Money for food

[Jordan]

hey all
I was just wondering how much one would need to budget for food per day if i was heading to England, france, Italy, Switzerland, Austria. my friend & I aren't major breakfast eaters so we could proably do without that meal. & we expect to eat fairly light lunches & eat only one major/big meal a day. any idea on what we might be able to get away with?
thanks!

[WillTravel]

Maybe the hostel will provide a light breakfast.

I'd use this as a rule of thumb: figure out how much it would take if you were traveling near your home and had to buy all of your food, and multiply by 1.5 or 2. I won't give an exact figure, because it really depends if you want to live on crackers and a bit of cheese or something a bit more interesting. Roasted chicken was pretty cheap at the Sainsbury supermarket in London (go to one with a deli).

It also depends if your hostel has cheap kitchen facilities. In London, few cheap hostels do.

[LHR02]

Also depends on what you want for your one 'big' meal....fast food/take out or a reasonable dinner with salad, maybe a bit of dessert, a glass of wine or beer now and then....it's so subjective it is just hard to say. I normally ate b'fast wherever I was, although at home I rarely do, then was not especially hungry for lunch and ate dinner rather early by European standards. However, I had a 'nice' dinner most days and didn't particularly skimp. It was, to my mind, the one 'paid' meal of the day and I had a drink or two, and a meal, not a snack. I could usually count on 15-20 euros for it, sometimes less, sometimes more. This is, to my mind, one of the hardest areas to advise a budget on...what is acceptable to me is way more than others and some might find my dining totally unacceptable. If a quick pizza or pasta or kebob will do ya....10 will probably suffice. If you want to enjoy a nicer meal then 20 is more likely. Whatever you do, if on a budget, stay well away from American fast food spots...i.e. Mac's or BK!

[WillTravel]

I saw an Englishman at a Canadian hostel who was preparing these odd pancakes made of flour, mashed banana, and water, and frying them in the pans and shortening provided by the hostel. So that's one way to really stretch your food dollar if you want to!

At another hostel in the UK, one person in the dorm seemed to live on white bread and margarine stored under his bunk.

However, either of these would be too much suffering for me. In either case, you still need proper nutrition particularly with all the running around that travelers do.

[Kim]

We found staying in hostels with kitchens really cut down on our food budget.

We would eat cereal in the mornings (took the bag out of the box and carried it with us and bought a little thing of milk in each place) and a yogurt, if breakfast wasn't provided.

We'd then pack a lunch with food we had bought from the grocery store - bread, cheese, meat, maybe some fruit and chips or something and water.

For dinner, we'd cook something easy. One of our regulars was cook up some spagetti noodles and stir fry vegetables in garlic with some soy sauce. Filling and easy.

This let us have extra money for gelato in Italy, chocolate and waffles in Belgium etc.

Basically, we tried to do it as cheap as possible then once and a while have a nice lunch or dinner out. It's great to pack a lunch with stuff from the grocery store as when you are at some sights, the places around them are either a rip off or there isn't really anything.

Pack a bunch of ziplock bags and a 3 in 1 cutlery set (knife, fork and spoon that slides into one another - this will need to be packed in your checked luggage) and you are set.

Kim