traveling across europe

March 1, 2005 9:43 AM

so in may, i'll be headed back to Central Asia where i've been periodically offering computer consulting to non-profit NGOs for the past 5 years. generally, i've gone, come home, and started working the very next day at my job here in the states. this year, however, i'll be spending one full month over in that part of the world, and was figuring to take a week tooling around Europe on the way home.

my starting point would basically be Dubai. from there, i had thought of flying to Frankfurt, where i have a few friends. i would hope to go from there to Madrid or Barcelona over the next week, and then finally fly out of there back home to Chicago. i'll likely have assured lodging (free) from friends in Germany and Spain, and i have no hang-ups whatsoever about staying in hostels in between, thus my major concern is the cost of travel itself. any thoughts on keeping this incredibly cheap?

thanks!

posted by quadrinary to Travel & Transportation (4 answers total)

Hostels are definitely the cheapest ways to live. Find them and reserve them ahead of time at hostels.com. Shop at local groceries, dont eat out. Taking the bus is usually the cheapest way to travel. The plane fares are basically going to be eating up the majority of your cash I would think so you should really work hard on finding the best deals.
posted by pwally at 10:27 AM on March 1, 2005

Response by poster: yea, those plane fares aren't what i'm worried about -- those are covered. i'm just wondering what the cheapest way to go from germany to spain would be. how cheap is a one-way eurail pass or something?
posted by quadrinary at 10:46 AM on March 1, 2005

There are a couple of low-cost airlines that fly from Germany to Spain, e.g. Germanwings flies from Cologne to both Madrid and Barcelona, starting at 19 euro one-way -- or so their ads say. If you are flexible, it shouldn't be hard to find a one-way flight below 100$.

In comparison, travelling from Frankfurt to Madrid by railway will take at least twenty hours, see German Rail. I suspect it also would not save you a lot of money compared to the low-cost airlines. The railway might be an option to get from the Frankfurt region to Cologne airport though.
posted by andre at 11:32 AM on March 1, 2005

quadrinary, could you possibly email me at the address in my profile to tell me about these consulting trips? This sounds like something I'd like to do and I'm wondering how you go about it.
posted by xueexueg at 8:09 PM on March 1, 2005