a VERY wide question about interrailing

aN.Droid

hey there, Thinking of interrailing for a month or two in the next year and am just wondering one thing.

How much will I need? I know that is a very wide question and the answer could be anywhere from the cost of an interrail ticket to infinity.

I guess what I am looking for is what other people out there have spent on a month interrailing? And also what that entailed?

Need to build a budget if I am to have the money to go!

Thorin

I travelled through Europe on my own for 3 months a few years ago. I didn't buy an Interrail pass, and I didn't plan my accommodation more than a day or two in advance. There's a few things I keep in mind when I travel now, and I hope they're useful to you. Pretty much everything I recommend here is something I paid the price for not doing myself

• Put aside as much money as you can. The old adage is "Bring twice as much money and half as many clothes as you think you'll need" and I stand by it. Money is the answer to any problem when travelling.

• Prices for accommodation and travel get steadily cheaper as you travel east, but bear in mind that the quality of services gets worse too. In Germany, a 4 hour train journey cost me €70, but in Romania the same distance cost €35 and took about 12 hours. A hostel in France will cost you twice as much as one in Turkey, but will be of a far higher quality. So it becomes more important to plan your trip more carefully in poorer countries, as the nicer places are a bit rarer.

• Money equals freedom when you travel. If all you want to do is get a train between cities and stay in decent hostels, you can probably do it for €50 a day. However, you'll need to keep a fairly close eye on your cash. Any locations that are off the beaten track or occasions so popular that they drive local prices up will need to be forsaken or traded for other things you want.

• I budgeted about €5k for 3 months, and ended up spending around €3.6k, but not at a steady rate. I came back with money to spare, but there were times I thought it could have gone the other way.

Some expenses like food and accommodation tick by regularly and predictably, but others appear suddenly and urgently. So for example, if you've budgeted €100 for your first day, and at the end of that month, you've only spent €70, do not blow that "extra" cash!

Sometimes, I didn't do much but visit museums and wander cities, and spent very little. Other times, surprise expenses that I never budgeted for had me spending hundreds a day. These included getting gouged by taxi drivers, getting a bag stolen, a couple of last minute flights and a "customs charge" at a border stop when the guards found a guy in the same carriage had pot on him and couldn't seem to decide if I was with him.

There were also a couple of times I got a hotel room at no notice; once when I found myself completely lost in a bad part of Berlin at 1am, and once when the hostel I booked looked like a sewer. At times like that, it's a huge relief to be able to wave down a taxi and head for a nice part of town without worrying whether finding a decent place to sleep will mean cutting your trip short.

• A very rough guideline would be to expect to spend 30-40% of your cash on accommodation, 10-20% on travel and 10% on food and drink (I didn't spend much time in pubs). The rest should remain untouched for when you need it. The proportions will vary a bit depending on where you are and how you like to travel (for instance, you can find great hostels very cheap almost everywhere, but I don't like to take chances with cheap food in some countries).

Hope this helps a little.

aN.Droid

Thorin wrote: »

I travelled through Europe on my own for 3 months a few years ago. I didn't buy an Interrail pass, and I didn't plan my accommodation more than a day or two in advance. There's a few things I keep in mind when I travel now, and I hope they're useful to you. Pretty much everything I recommend here is something I paid the price for not doing myself

• Put aside as much money as you can. The old adage is "Bring twice as much money and half as many clothes as you think you'll need" and I stand by it. Money is the answer to any problem when travelling.

• Prices for accommodation and travel get steadily cheaper as you travel east, but bear in mind that the quality of services gets worse too. In Germany, a 4 hour train journey cost me €70, but in Romania the same distance cost €35 and took about 12 hours. A hostel in France will cost you twice as much as one in Turkey, but will be of a far higher quality. So it becomes more important to plan your trip more carefully in poorer countries, as the nicer places are a bit rarer.

• Money equals freedom when you travel. If all you want to do is get a train between cities and stay in decent hostels, you can probably do it for €50 a day. However, you'll need to keep a fairly close eye on your cash. Any locations that are off the beaten track or occasions so popular that they drive local prices up will need to be forsaken or traded for other things you want.

• I budgeted about €5k for 3 months, and ended up spending around €3.6k, but not at a steady rate. I came back with money to spare, but there were times I thought it could have gone the other way.

Some expenses like food and accommodation tick by regularly and predictably, but others appear suddenly and urgently. So for example, if you've budgeted €100 for your first day, and at the end of that month, you've only spent €70, do not blow that "extra" cash!

Sometimes, I didn't do much but visit museums and wander cities, and spent very little. Other times, surprise expenses that I never budgeted for had me spending hundreds a day. These included getting gouged by taxi drivers, getting a bag stolen, a couple of last minute flights and a "customs charge" at a border stop when the guards found a guy in the same carriage had pot on him and couldn't seem to decide if I was with him.

There were also a couple of times I got a hotel room at no notice; once when I found myself completely lost in a bad part of Berlin at 1am, and once when the hostel I booked looked like a sewer. At times like that, it's a huge relief to be able to wave down a taxi and head for a nice part of town without worrying whether finding a decent place to sleep will mean cutting your trip short.

• A very rough guideline would be to expect to spend 30-40% of your cash on accommodation, 10-20% on travel and 10% on food and drink (I didn't spend much time in pubs). The rest should remain untouched for when you need it. The proportions will vary a bit depending on where you are and how you like to travel (for instance, you can find great hostels very cheap almost everywhere, but I don't like to take chances with cheap food in some countries).

Hope this helps a little.

Thank's allot for your very helpful post!

It seems you went on a very different holiday then the one I would liek though. While I would love to do sight seeing i would mostly be going for the local nightlife and craft beers so would probably spent a grand a month on just that. I assume the more east you go the cheaper the nightlife gets aswell?

What do people do for clothes, do they just bring a week or two worth of clothes and get them washed or do they buy new clothes? Do hostels have cleaning facilities for clothes? Sorry I have never been bag packing before and need all the info I can get!

Seems my budget of 4-5 grand a month was way over budget, but like you said, better to have more than enough than not enough.

many

Thorin wrote: »

I travelled through Europe on my own for 3 months a few years ago. I didn't buy an Interrail pass, and I didn't plan my accommodation more than a day or two in advance. There's a few things I keep in mind when I travel now, and I hope they're useful to you. Pretty much everything I recommend here is something I paid the price for not doing myself

• Put aside as much money as you can. The old adage is "Bring twice as much money and half as many clothes as you think you'll need" and I stand by it. Money is the answer to any problem when travelling.

• Prices for accommodation and travel get steadily cheaper as you travel east, but bear in mind that the quality of services gets worse too. In Germany, a 4 hour train journey cost me €70, but in Romania the same distance cost €35 and took about 12 hours. A hostel in France will cost you twice as much as one in Turkey, but will be of a far higher quality. So it becomes more important to plan your trip more carefully in poorer countries, as the nicer places are a bit rarer.

• Money equals freedom when you travel. If all you want to do is get a train between cities and stay in decent hostels, you can probably do it for €50 a day. However, you'll need to keep a fairly close eye on your cash. Any locations that are off the beaten track or occasions so popular that they drive local prices up will need to be forsaken or traded for other things you want.

• I budgeted about €5k for 3 months, and ended up spending around €3.6k, but not at a steady rate. I came back with money to spare, but there were times I thought it could have gone the other way.

Some expenses like food and accommodation tick by regularly and predictably, but others appear suddenly and urgently. So for example, if you've budgeted €100 for your first day, and at the end of that month, you've only spent €70, do not blow that "extra" cash!

Sometimes, I didn't do much but visit museums and wander cities, and spent very little. Other times, surprise expenses that I never budgeted for had me spending hundreds a day. These included getting gouged by taxi drivers, getting a bag stolen, a couple of last minute flights and a "customs charge" at a border stop when the guards found a guy in the same carriage had pot on him and couldn't seem to decide if I was with him.

There were also a couple of times I got a hotel room at no notice; once when I found myself completely lost in a bad part of Berlin at 1am, and once when the hostel I booked looked like a sewer. At times like that, it's a huge relief to be able to wave down a taxi and head for a nice part of town without worrying whether finding a decent place to sleep will mean cutting your trip short.

• A very rough guideline would be to expect to spend 30-40% of your cash on accommodation, 10-20% on travel and 10% on food and drink (I didn't spend much time in pubs). The rest should remain untouched for when you need it. The proportions will vary a bit depending on where you are and how you like to travel (for instance, you can find great hostels very cheap almost everywhere, but I don't like to take chances with cheap food in some countries).

Hope this helps a little.

Wow, that's really helpful, this is a great thread, I was gonna post one myself til I saw this. I'm thinking of doing what you did but with only 1000 euro budget I thought I had only enough do go for a week, even though I'd love to have gone for a month. If you had bought the interrail ticket would your transport expenses been lower?