Yes, you can have the luxury to travel Europe at your own pace, given the cities of your choice and yet be on a budget, that’s how you hit two birds with one stone.  We deal with this the most realistic way possible (you don’t go to the point where you starve yourself while travelling for the sake of saying you have cut on costs), it’s basically striking a balance between enjoying the travel and keeping track of budget.  It’s like dealing with the economics of travelling, thereby allocating scarce resources given your unlimited wants of places to wander at a given timeframe. For a first-time traveller to Europe, the idea of a DIY trip sounds dreadful — there’s always this fear of the unknown, but now that I think about it, it doesn’t seem too complex for someone who has the thirst for adventure.  It’s been a year since the Eurotrip, so while I try to muster how the travel has been planned and executed, I’m taking this as a chance to share with you the essentials of a do-it-yourself Eurotrip.

To make things simpler, let’s begin with stats:

Number of Destinations: 7

Number of Eurocities: 6

Number of Countries Visited: 3 (I will tackle later why, for me, less is more)

Number of Days: 15

Number of Times Lost: 1 (yeah, baby! not bad, not bad)

Number of Times Mugged: 1 (This is on the last day. Guess, it ain’t adventure without this.)

Total Cost of the Trip: S$ 3,525 (This practically covers everything except pasalubong/presents from the travel: plane & train tickets, 2 visa fees, West End ticket, accommodation, travel insurance, 2-day Paris hop-on hop-off tour, museum tickets. Note: It could have been cheaper if UK isn’t included, i.e. another visa fee and relatively more expensive, but we decided to go for it since it’s too good to miss.)

Pick your travel destinations.

Let’s start with you identifying the Euro cities and towns based on geography and practicality.  Note that you will end up foregoing a place that may be out of the way (as for our case, it’s Spain) so it’s best to determine which place is personally significant for you. While some airlines provide a promo for return trips but for the same origin & destination, e.g. SG to Paris and back, it’s more convenient and cheap as well to have different points of entry and departure, e.g. you enter Paris, take trains across Europe and point of departure should be ideally the one close to your home country.  For our trip, we started with London and as we travel around Europe, we were going on the south-east direction and ended the tour in Rome, which is the closest our home (Singapore). Of course, this will lead you to pay cheaper airfare back.

Routes in a Nutshell:

Destination	Mode of Transport	Transport Provider	Cost in S$
Manila to London	plane	Philippine Airlines	723
London to Paris	train	Eurostar	82
Paris to Venice	plane	RyanAir	74
Venice to Rome	train	Trenitalia	82
Rome to Singapore	plane	Sri Lankan Airlines	545

Less is More

Through experience, I have appreciated the quality of travelling over quantity.  A schengen visa covers 26 countries and while some might tend to ‘panic travel’ by utilizing going in and out of those Euro zones, it isn’t convenient and relaxing. You wouldn’t want your Eurotrip to be consumed mostly on train rides nor overspend for flights to save time.  If you’re in for the number of stamps in your passport, sorry to disappoint but some countries would just not put stamps when you enter/exit.  It seems that immigration is more keen upon your point of entry and going around the Euro zone after that is less stringent already.  My trip covered 3 European countries, stayed longest in Paris for five days.  At first, I consider that five days quite too much for a single city, but to my surprise, I have actually appreciated it and learned that such timespan should ideally be the minimum per destination.  Eventually, I have considered Paris as my favourite city.

Of Trains and Budget Airlines

The question is would you choose to fly or take trains when moving around Europe?  Well, it all boils down to timing, distance and research.  If two cities aren’t too far from each other, taking trains isn’t so bad.  From London, we took a train going to Paris via Eurostar, which is an established transport provider.  I couldn’t believe travelling between two countries, or should I say between two beautiful cities, could be that quick (unbelievably, travel time is only 2 hrs, 16 mins).  This isn’t always the case though, as I was checking trains from Paris to Venice, prices are way too expensive and took long travel time.  As an alternative, a good friend from Italy advised me to try the budget airline called RyanAir. Caveat: Some budget airlines have terminals that are far from the city.  Expect possible flight delays as well.

On the other hand, if air tickets are too pricey,  you could opt for a sleeper train.  Since hotel costs in Venice are skyrocketing,  we chose to sleep on the train to Rome (left at midnight and arrived 6:35am).  It wasn’t a sleeper train, i.e. those with actual beds, but I was too exhausted, I slept the whole trip despite the numerous stopovers.

Flying in and Out of Europe

Grab the opportunity when big airlines introduce new destinations as that’s when prices would drop.  Fortunately, January of last year, Philippine Airlines still had an introductory price for direct flight from Manila to London (Note: take advantage of cheap and scarce direct flights as much as possible to save the inconvenience of being in transit).  In addition, use Skyscanner to see low fares (sort by cheapest and choose those with least connecting flights).  On our trip back, we took Sri Lankan airlines which is almost S$200 cheaper than our ticket to London partly because Rome is now closer to home.

Hotels

Another proven ‘hitting two birds with one stone’ advice is to book thru AirBnB instead of expensive European hotels which, aside from saving a lot, gives you the chance to savour the ‘European vibe’ of staying at real/authentic homes.  Of course, before you book, make sure you thoroughly read reviews of the rooms and owners, as well as properly communicating with the host prior your stay.

How Travel Expenses Should be Dispersed

The good thing is you get to spend everything gradually.  Three months before the trip, I booked the one-way PAL ticket.  After my credit card cut off, I secured the ticket going back.  Less than two months before the travel, everything was booked — train, plane tickets and accommodation since these are all needed for the visa application.  Because we were all warned about prevalent theft, I’ve only brought S$ 1,000 for the trip and used credit card for other transactions.  Exchange rate disparity from credit card use is relatively smaller than the cost and risks of withdrawing money there.  All throughout the trip, I was keen on handling the cash on hand, i.e. sling bag carefully tucked in front of me yet that single moment I left my guard down as i brought all my luggages with me, my cash was stolen. Nevertheless, I was grateful for two things: of the small amount of cash left and for the travel insurance which covered such loss.

There is so much more to know about Euro travel that I may not have included.  Nevertheless, we all get to learn from each experience — from our own oversights to risks that we are bound to avoid.  The most significant thing when you travel is to get that ‘feel’ — the distinct, inexplicable pleasure of being at that moment, so profound it gives you an addiction to do it all over again 🙂