How I travelled around Europe for less than $1000

This past June as a way to celebrate the end of my high school career, 3 of my friends and I decided to travel around Europe. So, the day after graduation we hopped on a train with our backpacks and headed off to our first destination. Within those 24 days of travelling we managed to visit Amsterdam, The Hague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Vienna, Prague, Venice, Florence, La Spezia, Pisa, and Milan. Just as crazy as the title of this post sounds, we did manage to spend less than $1000 each, and here is how we did it.

Travel

Months before our trip even started, we heard of this thing called Interrail: a single train ticket that lets you hop onto any train you want. We thought this was fantastic and ordered ourselves the 1 month ticket with 7 travels days while it was on sale for about €215. Before you order your interrail ticket make sure you read the rules carefully. For example, a travel day is not from 12am to the following 12am, in fact it is slightly more complicated than that and if you are not careful you may find yourself accidentally using 2 travel days instead of one.

Secondly, you can’t always hop on any train you want. If anything, many trains require a reservation and that can come at a price. Though, you may be under the assumption that the Interrail ticket lets you hop onto any train you want for free, it doesn’t always. We had to spend at least an extra €170 on extra reservation fees, so I recommend looking into all of your travel methods available. Maybe interrail will not be your cheapest option, and it would be cheaper for you to book train tickets without the pass.You should also be warned that the cheapest tickets aren’t always the most comfortable. We had to take a train that left one place at 11pm and we arrived at our next destination at 6am. The only catch was, we only had uncomfortable seats and not beds.

For many of the cities we travelled to, we specifically looked at connecting trains with long layover times. Many of the places we had visited were not where we were lodging. Places like Pisa, Venice, and Milan were just places we explored during our 6 hour layovers, and in places like these there are places where we were able to drop off our bags for €5 (approx.) each.

Please also note that I have the advantage of living in Europe, hence there was no extra travel fees to get to Europe. However, if you live in another country outside of Europe you have to take extra traveling expenses like a flight to Europe into account.

Lodging

For the most part of our trip we stayed in the main cities we intended on visiting for multiple days, and we used AirBnB as that was the cheapest option for us (about €250). However, when we went to Amsterdam, we did not stay in the city. Instead, we stayed in The Hague where we were able to find a place that was beyond cheaper than Amsterdam and we were right next to a train station that allowed us to easily get to Amsterdam central station.

Since we used AirBnb for all of our lodging, many of them had washing machines and kitchens. So to save even more money, most nights we would go to the store grab some pasta for about 1€, then a zucchini, and have some nice and cheap dinner to save some money. Bear in mind, we didn’t eat only cheap pasta, we had a variety of food and even ate out some nights.

Extra Expenses

Besides extra expenses for food (dining in or out), you should also consider the price of other expenses like public transport, bike rentals, baggage storage, toilets (yes, it can cost money to use public restrooms, but it should be no more than €1), souvenirs, museums, landmarks/attractions, water at restaurants (in some countries it’s free while in others it costs extra), etc.

Thankfully, in each city there are things you can do for free. In many of the countries we went to, when we visited landmarks or museums we were either able to get a discount with our student ID’s or enter in for free. In the Netherlands, Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Italy we did a tremendous amount of walking and just exploring the city. When we reached our final destination, La Spezia we went to several beaches and did a few hikes along the way.

Overall, this trip was not only a fantastic trip to celebrate the end of our high school careers, before we all go off on different paths, but it was also a once in a lifetime experience. We were able to travel to new places, experience new cultures, and really take time to just enjoy ourselves. These past few months have been extremely stressful for all of us, and it was nice to just be able to sit back and breath without having anything to worry about. So, if you have the possibility to go on a trip like this, I highly recommend it.