From Travel To Photo
From the previous chapters, we learned when is the best time to visit Europe, for how long we should travel Europe, How to fix budget for Europe travel, and how to plan your transportation to and in Europe. In this chapter, we will share on tips and guides to plan for your accommodations while traveling Europe. As a rule of thumb, accommodation cost constitutes up to 20 to 30% of your total trip budget to Europe. However, with careful and well planning, we could still save some money out of it, or at least won’t spend unnecessarily. There are many ways to realize this, if only holidaymakers understand the logic behind it.
First, we have to understand various types of accommodations available for short term travelers in Europe.
- B&B – Good news to budget minded travelers as Bed & Breakfast hostels are very popular and widely available in Europe. They provide basic dorm accommodation with sharing bathroom and bedroom, and basic breakfast every morning. Price starts from €9 per person, B&B in Europe are generally comfortable to spend a few nights in, and able to mix around with other travelers and backpackers especially if you are a solo traveler;
- Hostels or guest houses – A step higher than B&B, budget hostels provide private albeit small rooms to budget travelers who concern privacy and security. Guest rooms are lockable, with or without ensuite bathroom. Breakfast are sometimes provided complementary. They are best suited for young couples with limited budget but need more privacy. Price starts from €20 per person ;
- Budget hotels – Budget hotels are plentiful in Europe and their cost can range from €40 per person to €100 person. Basic room amenities and ensuite bathroom are provided. Breakfast are sometimes included as well. Common facilities are still very limited. Best suited for flashpackers with some extra quids to spare, in exchange for comfort and security;
- Apartments – This is a great accommodation option for travelers vacationing in a small group. It normally consists of 1 to 3 bedrooms for privacy, a living room for social activities and a kitchen for self cooking. Condition of apartments in Europe are generally great with clean and comfy environment. If you are traveling in a group of 4 or 6, renting an apartment could be as cheap as staying in a hostel but you will get privacy, security, cooking facilities as well as comfort all combined;
- Campsites – For budget travelers with limited budget and don’t mind to stay a bit further from town centre, campsite is an economical option. Some are still reasonably near the tourist centre, such as the one that I stayed in Florence. If you are traveling in a large group of 10 persons or more, this could be a fun place to stay in for partying and team building. However, making loud noise at night within campsites in Europe are mostly prohibited. The downside of it is you have to fight for cold during Winter and mosquitoes during Summer.
After confirming your flight to Europe, and drafting out your preliminary travel itinerary in Europe, you can now start searching for your accommodations in each destination. According to your previously set budget and choice of accommodation types, log on to those many online hotel booking agents such as Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, and start shortlisting those available options for each date and each destination. For best result, I like to use Hotelscombined.com, as they search through all major online booking agents for the place and date you selected, and you can quickly get the best price among all major booking websites with only one single search!
Before shortlisting your choice of accommodation, make sure to take these following factors into consideration:
- Locations of your hotels and proximity to tourist spots;
- Point of arrival and station of departure;
- Cost and convenience of local public transport;
- Cost of accommodation against comfort and privacy;
- Number of travelers in your group;
- Availabilities of internet service or WiFi;
- Availabilities of cooking and laundry facilities;
- Provision of free breakfast and availability of cafe or bar;
- Availability of restaurants and convenient stores nearby, and
- Review and rating of respective accommodation from other travelers.
By now you should have a list of preferred hotels, B&B or campsites in your mind. BUT don’t book it first. Prices of any accommodations at any location are further influenced by the following factors:
- Popularity of the said hostel;
- Availability of empty rooms or beds;
- Proximity from actual check in date;
- Special Promotions, and
- Peak or low seasons.
Generally, cost of accommodations is higher if they are popular, limited availability, close to staying date, no promotion and during peak season. Having said that, unlike trains or flight tickets, rooms or beds can suddenly become cheaper at last minute if, they are less popular and plenty of rooms left and those hotels operators decided to promote them with extreme low prices, even though during peak season. So, you have to do some analysis and decide when you should go ahead and book the rooms.
Extra Tips: Just before you decided to book for any hotels, do some Google search and check on their individual official websites. Sometimes, they do have special promotions for early birds or groups which could be even cheaper than the cheapest offer from booking websites.
What if we could not decide where to stay? European travel destinations have more accommodations supply than what you could imagine. So searching, picking and booking your accommodation only when you reach there are always possible albeit in the expense of wasting your precious times of your travel.
Extra Tips: Another benefit of booking hotels in advance is when you are asked to show or indicate your place of stay during your Europe tour by the immigration officer at the port of entry into Europe.
At the end of this chapter, you should have confirmed your accommodation options and refined further your Europe travel budget, as indicated in the above sample chart. In the next chapters, we will discuss on the planning of essential places to visit and popular things to do, which will further affect our travel budget plan. Stay keeping an eye on the development of this e-guide or subscribe for future updates via email. 
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate guide to Europe travel
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From previous chapters, we learned when is the best time to visit Europe, for how long we should travel Europe and How to fix budget for Europe travel. In this chapter, we will discuss on ways to plan and book your transportation to and within Europe. As we all know by now, transportation constitutes up to 50 to 60% of your total trip budget to Europe. However, careful and well planning could still save you substantial amount of money on transportation. There are many ways to realize this, if only holidaymakers understand the logic behind it.
Transportation for Europe trip involves 2 main types, international and domestic. International transportation involves either flight or cruise to bring travelers to the European continent, while domestic transportation are all types of transportation means include trains, flights, coach, ferry etc., to connect travelers from one attraction to another, one city to another or one EU country to another. After finding the right time for you to visit Europe and having your budget fixed, you can now start to look for good deals. If you can’t find what you think is the best deal, just wait until one arrive.
1) International Transportation
Let’s discuss on ways to look for good deals on transportation to and from Europe, which is the first and most important part of your Europe travel. We take the most common mean, the flight. Here are a few steps to find the cheapest air fare to Europe:
- Check out Skyscanner – Skyscanner is an air fare searching engine that will search the most of the major airlines in the world for all direct and non-direct flights to your destination on any given date. You can have a rough idea on how those popular airlines are charging you for a flight to Europe.
- Get a rough idea on the most competitive air fares to Europe on your desired departure date, as Skyscanner sometimes may not show you some of the special deals from certain airlines.
- From the list of result, click on the cheaper few airlines to redirect to their respective official websites.
- Look out for any special deals on each airline’s website, such as early bird offer and any other promotion.
- Normally, other than the departure date you selected, most airlines are also showing the rate for a few days ahead or behind. From there you can know if there are cheaper flights on other days.
- Normally, they will highlight which is the cheapest available flight for that flight route.
- Spend some times comparing each one of them, and you will know which airline offers the cheapest air fare on that particular date.
- You may need to adjust your departure date, if flexibility is allowed.
- At the end of it, you have got the cheapest deal on your date of travel. However, if you think it could be cheaper, just subscribe to those airlines mailing list to receive emails on future promotion, if any.
- Please note that, normally, airlines open their flights booking as early as 12 months ahead, and are expectedly cheaper. Book as early as possible seeing that airlines are hiking their fares recently due to the increasing jet fuel cost.
If you are happy with the air fare you just found, go ahead and book it! Then you can proceed with domestic transportation.
2) Domestic Transportation
Booking of domestic transportation will tie back to your preliminary itinerary that you should have drafted by now. Domestic transportation that will connect you from one point to another within Europe could also be booked well before you arrive at Europe. Thanks to the internet era, all searches and bookings could easily be done online.
a) Travel Europe by trains
Let’s talk about the most common way to travel around Europe, rail transportation. Traveling around Europe by trains is the most convenient way which connect city centre to city centre, unlike flights where airport is distance away. You can also enjoy the breathtaking countrysides of Europe along your journey. Travelers can either buy single tickets or Rail Pass if you are uncertain on your itinerary and have months to spend in Europe. For budget and time conscious travelers, here are a few steps to find the cheapest single train ticket within Europe:
- Check out Rail Europe. Rail Europe is an online train booking website for most of the trains networks available in Europe.
- Get a rough idea on train tickets available, the cheapest price and time to your desired destination. Same as Skyscanner for flights, Rail Europe may not show you some of the special deals from certain rail companies.
- From the list of results, click to see the fare details to have a glance on the train service provider for that train. Hence, search and log on to the respective official websites. A few of the popular rail networks include TGV- France, Deutsche Bahn- German, Trenitalia- Italy, Eurostar- London/Paris/Brussels or Renfe- Spain.
- Look out for any special deals on each service provider’s website, such as early bird offer and any other promotion.
- Normally, other than the departure date you selected, most rail companies are also showing the rate for different time of departure. From there you can know if there are cheaper trains on other time in a day.
- Normally, they will highlight the rate if it is the cheapest available for that rail route, and they could be cheaper than what Rail Europe offers.
- At the end, you will know which train offers the cheapest tickets on any particular date.
- Adjust your travel itinerary slightly, either staying 1 day longer or shorter at your destination so to get maximum saving on train tickets.
- Depends on the seat availability and popularity, trains depart 1 day or even 1 hour earlier or later can cost 50% less!
- Normally, rail companies open their online train booking as early as 3 months before traveling, and they are normally cheaper, logically.
After gathering all the info on train fares and train network, you might realize that your preliminary itinerary is not viable and economical. So you have to fine tune your Europe itinerary, and also look for other means of transportation, such as either by coach or by flight.
b) Travel Europe by coach
Eurolines has coach fleets all over Europe and they are the cheaper options to connect neighbouring cities, albeit more times taken, if compared with trains. If you are traveling in East Europe, this could be an alternative to trains as rail networks in Eastern Europe are not as comprehensive as Western Europe. You may find taking an overnight coach from Berlin to Brussels cheaper than a day train!
c) Travel Europe by air
Otherwise, if you are traveling from one city to another with quite a distance, a few of domestic European budget airlines are also worth checking out, such as Easyjet, Ryanair, Air Berlin, Transavia or SAS. Again, check out Skyscanner.net to get some ideas on fares before shortlisting into a couple of airlines. Easyjet, Air Berlin and SAS are among the best domestic budget airline with good service and comfortable ride.
At the end of this chapter, you should have confirmed your transportation options and refined further your Europe travel budget. In the next chapters, we will discuss on the planning of our accommodations and places to visit, which will further affect our travel budget plan. Stay keeping an eye on the development of this e-guide or subscribe for future updates via email. 
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate guide to Europe travel
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From previous chapters, we learned when is the best time to visit Europe and for how long we should travel Europe. In this chapter, we will discuss on ways to fix a preliminary budget of Europe travel. As we all aware of, traveling to and around Europe is a dream to many travelers mainly because [...]
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This is the second chapter of my mini guide on how to plan your travel to Europe. In chapter one, we have learned how to find the best time to visit Europe. For this chapter, we will continue to discuss on how to fix the length of Europe travel. To successfully plan an Europe vacation [...]
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