One of the most expensive things you run into when traveling is the actually travel costs. Flights, Trains, Buses it all adds up in the end. During my travels I tried to be as cheap as possible so I could continue traveling to other places. Along the way I realized a few things on how to save money here and there. So below are my top tips for saving money while traveling within Europe.
Traveling by Bus
Consider traveling by bus. MegaBus and EuroLines operate in most of the UK and Europe. If these two companies are not in the area you are in check for local bus companies. While in Poland I rode on Polski Bus, and on Orange Ways to get to Vienna.
Buses do take more time than trains but you can take overnight buses and sleep though most of the trip. This will also save you on a hotel/hostel for that night. But just how much can you save? Here are a few trips I took via bus.
- London to Edinburgh -> 12 GBP or $19.00 USD
- Paris to London -> 18 GBP or $28.00 USD
- Warsaw to Krakow -> 7.00 Euro or $9.50 USD
- Krakow to Budapest -> 6100 HUF or $27.00 USD
As you can see there is some considerable cost savings if you are willing to take a bus. The Paris to London is a overnight and crosses the English Channel by ferry. It not only saved me a ton of cash but it was also a really trip. Bus travel is clean and cheap around Europe. You will find that most buses have tv’s and even free wifi onboard. These are not cheap dirty buses at all! So consider the bus for your next trip.
Traveling by Train
Before I left I had copies of Rick Steves train price maps all laid out. I knew it was going to cost me hundreds of dollars each train I took before I even left. Should I have bought a rail pass? Pfft. Hell no!
What I learned is that Rick Steves was full of crap. These travel people put the fear of god into you about how much train tickets are going to cost. But I never paid anything near what they said it would cost and here is why.
I didn’t buy tickets same day at the train station. Seriously its that simple. The crazy prices you see and hear about are in fact real ticket prices but only if you buy your ticket at the station the day it leaves. Who does that?! If you are on a budget you need to save as much cash as you can and in this case that means planning ahead.
Just like flights and the buses mentioned above train tickets are cheaper if you buy them in advance. All of the train company websites have discounted seats on every train. These seats are usually 50% of the normal ticket price and are open until they sell out. Below is three photos from Bahn.de the German train company. The first price is for today (Aug 23rd) the second photo is for Aug 27th next Tuesday. The final photo is for Sept 18th a bit less than a month away.
Notice something? Yeah the tickets are getting cheaper! I mean a lot cheaper! September 18th has a 39.00 Euro ticket! That is a savings of 84 Euros or $112.00 USD. Holy crap right?
It’s not just Germany and Bahn.de that does this. Trenitalia in Italy does the same thing. In fact most of the train companies will have these super cheap tickets if you just plan ahead. You don’t need to plan a whole month ahead either. You saw in my example images above just 4 days ahead and the ticket was 50% off.
Want to save even more? Try checking the different train times on the day you want to travel. If you are willing to travel during the off hours there will be discounts. I took a train from Munich to Rome and it only cost me 89 Euros or $120.00 USD because I booked in advance and picked off hours.
I did this for every train I took while in Europe and it cost me way less than if I had bought a Rail Pass. Rail Passes limit you to travel days and are only valid for limited periods of time. Why bother with all of that when if you just plan at least a week ahead tickets are cheaper and easy to get.
Below is another example from Trenitalia showing the price difference for tickets between Rome and Florence for Sept 18th. You will see the “Super Economy” tickets are crazy cheap. But these tickets sell out FAST so you need to plan ahead to get them. The next tier is “Economy” which is still great over the normal price, these tickets are also limited but there are more than the “Super Economy”.
You can see that with just a little bit of planning you can easily travel around Europe quite cheaply compared to what you were told. If you have very little luggage you could also check out the discount airlines like EasyJet.com and RyanAir.com. But beware of these airlines! They make up for the cheap ticket prices with lots of fees and fines. They will get their money from you in the end. I found it much nicer and easier to just travel by bus and train.
Leave a comment below if you have any other tips for traveling around Europe.
