Channeling Our Inner Hippies

Remember Frommer’s “Europe on $10 a Day?” Well, those days may be gone forever, but Europe on $100 a day is still possible.

We know because we did it. If you don’t count airfare, as Frommer didn’t in his 1970’s Europe on $10 a Day opus, we averaged $93.50 each (total of $187 for the two of us) per day for all of our ground expenses. Lodging. Food. Admissions. Day tours. Local transportation and transportation between cities (often using first class train travel). Rental car (in France) including fuel. Even incidental purchases like toothpaste and a replacement pair of flip-flops. Everything except souvenirs.

We spent 77 days in western Europe and did it averaging just a tad over $100 a day apiece including $3000 in last-minute airfare when Norwegian canceled our TransAtlantic repositioning cruise days before we were to leave. Last minute airfare is a killer, trust me.

We did this without ever eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or ever staying in a hostel or camping out. We simply hoisted our backpacks and stayed in apartments, homes, and rooms in private residences, cooking almost all our meals and making our own travel arrangements. When in doubt, we asked, “What would 1960’s Tom and Annette Do?”

During our trip we met some fabulous people, visited pinch-me-I’m-really-here iconic places and museums, and had the time of our lives.

Follow along with us as we experience the kindness of strangers, travel snafus, and the occasional blowup as we bus, train, boat, walk, and drive our way across Europe. (No, we didn’t take a single taxi.)

Our story is told in three volumes (shown below):