You could start by reading the Destinations guides on this website. Then browse the various topics in the Forum archives where these sorts of questions have been answered many times.

Rough Guides and Lonely Planet guides aim to help budget travelers.

How far your budget will go really depends on what you do and see and what you eat. I recommend that first you figure out where you really want to go, find out what it costs to travel between those places, get a room in those places, and see what you want to see in those places (some things are free, some aren't and sometimes there are discounts). Then see what is leftover for food. Keep in mind in might be more fun to go to Europe and eat apples and cheese than stay home and eat steak. However, if you really can't make the budget work, look for cheaper places and/or move around less.

Let's Go is the best budget travel guide I know of.

10 days is not a lot of time. You can visit Amsterdam and Paris and perhaps 1 location in Germany if it doesn't take much time to travel to that location. You will not have enough time to see the entire country. Use the German train site to see train times and duration for all European trains. bahn.de

Eurail is a train pass so you do not travel by Eurorail but by train. With 10 days I doubt that the pass will benefit you. It's usually much cheaper to buy tickets in advance (usually 90 days prior to the trip) and take advantage of discounted fares.

$1,300 will be enough for food and hostels - That's $130 per day and many hostels charge E25 to E30. You can buy cheap food from kiosks and from supermarkets/convenience stores. No need to sit down to eat for every meal.

$1300 is doable - but you will have to be very careful with your spending.

A couple of things to know.

Hard liquor/mixed drinks are very expensive in Europe due to very high taxes. Local beer and wine are much cheaper and generally what students drink (I'm assuming that's your age group).

Soft drinks are very small (8 oz) and very expensive - like 3 euros each. Plan on drinking water and carry your own with you - in a midsize bottle you can refill from the tap in you hostel.

Check out hostels carefully - many are fine but there are some that are know as party spots - with lots of drugs and everything that goes with it. Be sure you pick one that has sizable lockers you can use to store your things during the day and bring your own lock with you just in case.

And do plan on eating from street stands and market and even buying premade food from markets.

Do be aware that prices are generally higher for everything in europe than they are in the US.

for budget flights within Europe as an alternative to rail:

www.whichbudget.com

www.skyscanner.net

Is there no killing off these misleading nervous-nellie impressions of Europe?

Hard liquor is not expensive in Europe if you don't drink American imports.

Why would you come to Europe to drink soft-drinks? And even if you do, they are hardly the biggest issue of your budget.

There are several places on the 'net where you can read reviews of hostels. Some are certainly better and more enjoyable than others. But millions of young people go to Europe every year and stay in them safely.

Finally, people who live in America seem to have very peculiar ideas about what is costly. There is almost no place in America where you can find safe budget accommodations in the biggest cities (like you can in Europe), the cost of train fares and museum entrances or other attractions is astronomical with few discounts, and most of the low end priced food in America is awful.

What you will get for your money in Europe will be of much higher quality and your lodgings will be safer than what you find traveling in America. And unless you plan poorly or choose unwisely, it will be cheaper than traveling in America.

Is Euro rail the best travel method for continental Europe or is air travel comparable?>

For such a short trip and probably only going on a handful of train trips you will be better off just buying individual tickets rather than a pass - unless you are traveling say a lot in Germany and Netherlands on trains then look at the Benelux-Germany railpass - valid in Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as well as all of Germany.

But for your short time you may want to book way in advance tickets like Amsterdam to Paris (www.thalys.com) and get deep discounted tickets which however must be booked months in advance as they are sold in limited numbers and sell out quickly often. Ditto for German trains - www.bahn.de/en - the German Railways site.

And for a lot of great stuff on European trains I always highlight these IMO fantastic sites - www.seat61.com (good info on online discounts); www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Note that the discount tickets are tran-specific and usually cannot be changed nor refunded so be very sure of your dates and train time.

Hi Dave,

well you've already got a good cross-section of views here! but as your mate has family in Amsterdam s/he should be able to put you straight about costs of drinks and food and safety issues.

IMO you could have a great time [and probably a better one than if you keep moving about] just sticking to one of two places in your 10 days. Holland is a terrific place for getting around on public transport and with bikes you could do so very cheaply. The lonely planet and rough guides have plenty of ideas of how to do this.

add a few days in Paris at either end of the trip and you'll have a blast.

With 10 days, I would consider limiting the trip to Amsterdam and surrounding areas and Paris. The more you travel from place to place, the more time and money you spend.

And get open-jaw plane tickets (multi-city on the airline web sites), maybe into Amsterdam and out of Paris. That should cost about the same as round-trip tickets and save you the time and money you'd spend backtracking.

If you are traveling between Paris and Amsterdam, take the train. You can purchase tickets in advance or when you get there. There are some savings in advance bookings. The advantage of taking the train is that the stations are in the city, eliminating the time and expense of getting to the airport. The airports with cheaper flights within Europe are frequently not that close to the city you will be visiting and you will spend more time and money getting from the airport to your destination.


If would be easier to fly into one place and out of the other so you don't have to spend time and money retracing your route.

When you say 10 days, do you mean 10 days including traveling from your home and back or 10 nights in Europe? Even if you have 8 or 9 nights
you should allocate about a half day for traveling between cities, and checking into your accommodation.

My last trip (May 2012) to Spain with my daughter cost me about 920 Euros. Car rental, diesel, six night in hotels not hostels, meals, grocery shopping, attractions tickets. I was not really paying attention to the budget or trying to save.

In Seville, four glasses of wine and a cheese platter cost nine Euros.

One week in Ireland cost us about US$1400, and the euro at the time was way over $2.00. I don't remember when that was, Ireland is one trip that I have erased from my memory.

For us the cheapest way is to rent a car, have a full breakfast every day, buy some groceries, with couple of fancy dinners thrown in. I find prices in Europe to be comparable to Canada.

Is that $1300 per person?

Mark

If you want to cut costs, eat the meal of the day in restaurants normally Euro 13 for 3 courses with wine in France (for example) 5 days the week. If still under price pressure seek out vegetarian meals in ethnic restaurants.

Buy second class rail tickets and look for the cheap deals, for instance Saturday lunch time in France tends to be the cheapest deals as most civilised people are eating not travelling.

To save on meal money in France and get all you want to eat look for the many FLUNCH restaurants - a chain in most cities and often in Auchan hypermarches along autoroutes - all you can eat veggies and side dishes plus a meat portion - unlimited beverages but beer and wine small extra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flunch

http://www.flunch.fr/

To save on meal money in France and get all you want to eat look for the many FLUNCH restaurants - a chain in most cities and often in hypermarches along autoroutes - all you can eat veggies and side dishes plus a meat portion - unlimited beverages but beer and wine small extra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flunch

http://www.flunch.fr/

On the subject of beverges -

A lot of American routinely drink soft drinks - and are used to gettign 16 oz size, oftne with free refills for $1.50 or so. To find out that a day's worth will cost you $25 or $30 rather than $3 can be quite a surprise.

As for hard liquor/mixed drinks, I really don;t drink these - either abroad or at home, but everything I've seen says the prices are shockingly high versus what you pay in a casual bar outside of 1 or 2 major cities in the US. For someone used to $3 drinks at Happy Hour finding they cost $15 each (never mind $25+ in a more upscale place) can be a shock.

Drink house wine, and tap water , eat a sandwich or street food of some sort everywhere once a day, and one meal out a day. Breakie can be yogurt and some pastries. Some hostels have fridges and mini kitchens to boil water etc.

Point to point train tickets can be cheap if you purchase them well in advance! From Amsterdam to Paris cost us 35 euros last summer , purchased months in advance. Its only 3 hours city center to city center so no need to pay to commute to airports.

I would be tempted to stick to 2 cities myself, but I understand some people like a little taste of everything.

Just a thought. The train from Amsterdam to Paris takes you through Belgium. The Thalys stops in Antwerp and in Brussels. You could stop in either of the two for a couple of hours and a quick look round the city, or even stay overnight, and then continue to Paris. Train tickets must be booked accordingly, of course. That way you'd have a glimpse of a third country and city without losing any time for extra travel. Of course you can't do either city justice in a few hours, but if you take it as a quick stopover just to get a taste, it's worth considering.

You might enjoy my trip report on Amsterdam and Bruges. Loved Amsterdam.

www.rimerson.com/Netherlands09/Netherlands09.html