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Post by beachbab85 on Apr 6, 2005 13:29:45 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I am planning a 6 week backpacking trip to Europe with 2 other girl friends from may to July and we are starting to get nervous!! We have a pretty limited budget (around $2000) which I know isn't a lot, but we aren't afraid of "roughing" it or expensive muesums/tours.
We fly into Gatwick . . . any ideas on the cheapest kind of transportation to the mainland?
Our Rough Itenerary (as many as we can) includes:
France (prob. only during the afternoon since Ive heard its pricey)
Spain (Madrid, Barcelona . . . beach cities!)
Greece (athens, the islands)
Italy (sicily, rome, venice)
Czech (prague)
Netherlands (Amsterdam)
Germany-- we want to visit Auschwitz
Ireland (Dublin)
Anyone have any suggestions for us? or are we just getting ourselves in some interesting situations? haha
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Post by WillTravel on Apr 6, 2005 13:41:42 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I am planning a 6 week backpacking trip to Europe with 2 other girl friends from may to July and we are starting to get nervous!! We have a pretty limited budget (around $2000) which I know isn't a lot, but we aren't afraid of "roughing" it or expensive muesums/tours. We fly into Gatwick . . . any ideas on the cheapest kind of transportation to the mainland? Our Rough Itenerary (as many as we can) includes: France (prob. only during the afternoon since Ive heard its pricey) Spain (Madrid, Barcelona . . . beach cities!) Greece (athens, the islands) Italy (sicily, rome, venice) Czech (prague) Netherlands (Amsterdam) Germany-- we want to visit Auschwitz Ireland (Dublin) Anyone have any suggestions for us? or are we just getting ourselves in some interesting situations? haha You can get an EasyJet flight from Gatwick to many places - Rome or Venice for example. You'll have to cut some things for sure. Auschwitz is in Poland, and is usually done as a daytrip from Krakow. France for an afternoon isn't worth it! You can do France cheaper than Italy or at least for the same price, imo. Think about this a little more, and figure out what your top priorities are. There's no way you can see everything. Your Italy itinerary for example is really at least 10 days - preferably at least 14. It's time-consuming to get around Sicily if you want to see anything. I'd take at least a week for Rome and Venice (and in my opinion that's short-changing but it will do). Unless you have a really strong reason to go to Sicily, I'd suggest Rome, Florence, and Venice for at least 10 days, but preferably more - very easy in terms of transport, and tons to see. |
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Post by MuvverRussia on Apr 6, 2005 17:02:09 GMT -5
The beaches in Barcelona itself aren't really up to much. Instead, you're better off looking further North up the coast, although transport links may become an issue then. Obviously, Madrid has no real beaches to speak of.
As for transport from the UK to Continental Europe, look at Easyjet from LGW. Failing that, any budget carrier is worth a go, although you'll save a fair bit if you can get a direct transfer from Gatwick.
And I'd like to see you do France in an afternoon. It really isn't expensive (at least not compared to many European nations, my country included). Also, looking at your route you'll be spending a fair bit of time going through France on trains, so a stop in Paris (2 nights or so) could be worthwhile.
For Auschwitz, you need to be based in Kraków, Poland. It's about 60km from there to Oswiecim (the village where the Auschwitz camp is). You need a full day to do it and it isn't particularly cheap, especially considering how cheap Poland is. Then again, it's certainly worth making the effort to see both Auschwitz and Birkenau. Overall, spend around 3 or 4 days in Krakow (inc Auschwitz), as there is a lot to see.
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Post by gregh on Apr 6, 2005 19:52:36 GMT -5
that $2000 budget doesn't really match that itinerary. 6 wks = 42 nites? Plan on spending 30-60 per day. Just 30 will be hard - 15 for a hostel, 15 for food, beer, museum tickets? And 30 * 42 = 1260....not leaving much for your transportation costs between those 14 or so hops you mentioned. railsaver.com is a good place to insert your itinerary for an estimate of Train costs. this gives you a general idea of some point to point prices as you consider what combo of passes & tix you'll need www.ricksteves.com/rail/timecostmap.htm |
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Post by MuvverRussia on Apr 7, 2005 5:37:30 GMT -5
USD30 per day is impossible. From my calculations, your current budget is around £24 per day, excluding transport costs - to be honest, this is still too low.
Realistically look at adding at least another 50% to your budget, or even more if you are including transport costs.
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Post by Jocelyne on Apr 7, 2005 8:02:50 GMT -5
Hey Are you going May of this year??? I'm going for 54 days starting on MAy 9th of 2006. Anyway I think you should figure out exactly where you want to go (which cities), we narrowed ours down alot so we can actually get a sense for most places. The more you know about where you wanna go in each country the easier it is to determine what to save. You can't do paris in an afternoon and if you think you can then why bother going there. I have a week scheduled for paris and I won't see everything.
For our 54 days and including the flight from toronto to london we are looking at 3,800 CAD (for transportation around europe and from hostels) Which isn't bad so 5000 will pay for everything basically except spending money.
Anyway good luck with the travel plans!
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Soleil
Full Travel Member
Posts: 11
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Post by Soleil on Apr 7, 2005 21:05:50 GMT -5
I don't know if you're at all interested in visiting Wales after arriving in Gatwick (you can get there by train fairly inexpensively), but what I'm doing is taking a flight with Ryanair from Cardiff to Dublin for 0.99 GBP (before tax and during the week), and then another Ryanair flight from Dublin to Paris which will cost anywhere from 16-30/40 Euro (depending on the day/time you depart).
Good luck!
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