I completed the most fun goal I had this year; Hubs and I took a vacation to Europe in April and it was amazing! As our normal traveling style, we made a budget of $6000 and had to figure out how to stay within it. Yes, it sounds like a lot of money, but the dollar is week, still only worth about .6 Euros when we went, so it takes a little planning to eat and do and see everything you want to when going to a slew of world-class cities.
First thing, if you're planning an international trip get yourself a Capital One credit card. They are the only bank that doesn't charge the annoying 3% foreign transaction fee. Will your credit limit be sky high? No. Will the interest rate be competitive? No. This is just a card to use across the sea and pay the balance immediately when you get back to save yourself some $$$. And I would say to get a card if you are even thinking about taking an international trip. Before getting the Capital One card, we booked plane tickets through British Airways (flying out of LAX), got miles for American Airlines, and then were shocked to find a 3% foreign transaction fee. I contested the fee to no avail. So learn from my mistakes and always book your international flights on the Capital One card unless you have a rewards card and don't mind eating the 3%.
Second thing, research, research, research. I don't know how people travelled before the internet. I know they certainly didn't do it as affordably as they do now. There are so many amazing resources out there for travellers. Trip Advisor is one of my favorites and was used the most when planning this trip. Lonely Planet is good, too. Both have forums that probably answer any question you might have about where you're going.
We made a list of all the places we wanted to go in Paris. We knew we had 5 full days there, so we grouped the list of attractions by how close they were to each other, making a very basic daily itinerary. This has definitely helped us maximize our time on our vacations. We don't run around blindly from one place to the next. It's also a good reality check. If it's been a long day and I'm tired, and we haven't seen that last attracion yet, I know that if I don't go that day, it's probably not going to be seen and am I okay with that? Decisions, decisions. Don't pack in ten things to do each day. You'll never see anything. You're on vacation. Relax. Enjoy it. And realize that you can't teleport. Transportation takes time and that time needs to be figured in when estimating an itinerary.
And finally, really know your budget. We had our hotels booked before we went, so we knew what that cost would be. We tried our best to figure out our transportation costs and ended up with a 70 Euros/day budget. Not a lot of money for expensive places like Paris, Belgium, and Amsterdam. I honestly haven't scrutinized our spending. 70 Euros/day was what we aimed for. Some days we spent more, some less. I don't know how over/under budget we were, but I think we came in fairly close, probably going slightly over.
Food is perhaps the most important thing to us when we travel. We want to eat well for what we're paying. In order to do that, you must do the research. The most exciting part of the trip for me was eating in Paris, so I did most of the research. I learned that lunch is considerably cheaper than dinner. Our game plan became to make lunch the main meal of the day and eat a smaller dinner. Definitely a game plan I will follow when we return. I found some great sites for travellers looking for solid food at an honest price (Some of these articles are a few years old, but we found most of the restaurants are still in business):
The Guardian - Paris bistros on a budget. We went to two places on this list and they were both excellent.
Paris by Mouth - This is a great website for all things food in Paris. There's also a search engine to sort restaurants by price, location, rating, etc. Very handy.
John Talbott's Paris - This guy has a great blog with constructive criticism, lots of photos, and prices. Plus, his sidebar has oodles of other blogs dedicated to Parisian cuisine.
David Lebovitz - He used to be a pasty chef in San Fran and now lives in Paris and writes books. And after going to many of his sweet tooth recommendations, he can be trusted.
Paris Digest - This list was even a little too expensive for us, since the bar was set at 25 Euros per person.
We bought our maps a few weeks in advance and marked the locations of the restaurants on the map. That way, when we were hungry, we'd just look at the map, see where we were and which restaurant was in the vicinity. We also did this in Italy, and it always worked out so well.
So there's the lengthy introduction to our Paris-Belgium-Amsterdam trip. I'm going to be posting as much info as I can for all the wonderful places we visited in the coming posts.
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