Backpacking through Europe has been one of THE most popular tourist attractions for college students. I'm sure we've all had that one friend who decided to step into the unknown and travel throughout Europe for a few weeks, visiting a new country every few days.
I personally know at least a dozen students and recent graduates who ended up making the move. It's just a once in a lifetime kind of thing you have to have done. But let's not sugarcoat it. It is and probably always will be a costly experience.
A $5,000 fund to travel throughout Europe would probably be on the low side - depending on the duration and extend of the trip of course. Because let's face it, there are a ton of things you would need to pay for.
My experience is that each time someone from the U.S. visits Europe, they end up staying at least for a good month. So for the sake of showing the value of this hack, let's have a look at a months worth of traveling expenses throughout Europe.
Flight: Depending on where you fly in from, prices will vary. I've gotten a ticket as cheap as $600 and as expensive as $1,200. To keep it simple, let's say that our ticket will cost $1,000, round trip.
Local Transportation: Once you've arrived in Europe, you'll probably end up taking a cab or a bus quite often. I'd say you'll probably end up spending a good amount of money on it.
Let's say local transportation expenses for a month will reach $500. I'm sure there are people who would disagree with this number. But you have people who love to travel a lot by foot and stay within the main cities, and then you have people who would rather travel outside of the main cities they arrive at and use a local transportation quite often.
EuroRail: If you decide to travel through Europe, you won't just have to think about how to get to Europe and how to navigate yourself once arrived in each city, but you'll also have to figure out how to get to each different city.
Some people decide to fly from each city to another, but most people I've talked to love to travel by train.
Flights can actually get pretty cheap if you decide to fly with companies like Ryanair, but I'd say flying is also a bit more stressful and intense. I think people like trains because they can just get on it and relax.
For our fictitious scenario, let's stick with traveling by train as this is still one of the easiest ways to travel.
Food: You'll obviously need to eat, and let's be honest, food in bigger cities in Europe can get pretty expensive. I'd say you'll probably spend $1,000 on food during that month. And me being from Europe, I believe that'll probably be on the cheap side.
Remember, you'll probably eat out more because you won't have access to a kitchen and/or fridge. You'll also be walking a lot, so you'll probably want to get a good amount of snacks every day.
Gifts: I'm going to give this a lower number, because I don't think people buy a ton of gifts since they'll be traveling light. I'd say $100 for gifts is pretty fair. A t-shirt here, something else there.
Hotel/Motel: This can get pretty pricey. Let's say you stay at one of the cheapest hotels in the area. You'll still be in a city, so it won't be too cheap. Let's say a room costs at least $25/night, and that will be on the cheap side. For 30 days, that'll end up costing an average of $750. I'd say this is a fair number since that represents the equivalent of a months worth rent.
These are just some of the basic expenses.
Maybe you decide to go out and party every night, maybe you want to live large while traveling and stay at expensive hotels. Who knows.
The price tag for a Euro trip could end up becoming very expensive.
But what if you could reduce 2 of these above mentioned expenses TREMENDOUSLY?
I recently talked to someone, who knew a guy who knew a guy who had found the perfect travel hack that would end up saving him THOUSANDS of dollars.
He was a Euro Trip freak and found a way to save quite some money after traveling throughout Europe quite a lot.
This hack is not for everybody, but if you are a student or adventurer this may be the perfect solution for a cheap Euro trip.
• Europe is big, so if you want to visit it you'll end up spending a good amount of money on traveling.
• Traveling can be intense and exhausting, so you'll want to make sure you get a good night sleep.
Well, the hack this one guy found kind of combine these two things.
This is the hack:
He would purchase a month long euro rail pass.
I'm not sure where or which company/website he bought it from exactly, but there are a handful of very popular long term train passes that will allow you to travel using this specific pass.
This ticket would allow you to travel throughout Europe, for a fixed price, at anytime.
Now, instead of staying at a hotel, he would sleep in the train, every night.
He would be visiting a city, choose the next city that is at least 6-8 hours away by train and leave late at night so that he could get at least 6 hours of sleep on the train.
For example: He could be traveling from Amsterdam to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Berlin and from Berlin to Milan.
Because of the distance it would take him between 6-8 hours to get to each city. That way if he would leave late at night, he’d arrive the next day in the morning, had a good night sleep and did not have to pay for a hotel.
He'd save money on hotel expenses, got one of the best train ticket deals out there and got the most out of it.
It's a little bit out of the box, but I'm sure if you're a college student who doesn't have thousands of dollars available, this hack could be the ultimate decision maker for you to travel throughout Europe.
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