How I Travelled To Europe With $2,200

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I had 5 vacation days banked that I needed to take early in the year and $3,000 in my travel fund. What to do, what to do…

I also had a friend living in Paris, France and a friend living in Sarnen, Switzerland. I just knew this was not an opportunity I could overlook. I ended up booking an eleven day trip with stops in Paris, Zurich, Luzern and Sarnen. These are some of the most expensive cities in the world!

Here I share some travel tips along with my exact expense breakdown.

Flights

I looked around on a few different sites for flight prices before pulling the trigger.

Being from Vancouver, I checked YVR Deals, Google Flights and Cheapoair. I like to double or triple check that the specific airline showing the best deal on one site is also the best deal on another site.

Then, I will usually go directly to that airlines website and check the same flight I saw on the comparison websites. Sometimes it’s a few dollars cheaper due to some weird fees! And, for some reason, I will admit I feel more comfortable dealing with the actual airline versus a third party.

I ended up booking my flights with British Airways with one layover each way to help cut the cost.

I only booked these flights about three weeks before my trip and only had specific dates I could travel. I most likely could have decreased flight costs by having more flexible travel dates and/or purchasing further in advance.

Total: CAD$1067.61

Trains and Buses

When I first arrived, I took a bus from the airport to downtown Paris and I took the metro to get around almost everyday.

To get to Switzerland from France, I made sure to buy my major train route ticket prior to my travel. You would think they would try to sell off the remaining tickets for a super low price but sometimes it’s the opposite.

Sometimes, if you’re purchasing a ticket right before the train departure, they make you buy a first class ticket. So, for my train from Paris to Zurich, I booked online in advance for CAD$60.

Of course with my luck, they cancelled the train I had booked so when I went to re-book they had doubled the price. I ended up paying CAD$114.53, which ended up being about the same amount I would have paid to fly.

But I was going to be in Switzerland! I wanted the full experience and thought that taking the train was the way I wanted to go.

Once I was actually in Switzerland, I took the train almost everywhere. It’s pretty much the public transit there and let me tell you, it is not cheap.

Here’s the total for my transportation costs, not including flights.

Total: CAD$293.63

Hospitality

I booked this trip because I had friends in both Paris, France and Sarnen, Switzerland. My trip was made possible by those beautiful humans!

The only hospitality I had to pay for was the two nights I spent solo in Zurich. I booked a hostel because it was cheaper, and because I wanted to meet other travellers along the way.

Total: CAD$120.01

         

Experiences

For the most part, we spent our time in Paris wandering around the streets and neighborhoods but I could not turn down the opportunity to visit the Louvre. It’s one of the world’s largest art and history museums and I just had to go see the Mona Lisa with my own eyes!

In Zurich, I also spent most of my time wandering around the city. It’s gorgeous.

Oldtown Zurich is quite small so I saw all that I wanted to within a few hours. While most of the churches I visited were free, I also paid for a walk-through tour of the Fraumünster church. I think it’s almost priceless to actually get the history behind what you’re seeing rather than just looking and not really knowing what you’re looking at.

Later that same day, I also decided to do a four hour tour of the city and surrounding areas. Again, I was able to learn a lot more about the history of Zurich, meet some other amazing travellers and visit areas I simply wouldn’t have on my own.

The following day after a cloudy morning exploring the small city of Luzern, the skies suddenly cleared and it seemed as though the universe was calling for me to go to the top of Mount Pilatus, which is one of the mountains in the Swiss Alps. I had to seize the opportunity to take the tram up and see Switzerland from high above. No regrets there!

Total: CAD$214.73

         

Phone Bill

My phone provider is Bell, and for $12 a day I would have been able to use my phone as normal abroad. So, for my eleven day trip I would have paid $132 to be able to access my phone. That seemed like a ridiculous amount of money to spend.

At first, I bought a prepaid Europe SIM card on Amazon for CAD$45. All you have to do is swap your regular SIM card for the prepaid SIM card once you get to Europe. It’s as easy as that!

However, I had multiple people reach out to me and tell me that I could buy a prepaid SIM card once I arrived in Europe for as little as €6! So I had to try it out…

Either times have changed or France is just terrible and is choosing to charge more than other European countries for the same service. I would have had to pay €40 for a SIM card, which is approximately CAD$59.

Since I landed late in Paris, all of the booths that would normally sell the SIM cards in the airport were closed when I arrived. After waiting in the store the following day for close to 15 minutes with nobody coming to help me, I quite literally stormed out of the store… oops.

I was in Paris wasting my time in a phone store! That was absolutely not what I flew across the world to do.

I decided to just turn on my roaming for the days that I was travelling between cities and stay on airplane mode on the days I didn’t actually need it. I ended up turning on my data for 3 days, so it only ended up costing me CAD$36.

Would I do it again?

Next time I will definitely just buy the SIM card in advance.

Total: CAD$36.00

Eating Out

I definitely wanted to eat out and visit cafes during my travels but I didn’t do it for every meal!

To be honest, I didn’t eat very well. I didn’t eat fruit or vegetables for days and joked about getting scurvy… I pretty much lived off of croissants, bread and espresso’s. Honestly, no regrets. We cooked at home one out of the three nights in Paris.

In Zurich, I was told to book a hostel that had breakfast included because Switzerland is so expensive! So I made sure to fill up on that free breakfast each morning before I went out to explore the city. This was definitely the right call.

Honestly, I skipped lunches in Zurich (mostly Paris too to be honest…) and really only ate out for dinners. I wouldn’t say I skipped lunch because I was worried about the price, I was honestly just busy walking around seeing things and I wasn’t really thinking about eating. I either ate chocolate bread (I’m really not kidding about eating badly…) because I could quickly buy it from a bakery and eat it on the go, or I was just too distracted to even think about it.

I would recommend going to a grocery store soon after you arrive at your destination and grab some snacks you can eat throughout the day. I found that I was too busy exploring to ever want to sit down at a restaurant for lunch.

For my two dinner’s in Zurich, I was sure to try raclette and fondue. They were both amazing! All cheese everything.

Finally in Sarnen, the friend I was visiting is a high-performance athlete so we ate very well and mostly cooked at home. Lots of veggies here, no scurvy for me!

I know some people prefer not to drink alcohol while they travel to save money, but that’s not for me. I’m on vacation! You bet I’m going to get a glass of Swiss white wine to go with my fondue!

Total: CAD$393.88

         

Gifts & Shopping

Before I left, I told my friends and family not to expect anything because I was not going to get any gifts for them, let alone myself.

I ended up buying some chocolate from Switzerland, the cutest pair of socks in Paris (they’re light pink with little hearts on them I mean come on…) and a little heart shaped jewellery holder. That’s it!

Total: CAD$40.60

Cash

Lucky for me, I had a friend with hundreds of swiss francs and euros laying around that she let me take. I brought her back whatever I didn’t use and just transferred her money in Canadian dollars with the current exchange rate.

However, if it weren’t for her, I would have waited until I got to Europe to withdraw cash from ATMs.

For me, Scotiabank and Tangerine have a global alliance with BNP Paribas (one of the banks in France) so I would have been able to take out euros directly from my Canadian bank account with just a 2.5% foreign transaction fee, no extra fees for withdrawal.

If I were to go to a money exchange company in Vancouver before leaving, they can sometimes charge up to 10% for the foreign exchange fee and other fees. It’s insanity!

My advice? Do some research on what country you’re going to and how easy it will be to take out money as soon as you get there. If you can wait to take out the cash when you get to your destination, you’ll probably pay lower fees. However, if you think it might be the same pain waiting to get the money as it was for me to get a SIM card, sometimes you just need to pay for the convenience.

Credit Cards

Just some final thoughts on how I chose to pay for my trip, which was mostly on my credit card. It’s a little nerve wracking walking around with a bunch of cash and when you’re able to get 0% foreign transaction fees with a credit card, there’s really no need for cash most of the time.

I use the Scotiabank Gold American Express but will be looking into getting another travel Visa as not everywhere accepts American Express cards. My current Visa Momentum card charges 2.5% foreign transaction fees so I only used that when absolutely necessary.

My American Express card also offers me travel emergency medical insurance, baggage or flight delay insurance and a bunch of other great benefits. Be sure to check your credit card features before you go. You might be able to sign up for free access to some fancy airport lounges and not even know it!

Another awesome feature with credit cards is rewards! I currently have 35,840 travel points from my American Express card, which I could apply to cover $358.40 towards my flight, trains, buses, anything travel related, as long as I have purchased it on that credit card. I’m going to hold off, rack up my points and book a full trip in the future but it’s nice to know I have the option to get some money back if I wanted to.

If you don’t already have a credit card that gives you great rewards, check out ratehub to see what’s out there. In the future, I’ll be sure to make a post all about credit cards and what rewards you might want to look for.

All In All

So there you have it! That’s how I travelled to both France and Switzerland for a total of CAD$2,166.46.

As always, I try to be frugal but never cheap. It’s always nice to save money here and there but I did not want to hold myself back from experiencing all that Europe had to offer.

Are there any specific instances where you splurge or try to save money when travelling? Please share, comment and subscribe!

“Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a plane ticket and that’s sort of the same thing.”

Disclaimer: I am not a certified financial planner or investment advisor. The ideas posted on this website are my own opinions on how I manage my personal finances. The content is specifically for educational and informational purposes and is not considered professional financial advice. Everyone’s finances work differently and you will have to do your own due diligence before making any financial decisions.

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