Europe on $5 a day
I have always loved my mum’s stories of her travels around Europe with her girlfriends in the early 70s. She was 24 years old when she set off in 1969 with her copy of one of the world’s first travel guides: Europe on $5 a Day.
Mum’s copy of Europe on $5 a Day, which, sitting on the family bookcase, has inspired my love of travel.
A precursor to more modern travel guides like Lonely Planet (and now thousands upon thousands of freely accessible travel websites, apps and blogs), Arthur Frommer’s iconic travel guides were the most commonly used guidebooks by budget conscious travellers for decades.
Now, nearly 50 years after my mum’s European adventures I am here travelling with my husband Rowan, sticking to an equally tight budget.
US$5 in 1969 is the equivalent of about NZ$50 or €33 today. The ‘$5 a day’ budget is designed to cover accommodation and food, and doesn’t include any transport or activities.
Rowan and I initially set ourselves a target budget of NZ$50 each a day, or NZ$3,000 per month. We had planned for our budget to include absolutely all our spending.
As you can see from the breakdown below we’re doing well meeting the budget for food and accommodation (mainly thanks to the generosity of family and friends letting us stay), but transport, activities and other expenses are doubling our expenditure.
1969 – Europe on $5 a Day’s daily budget breakdown:
- Accommodation – $2.50 (NZ$25)
- Food – $2.50 (NZ$25)
2017 – Our budget breakdown (average daily spend spend to date):
- Accommodation – NZ$16
- Food – NZ$25
- Transport – NZ$22
- Activities – NZ$5
- Bank fees – NZ$2
- Miscellaneous – NZ$8
While we’re currently spending about $80 each per day, My goal is to bring this down to $60 each for the next few months.
Buying bikes and panniers was a big expense for April, but should help us bring transport costs down next month. And we’ll get some money back when we sell them.
Iceland: home of the $25 cheeseburger combo; but worth breaking the budget for.
Climbing mountains in the UK: a budget conscious travel activity (except for the car rental to get here…)
