I am not conviced that visiting switzerland is a smart move if you are worried about your budget.
Fair
Hi all,
Any inputs to how to do a shoestring roadtrip, both budget wise and how it panned out in practice e.g. or how your day looked it as we are open to suggestions.
The details:
Me and wife was contemplating a 3w cross Europe roadtrip in car, including 2 girls (tweens).
We had a thousand things planned to see and would rely on hostels/B&b etc for sleeping, but open for tent, but clean toilets and baths would be something we wouldnt like to cut out.
Food can be simple meals which requires no cooking or could be made on our camping stoves (gasgrill, trangia and gasburner) to cover most meal.
We havent really set our plane in stone, but the general gist that we would divide driving into even bits and loop from route roughly following Copenhagen to Berlin, Prague, Salzburg, Venice, Milano, and then return through Bern, Basel and some cities yet to be decided on the return loop but we expect hem to cover France, Belgium and Netherlands with a few nights each stop.
Note we dont intend to necessarily visit all of these cities it was just to give an idea of the route as these cities are close to what we want to see if relevant.
I am not conviced that visiting switzerland is a smart move if you are worried about your budget.
Fair
If you want a euro road trip on a budget, do a *road trip*, not a city trip between places well served by public transportation and with horrendous parking. Stay off the highways and check out smaller places instead.
We are not visiting the cities, or atleast not all of them, it was more to describe the intended road if it mattered or could be relevant.
When are you guys planning on doing this trip? Everywhere in Europe it’s high season, meaning prices of accommodation are at its highest and it can be pretty difficult to find affordable places to sleep at the last-minute. However, if you’re leaving anytime this summer I would recommend bringing two tents and all the gear you need. It’s the cheapest way to stay somewhere overnight. Whether the bath rooms are clean or not depends on the camping of course, but my experience in general is that they are clean in most countries like Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain. Lastly, I don’t really know what you guys want to do/see, so maybe this advice doesn’t make any sense. But if you’re on a budget, visiting places like Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands isn’t the greatest idea. I’m from the last country and I think everything is crazy expensive.
Ah and I feel like you’ve made up your mind on the route already. But traveling on a budget is way cheaper if you travel through central and Eastern Europe, so countries like Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, etc.
First thanks for the input first and foremost. Trip is planned for next year, high season- we are just considering how to do it quite early as i could see we much of the budget would be eaten up by accommodation if we dont do anything about it. As for toilets it was more a concern with a pure camping spot might only have a potterpotty/hole in the ground which my girls would riot about. Many if the things we want to see comes with a entrance fee, but it is easier to calculate the cost as ticketprice usually are quite fixed
Buy a one month train pass and sleep on trains while traveling between cities.
We are quite set on the car as what we want to see is not the cities but landmarks etc so we need the mobility, but thank you nevertheless
moving so often is expensive. Gas + tolls + vignettes where applicable + parking, etc. The cities in your itinerary are not budget friendly Europe. In some EU countries is very often to have a camper van, maybe you can look to rent one of those? That would make your life easier.
The transportation cost we just have as a fixed cost as we cannot really reduce it except by changing route. We dont intent to actually go to these cities, it was more to draw the route, a picture of a map would in hindsight have been better
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With 4 people and a small budget, camping is a must. With hostels you pay per bed. At a price tag of 25-30 Euros per night for a hostel bed, you can easily spend 100-120 per night. With hostels there is also the concern of being with strangers in the same mixed dorm when you got underage children. Most hostels will make you pay for a private room if you are travelling with children. Under these conditions, hostels loose their charm. Clean toilets and showers is not something you have to compromise on when you go camping. The amenities of some camping sites genuinely resemble what you can find at luxury resorts, especially when it comes to pools, water slides, indoor spa, delivery of freshly baked buns for breakfast, etc. The main problem that I see with your plan is that 3 weeks are not nearly enough time for the initerary you planned. It is very ambitious, especially if you are travelling with sedan and tent. Pitching and packing up a tent and camping gear takes time and energy. This is not something you want to do every day. To make your plan work, you'd need to rent a campervan and be on the road almost everyday, leaving you very little time to actually see things. Renting a campervan is relatively expensive compared to renting a car and travelling with a tent. The price of petrol for covering such long distances in a gas guzzling Campervan should also not be underestimated. If I would be doing this, I would be picking 3 camping sites and stay at each camping site for about a week. While it is not budget friendly, with children that age I would prioritise EuroDisney near Paris. There are several camping sites near the park to the east of Paris. Aside from EuroDisney, there are other parks you could visit. La Mer de Sable and Le Royaume des Enfants are just two examples. Many of the camping sites near Paris are near lakes and or have pools. Another prime spot for camping is the Lido near Venice. There are several camping sites within an hour of Venice. The site "Marina di Venezia" is probably the best known camping site and one of the luxury camping sites I mentioned above. If you want to give your children the ultimate resort experience without paying resort prices, that is the spot to be. Note that in addition to spots to pitch a tent, some camping sites also offer alternative ways to sleep. Common in around Paris and in Italy are litte cabins that are fully stocked. You could roll up with your car and would not need anything except your own towels.
Thank you for the comprehensive reply - you make a very valid point about hostel which drives us towards tent. And I think camping huts are an excellent idea, my experience is they can only be booked for min. a week in high season not a few days - but that is something that can be checked. The itinerary is ambitious, but it is not locked in yet, so if we were to switch to tent we would have to reconsider some things so I understand appreciate that you take the effort to share your thoughts on the matter, but the plan is roadtrip so we would not change it for extended stays at camping grounds even if that could also be a nice vacation.
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Eastern Europe is cheaper than the rest. Portugal and Spain out of big cities and also Greece can be better for your budget.
I’d suggest back packing using public transport and maybe hostels (book an entire room). Salzburg has free travel internally for visitors but you need your accommodation to register you for a free pass before you go. Spend a bit of time planning your route. Accommodation in some places can be surprisingly affordable and eating one meal a day out and the rest cooking yourself/buying items in a store or at a food market is really easy to do. If you book hostels you will have cooking facilities. I’d suggest other towns in Italy other than Milan, Switzerland and Venice are expensive - maybe swap them out if budget is an issue and don’t skip on the baltics and Romania & Poland, Latvia etc which are all stunning and very affordable.
I don't think switzerland is destination for budget travel..the prices are sky high.
Fair, but the aim isnt to get the most budget Europe travel, but the cheapest way to travel this route which also covers switzerland
The route is the part I'd rework. Venice and Milan are genuinely miserable with a car - most Italian city centres are ZTL zones (camera enforced, the fine shows up in your mailbox months later) and parking near Venice costs serious money per day. The usual move is to sleep in Mestre and take the 10 minute train across, or honestly skip Milan, it's the least rewarding stop on your list for kids anyway. Also budget the roads themselves: Austria, Switzerland and Czechia all need vignettes for motorways, and the Swiss one is annual-only (about 40 francs even if you just transit once), plus French and Italian motorways are tolled. Germany is free. If Switzerland is only there as a corridor, routing home through Germany instead saves real money, which lines up with what others said about it being a rough fit for a budget trip. On the clean bathroom worry: European family campsites are honestly the answer. Sanitary blocks at campgrounds in Germany, Austria and Italy are usually cleaner than budget hostels, you pay for a pitch instead of per person, and a lot of sites rent basic cabins or mobile homes if a rainy tent night fails. With 4 people that's roughly the difference between 35ish a night and 100+. And with tweens I'd halve the number of stops. Three weeks sounds long, but your list is 10+ bases, which is pack-up-every-other-day territory and everyone ends up hating the car. Pick 5 or 6 bases, stay 3-4 nights each, and day trip from there.