on everything, including transportation, accommodations and all miscellaneous things. Think of it as all inclusive.
Trip and Post Context
To summarize the trip, here are some key takeaways:
- Our group visited Sweden, Austria and Czech Republic (ordered from most to least expensive in general costs)
- Airfare and lodging were chosen based upon the budget travel cap
- I traveled with one backpack only to minimize airfare costs
- The funds remaining are ultimately left to the user’s discretion (meaning, I will not go in detail of what I spent in each country)
Below is my trusty itinerary. Google sheets gets the job done, and satisfies my OCD. It’s nothing too in depth, since the plans are left open once on the ground. However, it should give a pretty good idea of the velocity of the trip, and allocation of costs. I’ll go further into that in the next section.
As seen, the cost breakdown above covers only the logistics of getting to each place and where to stay. Initially, I will budget travel knowing these logistics, then use the remainder of the funds for the fun stuff. Looks like I have a little under $300 for this trip. Now this amount may not seem like a lot, but a dollar (or local currency) can go a long way once you know where to go and how to use it.
Fun Stuff
Note that "fun stuff" is the bulk of entertainment, but will also include food, public transportation and yes, bathroom fees!
Budget Travel % Out of $1000...
Airfare + Transportation
36.7%
Lodging
35%
Cash to Spend
28.3%
What I wanted to show in this progress bar chart is that getting to a destination and choosing where to stay can be over 2/3 of a budget. Therefore, it reinforces the notion that spending some extra time to do some due diligence on airfare and lodging can pay off, literally.
Cost Allocations - Lodging
Generally, it’s cheaper when travelling with a group for some lodging options. For this trip, all lodging was hostels. Since I knew I’d be with a bigger group, we could fill the majority of dorm-style hostels and technically have a “private room.” I booked all stays through HostelWorld. With the $1000 budget travel in mind, I filtered amenities on things such as included breakfast or sheet linens.
- Stockholm – I’ll admit, we splurged a little here. In defense, we did stay in a freakin’ jet, so that was pretty cool. Our other stay was at Crafoord Place, which per person, ran a little over $20 a night, for 4 nights.
- Vienna – For a 4 night stay, we spent a little over $30 per person, per night for a private room. The hostel bar, lively atmosphere and fellow travelers definitely made our stay all the better.
- Prague – If I took a group vote, this would be the best value place. By booking a spot on the west of the Vltava river, we found ourselves in prime real-estate and super close to our now very missed $1 tank beer restaurant. Per person, the total was roughly $15 per night for 5 nights.
Overall, hostels around the $30 range got the job done for those 2-5 night stays. Could they have been less expensive? More expensive? Yes to both. My goal was to find a sweet spot between reputation, amenities, location and a few other factors. It’s all a balance!
Cost Allocations - Airfare and Transportation
The majority of my savings come from flights. There are literally thousands of sites, blogs, and apps out there showcasing cheap flights, how to use credit card transfer programs and more. That topic would deserve several of its own posts. Therefore, I’ll keep it brief here with what transportation I used.
Staying with transparency, I did “cheat” a little in this area. For my close-hop flights, I used Chase Ultimate Reward points. Together, the flights would have cost under $100.
- Flights – Aside from the flights I used points on, my flight on American Airlines from Orlando was $335 round trip. This was a basic economy fare! I’ll talk further on this in the drawbacks section.
- Trains – Trains are a great alternative to low-cost carrier flights, or when the distance is too short to warrant flying. We got round trip tickets between Vienna and Prague for $32 a person. I used GoEuro, which I now believe has been re-branded to Omio.
- Inner-City – While multi-day passes and the metro system are a no-brainer, public buses are equally important. Learn how to navigate both! It will save you time and money.
My Flight Booking Strategy
I spent a lot of time contemplating how to write this section. It is such an expansive subject that I could talk about for ages. Ultimately, it will be a separate post. I could get a lot more complex here, but my intention is not to bore you! For this trip, and many others like it, I use a similar process for planning. My consolidated 3-step approach in a nutshell is as follows:
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Some Drawbacks to Budget Travel
Last but not least are the potential drawbacks when doing budget travel.
- Backpack – This is a drawback in the sense of limiting your clothing options. Re-wearing clothes is inevitable! The backpack used was the Nomadic Travel-Pack. You can find it HERE. It’s a modern pack designed for 1-3 day packing. Nevertheless, there’s no reason that cannot be extended a few days 🙂 Plus, having a smaller profile means increased mobility and cheaper flight fees.
- Hostels – Hostels have really stepped it up in the past years, offering some ridiculous places rivaling or surpassing hotels. However, generally speaking, hostels also have the impression of cheaper places with shared rooms. Camaraderie can be fun, but not 24/7 when all you want is a king bed and R&R from that transatlantic flight.
- Basic economy – As promised, basic economy flights can be great value, but come with restrictions. Each airline can be different, but the most common are no free checked bag and random seats.
- Food – With travel, and budget travel specifically, trying new foods is usually essential. Can fine dining be replaced with street food and supermarket visits?
- Pick and Choose – Would you be OK with $300 for 2 weeks? Maybe $600? How would decisions be made on what’s worth doing? A travel budget can create more decisions, especially if plans are open ended.
- Time vs. Money – Budget travel is all fine and dandy, but be prepared to put a little more search time into finding those deals.
In Closing
Well, I think that about wraps it up. I hope you got something out of this post – preferably not related to how budget oriented I can be 🙂 A travel budget is just one way to get out there more frequently, and for less. Keep pursuing those travel goals!
-ML
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Michael Lakus
IT professional, athlete, musician, ponderer of many things... Born and raised in Florida, I began traveling internationally after college. I created this site primarily to remind myself of where I've been and to share my experiences on traveling with a quirky, stress-free, travel attitude.
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