Time moves slowly, you move more slowly. It’s as if you’re learning to unlearn everything you were told life was supposed to be like. You learn to think outside of the box. With so much that can happen in a day, what is it that I want to have happen? You strive to be a better person every day, realizing how short life is. There is always something to learn, there will always be something to discover.
You meet so many different people that it gets difficult to say anything about life anymore. You stay open, live freely and make it yours. Travelling around the world will make you more intuitive, more wise, more willing to learn.
No one regrets travelling - everyone regrets not having traveled more. A great number of people feel that it is difficult to travel except if they spend a substantial amount of money. In the event that you are among those who want to go through a little excitement without needing to spend a huge amount of money, at that point, you will find below travel destinations that are least expensive for you and the entire family.
Spring is beautiful in Europe. Sun, warmth and sparkling colors. The Netherlands is known to be tulips metropolis, the country celebrates spring with festivals and parades while parks shines in all possible shades. In Spain flowering peach, almond and cherry trees in white and pink, which later will bear fruit.
In France, it is simply beautiful in spring, lavender flowers on the countryside and Paris is in his element. In today's guide, you read about the beautiful places for cherry blossom. Europe's loveliest time is now.
As a traveler, you will be spending a lot on flights and visa. But compensate the extra cost bu saving hugely on accommodation, food and sightseeing. A 15 day trip to this part of the world should not cost you more. Europe isn’t as expensive as people imagine it to be. All you need to do is spend more on exploration and not on bookings.
Don't rely on one source while making decision, confirm, research then make a final decision like food, laundry, currency exchange etc. A lot of travelers feel that Europe is damn expensive. Well it isn’t of you have the time and the passion to plan ahead and plan well.
So do your research where you are going, timing of attractions (some churches in Europe get closed in afternoon and again open in evening), where you will stay, how you will commute from Airport/Railway station to your hotel/Airbnb, about local cuisines, local transportation, daily pass and many more. Reading articles will help in many ways.
1. Take weekend trips
You don’t need to be a young backpacker, a burned out or lost adult, or a digital nomad to travel the world. For many people, those lifestyles are not practical or desirable. Maybe you don’t want to eat greasy food and stay in hostels. Perhaps you can find balance and your purpose at home. Maybe an office is an important part of keeping you grounded in your career. Everybody is different.
If you fall in this bucket and want to travel, you still have options. With the vacation time you have, pick a new place, book the ticket, and go. With 1–3 vacations a year, you can slowly start to see the world. Over time, you’ll have seen a lot of places. Travel doesn’t have to be expensive, exotic, or far away.
Take a Friday off and do a weekend trip somewhere close. You’d be surprised the number of cool places around you. Research places within a 2 hour flight of your home and go! If you live in a big city or anywhere really, you can travel where you are. Develop a deep curiosity about your city and explore as if it was a new place. Go to a new restaurant or do a unique activity every week. If you maintain a genuine curiosity in life, you can travel wherever you are.
2. Book a good hotel/AirBnb
If you want to save a few $, call the hostels you find online directly and they may reduce the fee. Make sure you read hostel reviews carefully. Hostels with good atmospheres are so much better than the shitty ones. Many hostels will have bunkbeds. If you find a good fam, you'll learn so much about local culture, events, foods, etc.
In many ways home stays are much better than hostels. At hostels you're not really learning about the country you're in, but rather, the places where all the travellers are from. You can find home stays in some areas by walking around. They can also be cheaper than hostels.
Seriously consider whether the cheap price at a youth hostel is worth your sanity and self-respect. In many places, for just $10 or $20 more, you can get a hotel. Cut a day or two off your trip and spend that money on a hotel room. You’ll thank yourself for it. Avoid booking expensive hotels and staying at popular tourist areas.
Book a hostel or an airbnb or any other homestay or try couchsurfing. If at all you want to stay at a hotel, opt for something away from the city centers.
If you are a bachelor, you should always prefer hostels to hotels. Hostels in Europe are great and you get to interact with people from all over the world when you stay there. Book a hostel near a railway station/old town. Then you save a lot of effort walking/travelling to there. If you are travelling alone or with friends, search for hostels before you book Airbnb or hotels.
Chances are you will have a much cheaper stay and also you will make some friends on the way.
Try to stay in hostels as much as possible. You don’t need to bunk in a dorm. You can avail single rooms as well. The best hostel properties can be booked from sites like Hostel World and Agoda. You can use Airbnb or hostels if you're friendly and it'll save funds. Book a good AirBnb (of course, after checking the reviews). In southern Europe, they’re abundant — though cheap rentals are putting a real pinch on locals looking for a place to live.
The really great thing about southern Europe is that there’s usually plenty of accommodation options for under $40 a night. Cheap things for tourists often have a serious downside for locals. Higher prices in the Nordic countries are one reason why, for the most part, they’re not a swamp of tourist selfie-sticks.
Don't feel shame in asking discounts at hotels. You may get it. Not all want to lose customers. Ask for the WiFi password if the hotel have a WiFi. You paid for it. It's your right.
3. Ask your hostel or research for free walking tours
Try to walk through the cities than the Hop on Hop off buses, you will get know much better idea of the cities, culture and architecture. Almost all big cities in Europe offer free walking tours which usually take place twice a day from the city center or famous attractions. Make sure to arrive there on time, and tip at the end of the tour what you want and can afford.
There are various free day tours in almost every city where you get to explore the city with a guide. Note that you are expected to tip the guide in the end.
Go visit around some unplanned locations that were not originally on your list, and see what unexpectedly amazing memories you create. Your best memory will be the evening you spent wandering around with no specific plan, the beer you drank in a piazza while you gazed at the fountain, or the unexpected conversation you had with an interesting stranger who you’ll never see again.
There are lots of small alleyways. PERFECTLY SAFE TOO! You enter an alleyway and see so many people, lots of tiny shops. It’s like a tiny little world of its own.
If you really want to enjoy any country, try local food, stay, local travelling options like bicycles in Amsterdam and Copenhagen and events. Christmas markets are best in some parts of Europe, like Budapest (Hungary), Vienna (Austria) and Dusseldorf (Germany). You can try Glühwein, it beats the cold. Accept a fika (Swedish word for afternoon coffee/tea with cookies) if you are asked to.
The cheapest means of transportation - your own legs! It’s a great way to explore the nooks and crannies of a certain place while still remaining active. You’d get to see things you normally miss when taking the public transport or a taxi, things like housing estates, parks, little things in life that are different back in your own country. E.g. cute dogs on the streets and the types of dogs common in a certain country - like shiba inus in Japan.
Travel doesn’t have to be as expensive as it seems on the surface. There are a great many ways to fund travel and ways to travel on a budget. Train stations are free. Make sure there is actually a physical station that stays open all night. Choose to walk or take public transit like a local. Too many people are afraid of public transit and spend a lot of money on car rentals or taxis, just walk. It’s healthier and you see more that way.
Determining how long your trip will be can basically help you figure out how much you need to save. If you already know where you want to go, then it must be much easier to search how much money you’ll need. And to do that, make sure you search all the costs in that destination you chose earlier (how much are hostels, hotels, restaurants, and attractions).
4. Money
Coffee, a few times a week? Put beautiful images of your travel destination next to your coffee maker and take the 10 minutes to make your own. Yes! It does suck but you save $1000s. That jar will quickly fill and voilà !
Forget about visiting the exchange and trading your local currency for the currency of the country you are traveling to. Stop worrying about carrying cash all the time and getting robbed. People have different views on this one. Some people suggest taking all the cash you need (in your home currency) and then exchanging when you get to a new country.
If you're travelling for a while you should sign up for a debit/credit card with no international fees, and then withdraw cash each time you arrive in a new country. Carry a credit or debit card with you and make payments through it. This will help you avail discounts, get cashback and earn reward points in the process.
You can also redeem those reward points to make future purchases. You should carry cash only for instance where credit and debit cards are not accepted. Collect coupons and vouchers few months before traveling so you can avail extra discounts when you use them. You can also avail discounts on a safari or a yacht if you choose wisely.
Most credit/debit cards will give you more advantageous rates overseas than a traditional currency exchange. Many countries are mostly cashless, and paying with your card is quick and easy. If you do need cash, any local ATM would be more efficient than an airport kiosk. When you leave a country get rid of all your coins. While you can exchange bills, you often cannot exchange coins at all.
Keep some currency until you're sure you don't need any anymore. Many airports in Asia have expensive "airport taxes" and other last-minute fees like that.
It's a connected world. The more connected you're, the easier life becomes. Somehow at 5k followers, one becomes Influncer on Instagram. If you become an influencer, you've made it. You're sort of minor celebrity. You can charge for posts, promote products, in general somehow made money from the fame.
It's probably in its infancy but its like the currency of future. The more likes and shares you get, richer you're. The more connected you're, the more your value is. It's interesting to watch it. Probably we will see it in this life time, the stuff of fiction come to life. They're on to something, the youngsters. Only question is, does it pay enough to maintain your lifestyle or travel.
5. Choose the right accommodation
Book cheap accomodations. There is nothing wrong with a cheap hostel and often the little independently owned bed and breakfasts are cheaper and more friendly than a hotel. If you are arranging accommodation on your own, think of a house or apartment while keeping in mind your budget. This works out best for long-term holidays.
Your travel company may be able to arrange accommodation at a cheaper rate if you book your Europe tour as a package with them. They may offer free breakfast, cheaper sightseeing packages, tour guides to accompany you and, sometimes, even free stay for one night. Make the most of the internet by researching, booking and planning your travel and accommodation. Don’t leave things to chance especially in busier summer months.
6. Food
Food tends to be 2–3 times more expensive than it should be at the airport. Don’t eat anywhere unless you’re very hungry, and the flight has no included meals. Chain fast food and coffee shops tend to have prices that are closer to their counterparts on the outside. When it comes to water, the best thing to do is to take a reusable water bottle and fill up at drinking water stations in the terminal, after the security barriers.
Avoid restaurants and manage on food on the go. You can have from McDonalds/Burger King/take away chinese Or kebab from Turkish shops. Even these are comparatively more expensive. If you are visiting a mountain, pack some food from the city you are staying at. All the mountain tops have restaurants. But then these would be expensive. Hence carry some food. Also NEVER GO to very expensive restaurants in the first days of your arrival.
7. Shopping
Don't buy anything from an airport retail store unless you absolutely need it. Airports make a significant % of their revenues from commissions from sales of goods in their retail stores. This leads to shops jacking up their prices, and you end up the loser. Airports are designed so that you have to pass through shops and be tempted to spend. Do not do this, you’ll spend way more money than the goods you have are worth.
If you see something you like, just look up the real price on Amazon, and buy it online, so it reaches your doorstep by the time you get home.
Never buy souvenirs in the first days. Don’t buy souvenirs right in front of or near to attractions. If you are in a very popular city, chances are you will get the same stuff at a very less price 1-2 km far from it. Haggling and bargaining won’t work everywhere, if possible take a local acquaintance with you for shopping, ask the hotel personnel or AirBNB host where to buy stuff.
8. Duty-free
This is probably the biggest scam in the airline industry. Much of what is sold is alcohol, cigarettes/cigars, chocolate and perfumes. Much of the stuff there is genuinely cheaper elsewhere, most of whatever is cheaper in a duty-free shop aren’t particularly good for your health or your wallet. Fun to browse through absolutely would avoid buying anything.
9. Carry your own water bottle
You don’t see lots of stores near the tourist attractions, so you are told to carry empty water bottles. You see hoses lying around and water fountains. People actually refill 2–3 of their empty water bottles at these fountains. Avoid buying water if you can see a water fountain nearby. Carry an empty bottle with you to fill up whenever you get a fountain.
Water is expensive if bought from a kiosk or departmental store and restaurants charge even if you ask for tap water. Water fountains are absolutely fine to have water from and save a few bucks. If at all you need to buy water, get it from a departmental store rather than a kiosk.
10. Make use of tour guide
When you want the full experience, go to those who are trained to know the ins and the outs of the country as well as the hotels. Once in the country and ready to go out touring, rely on another professional as well! Imagine strolling through a flea market as opposed to entering a glamorous store where a salesperson immediately comes up to greet you and guide you all the way through your shopping experience.
Or imagine being behind the steering wheel of a Beetle as opposed to plopping yourself in the front seat of a luxurious Mercedes. That is the difference one experiences when leaving the planning up to somebody who is not a trained tour guide!
Tour guides train hard to do their job properly with accuracy and finesse! They studied to know all the history behind the destination and they also know all those tidbits of information that makes a tour super interesting and worthwhile! Tour guides are usually very kind and personable so, they are usually fun to be with and don’t mind any questions you may have while learning about the place you are visiting accompanied by them.
Imagine visiting this very ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey by yourself or accompanied by a friend without a tour guide. Yikes! What you really need to do is look for the person under the umbrella who’s your tour guide and wait until your group is reunited so that your tour guide can share all those memorable details!
