Breadtag Sagas ©: Author Tony 30 July 2015
I started my series of travel writing with a bee in my bonnet about what things cost. In once sense it is a nice snapshot in time of how much the type of long leisurely travel we tended to do did cost. It made me learn the subtle art of forensic accounting —I’m just not well-organised.
However, the titles may have put some people off; whereas the type of travel described in these articles is much more about the places and our approach than merely the cost.
The series comprises articles on: 1 Alice Springs: glam camping on the Larapinta trail and a camping tour to Uluru and Kings canyon. 2 Scuba Diving in the Philippines 1: Cebu City, Apo Island and scary wreck diving off Coron. 3 Scuba Diving in the Philippines 2: Scuba Diving in the Sulu Sea, Puerta Princessa, Donsol for Whale Sharks and Manila. 4 Eight months in Europe: Paris, Hamburg, House-sitting in Niedersachsen Germany for two months, Croatia for two weeks, house-sitting and travel in the UK for two months, Ireland for two weeks, Florence for six weeks and Paris for two weeks at the end. 5 Germany: Hamburg, Großenkneten (Niedersachsen), Luhmühlen Horse Trials, Belsen, Berlin, Hanover. 6 Dubrovnik, Croatia: Tour to the Elaphite Islands, Dubrovnik, Mostar Bridge and Montenegro, a tourist holiday. 7 Chiang Mai, Thailand: an overview as part of many trips. (I’ve written six articles on Food in Chang Mai form 2015-2017. Although dated Chiang Mai doesn’t change that much and they are an excellent reference to what’s on offer. The link is to the first one which connects to all the others.)
Trip to Europe, April to December 2014.
Background
Photo: Denise, tony & Motek walking into the Niedersachsen countryside
Denise and I travelled to Europe on 22 April 2014 and returned on the evening of 6 December. Our trip in Europe lasted just less than 8 months (226 days).
One of the reasons for going was to undertake some house-sitting internationally and to build our profile further. We began in rural Lower Saxony, in northwestern Germany in a double family house for two months and in England for three and two weeks, respectively. In the UK our house-sits were both in the Chiltern Hills not far from London, in country residences near Marlow and Great Missenden. One was a large residence on a small acreage and the other a converted barn in a small group of developed modern dwellings on what had been an old farm.
Because we were restricted as Australians to a Schengen visa where one can stay in certain EU countries only for 90 days in any 180 days. We had to leave the Schengen countries immediately after finishing our house sit in Germany. (Valmir suggested this is a better site for Schengen Information and I’m sorry that I let a year go by before taking up his suggestion.)
Immigration control is stricter the further north you go (especially in Scandinavia) but also in Germany and France; and tends to be less strict in Italy and Greece. Nevertheless, we wanted to stay within the law. Although the French immigration officer on our departure had no interest in checking our comings and goings.
Hence on leaving Germany we visited Croatia, then the UK and Ireland, which have not signed up to Schengen, before returning to Italy at the end of one 90-days and the beginning of another. Should I wish to spend 6 months in Europe on another occasion, I would be tempted to land say in France for a couple of days, go to the USA for three months, and then come back for two 90-day periods back to back.
When we didn’t have free accommodation, we stayed mostly through AirBNB and in hotels only occasionally for a night at a time.
What follows is a breakdown of our expenses. Whilst we were in Europe the Australian dollar was relatively strong (exchange rates were ~0.55 GBP, ~0.69 EUR and ~0.90 USD)
Overall Breakdown of costs
Summary of Expenses all in Australian dollars (AUD) for two persons spending around 8 months in Europe.
Dubrovnik, Croatia
| Europe General Expenses | |
|---|---|
| 1 Airfare Sydney Paris return | $4797 |
| Includes extra fee for returning 2 weeks early. | |
| 2 Worldcare Travel Insurance | $1490 |
| 3 Airfares around Europe | $1888 |
| This included 6 flights for two persons: Paris to Hamburg, Hannover to Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik to London, London to Dublin, Dublin to Florence. | |
| The average cost per person per flight was: $157 | |
| 4 Train from Großenkneten to Berlin return | $347 |
| This was mostly a fast train and we left it too late to get a really cheap fare. | |
| 5 Car hire in England and Ireland | |
| Hertz UK | |
| Hertz UK from 16 July to 12 September. Our initial booking was from 16 July to 5 September. We paid a higher rate for the extension to 12 September. We also had a dispute over having to pay a delivery fee from Stansted to Gatwick and may have won some cash back through persistence by Vroom Vroom our booking agent. Nevertheless, we were upgraded to a SEAT manual diesel at Gatwick when we arrived because we had to wait an hour and we think we did reasonably well. | |
| Hertz UK car hire for 58 days (cost per day $30.24; cost of diesel $389.24) | $1754 |
| Europe Car Ireland | |
| We hired a Ford Focus manual diesel from Europe Car in Dublin from 18 September to 5 October and returned it to Dublin. We also had to pay an extra fee $40 to be able to drive into Northern Ireland. We drove much more per day in Ireland than we did in England. | |
| Europe car hire for 17 days (cost per day $28.11; cost of diesel $322.35) | $478 |
| 6 Other general expenses | |
| TEFL Course | $524 |
| We attended a weekend TEFL Course (Teaching English as a Foreign language) in Southampton between house-sitting engagements in Marlow. We’d been alerted to a 40% discount by someone we met on our tour in Croatia. The course was an excellent introduction to TEFL teaching and most of the participants were going to use it almost immediately. | |
| Croatian Tour | $1971 |
| Adria Adventure 7-day walking We organised a 7-day walking tour on the Elaphiti islands with Adria Adventure a very professional kayak touring company. We shared this adventure with three other women and then stayed on in Croatia afterwards. We hadn’t expected it but this was peak summer season in Croatia — Surfer’s Paradise or Florida, Croatian style. It took us a few days to adjust to the style and holiday atmosphere with our English companions, after our laid back bucolic bliss in Germany. | |
| Total General Expenses (7188 GBP, 9018 EUR, 11,762 USD) | $13,069 |
Sissinghurst, Kent
Accommodation
We did house-sitting near Großenkneten, Niedersachsen, Germany and near Marlow and Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, UK for 55, 21 and 13 nights respectively. We stayed 3 nights in a friend’s apartment in Berlin and were put up one night in a Novotel in London by CityJet because of a missed connection to Florence. All other nights on our trip we stayed in paid accommodation.
The house-sitting involved responsibility for the property whilst the owners were away and pet minding. In Germany for the first month we looked after the property, mowed the grass and did some hedge clipping and other gardening. When the owners came back we took responsibility over the last month for a relatively challenging but lovely large dog, whilst the owners went away over night or on day trips. We also walked him every day through interesting countryside.
In Germany we had access to a car for local trips up to 70-80 km and bicycles. In England we had to provide our own car but looked after two lovely properties. We also looked after three dogs and three miniature ponies, and one dog and one cat, respectively.
Regarding accommodation we booked almost exclusively through AirBNB with the exception of 4 hotels, hostels and B&Bs and one commercial B&B booked through AirBNB. We generally aimed for less than $100 per night and cheaper if possible outside cities. The AirBNB rentals ranged from a small room with a shared bathroom to largish apartments. In some, one mixed with the owner and this became part of the whole experience (always good) and in some there was limited dealing with anyone. The style ranged from basic, to quirky, to tasteful and grand, but because of the AirBNB model we always had a good idea of what to expect. Although one needs to be flexible we were never disappointed. The owners were often very helpful with local information, the cheapest way to get there, tourist information, best local restaurants etc. WIFI on this trip was almost always good (a big improvement from 2007; and even an improvement from 2012).
Our AirBNB Accommodation (not including AirBNB’s service charge) varied in price from $45 to $47 per night in three places (Germany, UK, Ireland), one of which was as good as anywhere we stayed, to over $100 per night ( $103 to $124) in 4 places (Paris, London, Southampton), two of which were amongst the worst places we stayed (though both were comfortable, our first place in Paris was in a terrific location and the place in Southampton was just over-priced, but the only one available).
The commercial establishments we stayed in varied from $70 to $112 and were also comfortable and reasonable in price.
| Europe Accommodation Expenses | |
|---|---|
| Free nights | 93 |
| Paid nights | 133 |
| Total time away (nights in Europe) | 226 |
| 126 nights, av. cost per night (2 persons) (48.57 GBP, 60.93 EUR, 79.47 USD) | $88.30 |
| 7nights of accommodation were paid within Adria Adventure’s tour cost. | |
| Total Accommodation Cost (6142 GBP, 7706 EUR, 10,051 USD) | $11,168 |
Ring of Skelligs. Kerry
Cash Advance and Credit Card purchases
Other costs on the holiday were covered by cash advances and by credit cards. A float in Euros and Australian dollars of $1014 was taken from Australia and we arrived back with about $200 so say a float of 800 was spent in Europe. The amount of $814 is included in the total expenditure below.
We weren’t clever with cash advances and paid between 3-4% plus the standard unfair exchange rate. Next time I’ll try to get around this somehow.
Also supermarkets and some other stores in Germany wouldn’t take international credit cards. Hence these expenses were paid in cash. Some other major purchases including a major tour in Croatia and car hire are included in General expenses above, but not diesel. We also took two one-day tours in Croatia to Mostar and Montenegro but paid in cash.
| Europe Cash Advance and Credit Card purchases | |
|---|---|
| Float | $814 |
| Cash advances | $20,274 |
| Credit card purchases | $14,413 |
| Total cash & credit card (19,526 GBP, 24,496 EUR, 31,951 USD) | $35,501 |
Fish Loggia, Florence
Credit card breakdown
This is only generic but perhaps quite indicative of our habits. The permanent purchases category is much higher than normal and partly reflects returning home at Christmas and other things.
| Europe Credit card analysis | Amount | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants, cafes | $5383 | 37.4% |
| Museums, tourism | $2428 | 16.8% |
| Transport (local) | $735 | 5.1% |
| Supermarkets, etc | $1841 | 12.8% |
| Permanent purchases | $3235 | 22.4% |
| Diesel fuel | $711 | 4.9% |
| Other | $79 | 0.5% |
Total cost of trip to Europe in 2014
| Europe Total Cost | |
|---|---|
| Total cost per person per day (226 nights) (72.60 GBP, 91.08 EUR, 118.80 USD) | $132 |
| Total cost per person per day (226 nights), not including major airfare and travel insurance (64.90 GBP, 81.42 EUR, 106.20 USD) | $118 |
| Total Expenditure (32,856 GBP, 41,219 EUR, 53,764 USD) | $59,738 |
Pompidou Centre, Paris
Certainly gone are the days of Frommer’s Europe on $100 US per day, despite appearing to match it above. However, having been a backpacker and cheap traveller up and until our year in Pakistan, India and Thailand in 1995, it is certainly possible for students and hostellers to travel more cheaply than we did. We only went to a couple of upmarket restaurants and mainly ate middle of the range and lower. The places we stayed in were in general very nice indeed; anywhere we stayed for more than two days was carefully selected; and we certainly didn’t stint our tourist activities because of expense.
I doubt we’d ever be able to afford this trip again and would be more inclined to the Germany budget. However, the trip was a good denouement of our extensive travel following Denise’s redundancy. Future extensive travel now that we are no longer ‘homeless’ and have purchased in Canberra will probably need to incorporate housesitting.
The next few What Travel Costs posts will cover expenses for the individual countries we stayed in during this trip in 2014.
Further information
Adria Adventure were a very professional kayak touring company. As with most tourism in the Dubrovnik area of Croatia, they were very nice people and well-organised.
The Tour was Adria Adventure 7-day walking on the Elaphiti islands. It was very pleasant and the guides were excellent. However, it was more relaxed walking than strenuous. The kayaking was more their focus.
Michael contacted me, he has also written an excellent 2014 general article on what travel costs in Europe called: Can you travel Europe on $5 a day.
Key Words: Europe, Germany, Croatia, England, Ireland, Florence, Paris, travel costs