Hi, I'm looking for advise for my trip to Switzerland, prague, vienna, and budapest expecially with Expenses!
I have a enquiry about expenses throughout European travel :
At the end of April I'm going to Milan, Zurich, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest all within a 1-2 week time span (kind of quick-I know). I'm travelling on the Eurail and other intercity trains so that whole expense is covered besides the metro passes I'll buy.
I'm awnting to know if anyone has had a similar type of trip like this before and if so, how much did you spend on average. I'm worried about exchanging money all the time because Switzerland, Prague and Budapest (and the EURO) are in different currencies.
Would roughly £30 be enough for each day just for food?
Are their any ATM's to avoid because of high fees?
How expensive is each city on average for 1.5-2 days of travel/eating, going out and light shopping?
Cheers xxx
Reply to this I recently did a backpacking tour around Europe and found that a budget will vary depending on the cities you visit, how long you stay, and how you intend to budget your expenses. Accommodation and meals are likely to be the largest expenses considering you’ve purchased a rail pass and even those costs will vary.
To directly answer your question, you could easily spend only £30 per day on meals but that may require having cold cereal in the morning or a hostel provided breakfast and limiting yourself to light lunches. I would recommend visiting this website which breaksdown the costs of traveling in Europe. http://www.backpackeurope.com/tips/costs/index.html#On the road.
As for ATMs, your bank may have an agreement with a local branch that cuts transaction fees. However, if you intend to use the chip and pin out and about you’ll likely incur multiple charges. I would recommend carrying a prepaid currency card, like those offered by Caxton FX, which is accepted wherever the Mastercard logo is present (whether at an ATM or in a store). As you will need currencies beyond the Euro, I would recommend their Global Traveller’s Card. While I’ve only used their Euro Card, most recently in Ireland this Easter weekend, friends of mine have used the global card and found it simple and easy to use!!!! You load the card in sterling and the conversion is done automatically whenever you use the card or withdraw money.
Reply to this THanks Shannon!! All of this was really helpful. I went to the backpackers website and that's a good spectrum they give you about the total expenses required. I'll probably allocate roughly 75-100 quid per city we go to and perhaps look into this Caxton card. It's sounding safer than carrying around money I will withdraw at every city..and there'll be no transaction/ conversion fee..win win. How do I get started with this card?? I think I wrote a similar thing about it I'll go to their website actually. Cheers! Great information here.
Reply to this In Prague if you wish to withdraw money, use only KB or Česká Spořitelna. All others charge more for foreign cards (or any cards belonging to other banks). Likewise in Budapest use Erste Bank (same company as ČS). Don't know much about western continental Europe I'm afraid
Chip and pin with credit cards usually does incur multiple charges, however if you use a visa debit card I'm pretty sure the only thing you encounter is a bad exchange rate (which you'll always get anyway)
Reply to this Oh and on 30 quid a day for food, you can eat like a king in Prague and Budapest. You could get 3 eat out meals for about 10-15. If you get food from supermarkets then under 10 is enough.
In western Europe it obviously depends on how you eat (what caliber of restaurants etc). You could survive for a lot cheaper, but definitely in France and Italy the authentic food experiences cost you. In past trips I've done to France where I did eat out, I survived on roughly 30-40 euros a day for everything besides accommodation.
Reply to this 
