Tips for a student going to Europe?

January 1, 2009 11:06 AM

What's a cheap way to survive in Europe over the summer?

A few friends and I (three of us total, two guys and a girl; the girl and one of the guys are in a relationship) were planning on going to go to Europe over the summer this year. We want to go to Sweden, England, France, and The Netherlands. We've gotten an invitation to stay on Copenhagen on a friend's boat for a week, so we might end up doing that too.

We're all in college and pretty much broke.

We want to spend a week in each country (probably Stockholm, London, Paris, and Amsterdam respectively), but we're not sure how we'll be able to afford the trip.

We don't exactly want to backpack across Europe and stay in hostels, so any suggestions for other stuff would be nice.

Also, stuff to do that's not touristy in those countries would be nice as well.

What would be an expensive way to get from Boston to the other side of the pond? Do people still do courier exchange-luggage-for-a-package things anymore?

Thanks for the input and Happy New Year!

posted by speek to travel & transportation (16 answers total)

Also, How much money should I set aside for ths trip?
posted by speek at 11:17 AM on January 1, 2009

If you're interested in organic agriculture at all, WWOOF is a possibility. You volunteer your time and labour on a farm in exchange for room and board. You can meet all kinds of awesome people and have great experiences outside of the touristy place, and learn some neat skills.
posted by glip at 11:21 AM on January 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

I don't know how well it works for groups, but if you don't want to do backpacks and hostels (which is pretty much what broke students do - or obtain a trust fund) you might want to look at couch surfing or renting an apartment in each city (if you can tolerate a single bedroom, I bet it would be as cheap or cheaper than hostels).

Scandinavia is terribly expensive - Copenhagen is one is the most expensive places I've visited but well worth it. Go ahead and be touristy - climbing the Eiffel Tower is amazing! Rick Steves' books are well worth a read in your situation, especially Europe Through the Back Door.
posted by kcm at 11:24 AM on January 1, 2009

The NYTimes Frugal Traveler seems pretty pragmatic and current.
posted by sammyo at 11:35 AM on January 1, 2009

If any of you have your own places in Boston, you might be able to arrange for an apartment swap.
posted by kimdog at 11:39 AM on January 1, 2009

Are you sure that you don't want to stay in hostels?

Couchsurfing is great too.
posted by k8t at 12:11 PM on January 1, 2009

Hm. I think you might have to re-examine some basic premises about the length and duration of your trip.

First off, if you did this trip over your university's winter break, the cost difference on flights alone would be astounding. You'd also have a lot longer to save up (from the second job you take on to pay for your trip?).

For example: Icelandair to Copenhagen from Boston in July and staying about a month is over $1000 round trip and you have to stop in Iceland and pay for booze; flying from New York to London in November 2009 (as far ahead as I could see) is only $530, on British Airways, nonstop, with free booze - and it doesn't cost $470 to get between London and Copenhagen. (There are far more flights from New York, and Megabus gets you there for a song). Christmas might be more expensive, but if you can go in January, you may get a truly great deal. It's really never too soon to book, either - last-minute deals aren't really deals compared to sale fares grabbed a lot earlier.

And overall, big cities in northern/western Europe are expensive, but if you changed your trip to something like Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris (which are not as bad as London and cities in Scandinavia price-wise), you might find your dollars going further. Berlin, especially, is a great city on a budget. If you want to venture further east, Poland is fabulous value (disclaimer: I live there!) and Krakow, Gdansk, and Warsaw are all less than a day's journey from Berlin.

Intercity buses are often a better deal than trains, as are train tickets booked on the respective country's national rail websites instead of on a site like RailEurope (which is just a travel agency, and which really really wants you to buy a train pass). Check Seat 61 for details on each country's system and the best way to book. The German rail system has deals on night-trains, too - check those out here. Furthermore, Deutsche Bahn lets you book many trains online all over the continent, even those just passing through Germany, and will mail you paper tickets in the States for just €3.50, or let you pick them up at the station on the day of travel, if you'd prefer, as do many other national rail services.

If flying around is more your speed, check DoHop and SkyScanner for maps of who flies where - and be prepared for low, low, low prices if you book in advance and can adapt to flying to more suburban airports and using local transport to get into cities. Easyjet and Ryanair are the dominant players, but there are dozens of local carriers happy to carry you around for, literally, $1 or something, plus tax. I've gone from Riga, Latvia to Berlin for $15 before, all-in - and that's not really incredibly unusual.

Finally, Couchsurfing isn't anything I've ever done, but perhaps you'd have more luck.

Happy travels!
posted by mdonley at 12:30 PM on January 1, 2009 [5 favorites]

When traveling, I find that I spend the most money when moving from one place to the other. Train, bus, taxi and all of the accompanying on-the-road incidentals (ie. snacks) add up really fast. Depending on the city, renting a small apartment can be much more affordable than even paying to stay in a hostel every night. You'd also have a kitchen to prepare all your meals. Why not rent a small studio apartment for the summer, in a centrally located city and use it as your home base? Then you can take weekend and weeklong trips and have a place to leave your stuff.

Since you are students, you could also apply for student work visas and then try to get temp work in the visiting countries to help fund your trip.
posted by pluckysparrow at 12:33 PM on January 1, 2009

Second for using the Bahn site for booking train tickets. You may end up needing to book each leg of inter-country trips separately, but if you can find the Europa Specials for night trains you can book into a 4-couchette cabin for ultracheap and combine hotel + transportation costs. Plus, they're something fun you can't do in the states. :)

I also think you're going to have to compromise *somewhere* - I would find cheap airfare as mdonley has done for you already - remember that you can depart from a different city than you arrive, then find train tickets between the cities you'd like to visit, THEN figure out lodging. If you go in the next off-season, such as next Nov (my favorite time to travel, with less people and cheaper everything), you'll be much better off pricewise.

You're young, there's no good reason not to stay in hostels since you won't be there most of the day except to sleep and the people you'll meet is a lot of value of traveling. Again, to minimize costs, either an apartment or hostel with a (shared) kitchen is the cheapest way, so that you can go to the grocery store and do breakfast and dinner at 'home'.
posted by kcm at 12:39 PM on January 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

And one little tip for traveling on the tail end of an academic term (if you departed in, say, early-mid December and missed a week of class before the winter break): offer to turn in assignments early, and tell your professors as soon as possible about your plans. They'll be much kinder to you (and may just give you an alternate assignment!) than if you tell them you're missing the final a week in advance.
posted by mdonley at 12:53 PM on January 1, 2009

Busabout is incredible value.
posted by fire&wings at 1:16 PM on January 1, 2009

>and stay in hostels
What's wrong with hostels? Some of the them are very nice and you get can private family rooms or personal rooms with and without private baths. There are plenty of basic hostels (and some fairly nasty ones). But don't rule out hostels altogether as you can get really find some good, clean, economical hostels (without communal sleeping conditions), you just need to do your research in advance.
posted by zaphod at 2:09 PM on January 1, 2009

It would be cheaper to stay in Berlin and Prague, for example. London, Paris and Amsterdam are definitely not cheap cities (I have no idea about Sweden). There simply is no way to stay in Paris for a week, without hostels, on any definition of "cheap".
posted by creasy boy at 2:39 PM on January 1, 2009

We don't exactly want to backpack across Europe and stay in hostels

Why not?
posted by Orinda at 7:43 PM on January 1, 2009

We've seen too many bad horror movies that all start up in hostels, so that's probably the main culprit, but I'm sure we'll end up staying in some form of hostel.

Any places we should absolutely go to? or not go to?
posted by speek at 12:00 PM on January 2, 2009

Hostels are fantastic. Seriously, pick hostel over hotel every single time and you'll have a far better trip.
posted by fire&wings at 5:07 PM on January 3, 2009