- Total budgeted: $29,400
- Total actual spend: $30,698.97
- Average daily budget: $350
- Average actual daily spend: $365.46
We ended our 3 months in Western Europe over our total budget by $1,298.97. The most expensive week was Week 16 when we rented a car and drove around Ireland (and splurged on a fancy hotel for our anniversary), followed by the week we returned to Virginia in Week 24 because plane tickets during the holiday season are incredibly expensive.
Once again, food was our most expensive budget item for Part 2. When we stayed in AirBnbs, we would buy groceries and have breakfast at home most days and cook some dinners at home.
Food Spending
- Dining out – $9,332.70
- Groceries/Snacks – $1,105.83
- Bars – $1017.21
- Coffee/Tea – $335.64
Our second highest budget item was lodging. While we enjoyed staying in AirBnbs, unless we were going to be in a particular location for more than a couple of days, it was more cost-effective to stay in a hotel. During this portion of the trip our lodging was broken down into: AirBnbs (Invergordon, London, Florence, Rome, Madrid, and Lisbon), 2 hostels (Copenhagen and Berlin), and 21 hotels.
Lodging
- AirBnbs – $4,888.29
- Hostels – $1,280.39
- Hotels – $4,334.08
Our third highest budget item was for flights. In Western Europe, we took 6 flights that cost a total of $2,758.13 (we used airline reward points whenever possible):
- Washington-Dulles –> Copenhagen
- NewCastle –> Dublin
- Paris –> Florence
- Naples –> Barcelona
- Madrid –> Lisbon
- Lisbon –> Washington-Dulles
The fourth highest category was on Admission. We spent a total of $1,672.53 on admission for tickets to all kinds of museums, concerts, UNESCO World Heritage sites, some cathedrals, and tours.
On my last “Show Me the Money” post there was a request for a summary of average prices for meals per city we stayed in. Dinner is almost always the most varied and interesting of our meals, so that’s the category I used to gather the averages. All average dinner prices are for two people and often include 1-2 alcoholic drinks per person. Lisbon is not a good example because the average also includes the Fado performance we attended that included dinner.
Average cost of dinners for two by city
- Copenhagen – $83.12
- Berlin – $86.84
- Munich – $57.46
- Amsterdam – $90.18
- Invergorden (Inverness) – $75.05
- NewCastle – $43.66
- Trim – $83.01
- Derry – $93.44
- Salt Hill (Galway) – $93.61
- Dingle – $103.93
- Dublin – $94.45
- Conwy – $96.02
- London – $47.08
- Paris – $100.23
- Bayeaux (Normandy) – $114.76
- Florence – $91.82
- Venice – $96.07
- Verona – $102.26
- Pisa – $87.14
- La Spezia (Cinque Terra) – $69.65
- Sienna – $110.41
- Rome – $116.13
- Naples – $76.12
- Barcelona – $72.59
- Madrid – $59.46
- Lisbon – $231.59*
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