Two Weeks in Europe: The Numbers

Today’s post is the final post of my series about my two week trip to Europe. Part One was a gen­er­al overview, Part Two was shar­ing the lessons I learned on the trip, and Part Three is all­l­l­ll about the num­bers. We dive in deep to every dol­lar (and Ster­ling Pound and Euro) I spent for two weeks. For ease of track­ing, every­thing has been con­vert­ed into US Dol­lars. Let’s go!

Flights:

Roundtrip from Chica­go to Lon­don: $467
Flight from Lon­don to Ams­ter­dam: $70
Flight from Ams­ter­dam to Lon­don: $243
Rebook­ing fee for miss­ing my flight to Atlanta: $301

Accom­mo­da­tions:

10 nights near Lon­don with my sis­ter: $134 (10 pounds a night)
2 nights in the Ams­ter­dam Crowne Cen­tre: $589

Food:

Way too much to sep­a­rate into line items. This includes mon­ey giv­en for Cost­co runs, meals out in Lon­don and some food to bring back with me.
Total: $295

Sight­see­ing:

Hop On, Hop Off Lon­don: $99
Punt­ing in Cam­bridge: $46
Cash spent: $30

Pub­lic Transportation:

Lon­don Trans­port: $55
Tick­ets to/from Ams­ter­dam City Cen­tre: $12
Bus tick­et to/from Chica­go: $70

Mis­cel­la­neous:

Hood­ie in Cam­bridge: $32
Out­let con­vert­ers for Europe: $32

TOTAL: $2,475

Not bad for 14 days in Europe! That equals out to $175/day! (rough­ly).

I real­ly wish I had­n’t had been forced to fork over $300 on a stu­pid rebook­ing fee to Vir­gin for miss­ing my flight in Lon­don. Con­sid­er­ing it was basi­cal­ly a mir­a­cle I only got charged a book­ing fee and did­n’t have to buy a whole nother last-minute one way tick­et home from Lon­don, I think I got off pret­ty easy. Oth­er than that, I’m thrilled with the amount of mon­ey I did spend. I did­n’t go over there with a hard lim­it that I could spend, instead trust­ing myself to be judi­cious with my spending.

No sur­prise that flights and accom­mo­da­tions made up almost 3/4ths of my total spend­ing. How­ev­er! I got a scream­ing deal on my round trip flight to Lon­don from Chica­go at only $467. I also only spent $134 on 10 nights in Lon­don (ok fine in a sub­urb out­side Lon­don), which is pret­ty much amaz­ing. I think the only way I could come close to that is if I had found a seedy hos­tel. Then I would’ve been sur­round­ed by strangers with no kitchen instead of hav­ing a great flat with a kitchen and my sister.

Hav­ing that kitchen real­ly helped us keep the cost of food down. We could buy bulk from Cost­co and make our own cheap, deli­cious, gourmet meals at home. That meant not only did we eat bet­ter than I nor­mal­ly would on vaca­tion (ok, I ate bet­ter with them than I nor­mal­ly do on my own as well), but we could pack lunch­es and snacks with us to take on our excur­sions. The pic­nic we packed for lunch in Cam­bridge was eat­en in a gor­geous park called Christ’s Pieces and did­n’t cost us any­thing extra. #fru­gal­win

The touristy trans­port stuff we did was great. I would high­ly rec­om­mend them to any­one. The Hop On, Hop Off tour in Lon­don not only includ­ed get­ting dri­ven around Lon­don in an icon­ic dou­ble-deck­er red bus; we also got to take a guid­ed boat ride down the Thames. The guide was hilar­i­ous and was able to share a lot of knowl­edge about the land­marks we float­ed by. That was also the intent of punt­ing around Cam­bridge, but the guy we got did­n’t seem to be able to remem­ber a whole lot of infor­ma­tion as we went on the tour.

One final thing I need to men­tion. Being a mem­ber of reward pro­grams real­ly pays off. My spend­ing could’ve eas­i­ly been sev­er­al hun­dred dol­lars high­er if it weren’t for the fact I’m an IHG mem­ber and a Pres­tige Pass card hold­er. Since I have a Pres­tige Pass through my Chase Sap­phire Reserve, I could pop into any lounge and get free snacks, drinks, wi-fi, and nice bath­rooms. I used the lounges in Ams­ter­dam, Atlanta, Chica­go and Lon­don. I was for­tu­nate to have flights in the right ter­mi­nals to be able to use them (unlike in Las Vegas, when I was­n’t in the inter­na­tion­al ter­mi­nal. Boo). I booked the hotel in Ams­ter­dam through the IHG pro­gram and end­ed up get­ting a Club Lev­el room. I was treat­ed like an all-star. Free choco­lates upon check-in, club access (free snacks, drinks, and a con­ti­nen­tal break­fast), two free drink tick­ets to the bar, and free cham­pagne sent up to my room in hon­or of my birth­day. In the future, I will be bet­ter pre­pared and will pay for fan­cy hotels with points and free night vouch­ers instead of cash. Much cheap­er that way!
Thanks for read­ing! How much do you spend on vaca­tions? What’s been the best trip you’ve taken?