Planning an European Vacation on a Budget

Making plans for a vacation to Europe can prove quite daunting, even if you've done it before. There's so much to do, from booking airline tickets to booking a place to stay, and so many websites offering all kinds of discounts and savings. The vast quantities of information can be quite overwhelming.

Airline Tickets

Airline tickets are probably the first thing that you'll buy. Many people will decide whether they can afford to travel based on how good of a deal they can get on their airline tickets. Also, you'll need to know your travel dates to be able to book a place to stay. Airline tickets can fluctuate in price over the course of a few hours and it can be frightening to try to decide whether you're ready to purchase a ticket when you know that that great fare might be gone the next day. I've read a lot of advice on the best time to buy airline tickets and many people say Wednesday, but I've found that tickets are often cheapest late on Tuesday evening. I've seen the price of airline tickets rise by Wednesday morning. If you think you might be planning a trip sometime in the near future, start monitoring the prices now. Keep track of when they are lower and when they rise, that way when you are ready to purchase them you'll know where and when to book. A great way to do this is to monitor all airfares from an impartial website. A great site for that is ITA Software. You can't book airfare through their website, but they will list all of the cheapest fares and who is offering them.

You may find yourself perusing discount websites for a cheap fare, but this may be unnecessary. Many of the airlines desire to be competitive and want to cut out the middle man, so they are selling their own tickets at a competitive price with the typical discount websites. Also, if you book directly through the airline, especially on international flights, you are more likely to get your frequent flyer miles.

Frequent flier miles are a great way to earn upgrades to first class, or even free airline tickets. Do some research and find out what airline flies out of your city and goes to places you want to go. Book with them every time and you can wind up with some really great perks.

Lodging

Finding a place to stay is much easier than trying to find a cheap airfare. For one thing, prices for hotel rooms don't fluctuate overnight, although the price of a place may vary greatly between seasons. If you can travel in the off season you can save yourself quite a bit of money. Also, if you travel in the off season, you won't have to fight all of the crowds, especially if you're going somewhere popular. The difference between a room in April and that same room in July may be hundreds of dollars.

If you're planning on staying in Europe at least a week or more, you may consider renting an apartment or flat. Doing so can save you an enormous amount of money. For one thing, apartments or flats are often much cheaper than a hotel room per night and you will have a kitchen to use, which will allow you to cook. Being able to go the local market and buy your own food to cook can save you a lot of money.

If you're concerned about renting an apartment because you feel like it might limit what you see because you're in one place for so long, you could consider a longer stay and perhaps stay in two different apartments in two different locations near what you would like to see. Of course, staying in one particular part of a country can be a very rewarding experience as you can explore that part of the country in greater depth. If you prefer to move around a lot, you would probably be better off booking a hotel, bed and breakfast or a hostel in different places throughout the course of your stay.

When renting an apartment make sure to ask the owner questions. An important one is to make sure the price is all-inclusive and that there are no surcharges, like for extra electricity if you go over the allotted amount, or for water, etc. You may also want to ask how far the apartment is from town, or from the train or bus station. If you have to walk two miles every day to catch a train somewhere, you may quickly find yourself irritated at all of the precious vacation time that you are wasting.

Trains, Buses and Cars, Oh My!

If you do choose to rent an apartment, which I feel is the best way to go to Europe, you will need transportation to be able to go and see things nearby. Since time is money, you want to be able to get to various destinations quickly and efficiently. The best way to do this is by train. But buying a ticket on the spot can be exorbitantly expensive. If you want to stay in one town and maybe take one or two day trips, it would make sense for you to buy point-to-point tickets, but for everyone else who wants to be able to hop on and off the train at will, the best value is to buy a train pass. Train passes can only be purchased from overseas and cannot be purchased once you arrive at your destination. They are only for foreign visitors to Britain or the EU. There are Euro Rail passes that offer unlimited use of the trains in one or multiple countries in Europe. Brit Rail passes are the equivalent in the United Kingdom. You can buy a short pass or even a pass that lasts up to a whole month. The longer the pass and whether or not it's a flexible date pass versus a consecutive date pass, will determine the cost. Flexible passes are more expensive because you can use them any days within a certain time frame. Consecutive passes are cheaper but you must use them during consecutive days in the timeframe you buy them for. The more countries you buy a pass for will also determine the price. A pass for a single country is of course the cheapest.

If you are on an extreme budget the absolute cheapest way to travel is by bus and you can also buy a bus pass. However, buses can take twice or three times as long as trains to get to your destination. They have to contend with traffic and can't travel as fast as a train. Also, buses usually stop more than trains so you may find yourself waiting at remote bus stops, which I find is not the ideal way to spend your vacation. There is also on occasion, where the bus driver has gotten lost. Don't laugh. I've had this happen in England. We wound up going around and around in a large circle for almost two hours! Finally a local woman pointed the driver in the right direction.

If you so choose, you could rent a car, but once again you will have to deal with traffic and foreign traffic laws. In Britain you will have to drive on the opposite side of the road which can prove dangerous for those of us who are used to driving on the right side. Also many roads in Europe are narrow, and in rural areas you may have to deal with livestock on the road. In city areas, there may be no parking, or in some places, cars aren't even allowed into the town center. In cities like London, you have to pay a hefty congestion charge for each day you drive in the city. With the exchange rate being what it is, that can put a large dent in your wallet.

I would urge everyone to consider public transportation. Europe's public transportation is nothing like the public transportation here in the United States. It is much more efficient and there is more of it. Buses and trains run very frequently throughout the day and well into the night. In London, there are even night buses that run even in the middle of the night. Night buses are marked with a large N on their sign. You will want to check your bus pass; it is my understanding that not all bus passes are valid on the night buses. If you choose to take a train you will not be disappointed. It will be much faster than traveling by bus or car and a lot less stressful.

Sightseeing Passes

Many countries have historic sites or national trust site passes. If you are planning on see more than a couple of sites, these passes can save you a lot of money and save you the trouble of standing in line to buy tickets at each attraction. If you're staying in a place that has some attractions that are free with your pass, you may want to see the site more than once, or come back when it's not as crowded. A good example of this is in England. If you buy a Great British Heritage Pass, there are many historic sites that allow free entry with the pass. One of these is the Roman Baths in Bath, England. The Roman Baths can be very crowded and so the benefit of a pass would be that you could come back at any other time during your trip, so long as the pass is valid, to see the site again, perhaps at a less crowded time. The passes are sold in increments of 4, 7, 15 or 30 day increments.

Tours

Tours, while sometimes limiting, can be an ideal way to see places that would be difficult to get to on your own, especially if you are relying on public transportation. Often times, you can research what tours are given in the area you are going to be staying at and even book in advance from home. You would want to book in advance if you are going to be traveling during peak season or if you have heard that the tour is a very popular one.

Some tours are cheaper than others. The cheapest are the walking tours of course, but even some of the tours that involve you traveling on the company's tour van or bus can be a great value, especially if they last all day and take you to multiple places.

Exchange Rate

Right now the exchange rate between the Euro and the US dollar isn't very good, but the exchange rate between the British Pound and the dollar is down right horrifying. Just because the exchange rate is terrible right now doesn't mean it's impossible for you to go. It will cost a little more, but if you do your research and are careful, you can make your money go further.

When you arrive at your destination you'll need local currency and you may be wondering the best way of going about obtaining it. Many people buy foreign travelers checks in the US, either at their bank or at AAA, and then cash them a few at a time while at their destination. The problem with traveler's checks, while secure, is that many places where you cash them will down right rip you off when it comes to a cashing "fee." These fees can be as high as three percent. If you have American Express traveler's checks and there's an American Express office where you're going to be, you can avoid this fee. The other problem with traveler's checks is the same problem that you'll have with obtaining foreign cash in the United States, and that is that banks charge a higher exchange rate, above the exchange rate you read in the paper. Their excuse is that the lower exchange rate is for inter-bank exchanges only and isn't for the consumer. After quite a bit of research I found this to be sort of a lie. So if you get traveler's checks, and there's no American Express office, not only are you paying the cashing fee, but you will already have paid an inflated exchange rate.

You could bring a lot of cash with you, but that could be unsafe and unwise. If you are mugged, you could lose all of your money. Not to mention, you are still paying the inflated exchange rate by ordering foreign currency from the bank. There is a way to avoid all of the unnecessary excess that could cause you to spend hundreds more on your trip than necessary and that is by paying with a credit card or by withdrawing local currency at a local ATM.

I'll tackle the credit card method first, and not just any credit card will do. Many banks that issue credit cards have, in the last few years, been tacking on a "fee" for overseas transactions. These fees can be as much as 3%. They can also apply the fee even if you are in the United States if you are paying for something in another country. The fees are padding, as it is, it's Visa or Mastercard that determine the exchange rate on the card and exchange the money into dollars. By the time your bank gets your charge, it's been converted. So, basically most major banks are skimming off the top of your overseas purchases. And the underhanded thing is that you may never know it. Many of the fees are not listed separately but are bundled into the amount on your credit card statement, and if you are paying in another currency you would have no way of knowing if the bank had helped themselves to a few of your dollars on top of the purchase price.

A way around this is to get a card from a bank that doesn't charge a foreign purchase fee. Most small local banks don't charge the fee, and neither does Capital One. Of course, you'll want to pay the card off the second you receive your statement after you get home, or any savings may be lost to their outrageous APRs.

If you need cash in another country, the best way to go about getting it is by withdrawing it from an ATM. The problem is that if you do this, you may get hit with a transaction fee, both from the local bank and from your bank at home. The best thing to do is to find out if your bank has a reciprocal agreement with a local bank where you'll be traveling and then find out if that local bank has ATMs near where you'll be staying. Bank of America for example has reciprocal agreements with large banks in England, France and various other countries in the European Union. You can withdraw money from an ATM owned by that local bank without paying any transaction fee. While it would be a good idea to use your Bank of America ATM or Check Card to withdraw cash from an ATM, it wouldn't be a good idea to use one of their credit cards at a merchant, as they are one of the banks that tack on that additional foreign purchase fee.

And finally, the best reason to use plastic in another country is because of that lie about the exchange rate that I mentioned earlier. When you charge a purchase in another country, the exchange rate, as I said, is determined by Visa. That exchange rate is usually only 1% above the exchange rate you read in the paper, and in the case of the British Pound is currently about ten cents cheaper for every Pound purchased! That is a big difference, especially to those of us on a budget. So, despite the fact that the banks tell you that you can't get that better exchange rate, if you charge your purchase, you'll get something close to it. Even if you do use a card whose bank charges a fee for foreign purchases, you could still save money because it will be cheaper than if you had obtained traveler's checks or cash before you left home.

So, hopefully all of these tips will help you out, and perhaps steer you in the right direction to do some of your own research. There are so many websites that offer all kinds of information and discounts. If you'll take some time and research before finalizing your plans you may save yourselves hundreds of dollars by planning ahead.