A Guest Post by Megan Howes
Hey everyone! My name is Megan and you may know me as LivvPreppy’s unofficial photographer
behind the scenes for many of her collaboration posts! Liv is my Alpha Phi sorority twin, one of my best friends, and we are both currently seniors at UMaine.
I am currently finishing up my double majors in Marketing and Management, my minor in Graphic Design, and my concentration in Entrepreneurship for graduation in May (but really.... where did the past 4 years go?). On top of school, I have a photography business, Meg Lynn Photography! I love working with people and making them feel beautiful through photos that they’ll cherish forever.
Some of my most favorite things in life include fruit (especially dipped in chocolate), comfy pajamas, when the weather is perfectly sunny and 75, and TRAVELING. If you love the feeling of reaching the top of a mountain after a tough climb just to see amazing views, this post is for you. If you crave adventure every free moment you get, this post is for you. If you leave parts of your heart everywhere you go and call home wherever you are in that moment, this post is for you.
Last Spring (2018), I spent a semester in Madrid, Spain at the Universidad Carlos 111 de Madrid- Business School. I got super lucky with scheduling and only had classes Monday and Wednesday, so I spent most (long) weekends traveling to many amazing places throughout Europe (as well as Morocco, Africa). I had saved up for my semester abroad ahead of time, but I still wanted to travel as money-conscious as possible. I had such a long bucket list of places I really wanted to see while I was there!
Below are my favorite 5 cities I visited in Europe as well as some pro tips on how to keep track of finances while traveling!
1. Madrid, Spain
Okay… so I am probably a little biased because this was my home away from home in Europe, but Madrid really has it all! Retiro Park, Mimi’s Creperia, the Royal Palace, and Sol/ Plaza Mayor are some must visit places. I stayed about a 30 minute train ride south of the city with a homestay family during my 5 months there. This ended up being a smart financial choice in comparison to some of my friends who stayed in the city. You may need to make some compromises with convenience/distance when it comes to saving money. I found my homestay family on homestay.com and Facetimed/texted the family for a few weeks before I booked the place to make sure it was a good fit. The airport is about 20 minutes north of the city, but my school was a little south of the city (closer to my homestay).
Pro tip: Get a city metro card if staying for more than 4 days for cheaper transportation costs! You can get temporary cards at many main metro stations and specify the number of days you’re visiting.
2. Paris, France
Paris was the first weekend trip I went on! I went with another girl from the U.S. who I met during our school orientation. We clicked right off the bat and ended up traveling together most of the semester! We booked the flight to Paris about 5 days before the long weekend trip for only about $45 round trip. We found a hostel in the city for about $16/night per person. As far as meals went, we agreed on general prices regarding how much we were okay with spending before going to restaurants. I think that this is something really important to talk about with your travel companions. Being on the same page with that will help avoid awkward conflict later when one person is willing to spend $50 on a meal but the other only wants to spend $10.
Pro Tip: Hostels can save you BIG bucks. Hostelworld.com is what we used to book our hostels. We always searched by price first, then by location! Must see places in Paris (besides the Eiffel Tower of course) include the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and Notre-Dame.
3. Rome, Italy
It can be difficult to conserve money in some cities, but there are lots of free things to do like parks and museums! Make sure to flash your ESN (Erasmus Student Network) card or student ID for extra deals. These cards are good for 1 year and offer many discounts including restaurants, plane tickets, and other attractions in various European cities. As far as transportation costs, I usually walked to most places in the cities that I visited (it’s a win- win to get some exercise walking off the breakfast pastries while you work up an appetite for an afternoon filled with crepes and gelato!). The occasional bus, train, or subway tickets were definitely purchased on bad weather days or when I wanted to go further distances. The Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and Vatican City are amazing in pictures, but even more amazing in person! I liked to visit at sunrise for beautiful photos with way less people in them! I visited 5 cities in Italy on a Smart Insiders tour, but we had lots of free time in each place. They provided accommodations and transportation. It was super cheap for everything that was included!
Pro Tip: Map out the places you want to go ahead of time so that you can take public transportation to the furthest place then walk back to your start location and see the other places on the way. Sticking to a plan and studying the map of the area before you visit a city will save you lots of time when you get there!
4. Amsterdam, Netherlands
We had planned for 3 whole days in Brussels, Belgium but after the first day we realized we would have enough free time to do a little excursion! We spontaneously hopped on flixbus.com and bought bus tickets to Amsterdam for only $14.99 round trip for the second day. It was only about a 2.5 hour bus ride each way- not bad!
Pro tip: Go to a tourist map & info store to buy discounted tickets for attractions in the city. We got great discounts on the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum as well as tickets for a boat tour around the famous canals. Some must sees in Amsterdam are the Anne Frank House (get tickets ahead of time online and reserve your time slot), the Red Light District, Van Gogh Museum, and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
5. Budapest, Hungary
Budapest was a last minute trip that I planned with two other girls about 10 days before it was time to go. We used the app Splitwise during our whole trip to figure out who owed who how much and it made things so easy! Lots of places in Europe won’t split the bills for you at restaurants and such, so this was a great way to keep tabs on money. We also booked our flights through Ryanair.com and used our ESN cards for discounted plane tickets. We walked all around the city, but ended up wanting to see attractions that were pretty spread out, so we opted for a hop on/hop off bus for $5 per day that took us all over the city. My favorite things to see in Budapest were the Buda Castle (which we saw via Segway tour), Hungarian Parliament Building, Shoes on the Danube Bank, and the Szechenyi Thermal Bath. We found a store that sold combinations of things to do so we did a pick 3 option including tour boat tickets for a 2 hour ride with 2 complimentary drinks, a 2 hour segway tour, and a thermal bath entry for only $40 total!
Pro tip: Use credit cards instead of cash. Hungary uses the Hungarian Forint, which right now is about 279 forint = $1 USD, or 318 forint = 1 euro. Most places will accept the Euro but you’ll get Forint in change.
Xoxo, Megan