Good and cheap place to visit in Europe

Stephen Taylor (American solo traveler)

Go off-season, fly Norwegian Air or WOW. I don't know where you live, but Norwegian just expanded their routes in the U.S. and fly out of some small airports in the greater NY area and I think Denver. I saw tickets last winter from New York to Oslo for literally a couple hundred bucks. Oslo is absurdly expensive, but from wherever Norwegian or WOW drops you off, you can probably hop on EasyJet or RyanAir to somewhere cheap. Flying in/out of smaller airports is sometimes the ticket.

AirBNB’s are all over Europe. They're usually nice and if there's two of you traveling, $30–40 a night is obviously nothing split between two people. It's a huge myth that hotels are nicer than AirBNBs.

Walk. Europe’s full of interesting pilgrimage routes and hiking trails. They're all free.

Self-cater. Eat at grocery stores. Hostels and AirBNBs will almost always have a kitchen you can use. Eat one special meal out a day and make your own food the rest of the day. If that sounds depressing (and it can be) transform “self-catering” into a romantic picnic on the Danube. It's all in how you frame it.

 

Meet a few other people and rent a car. Split four-ways, a rental car might be cheaper than individual train tickets. Sometimes if you pay for the whole thing in advance online, you get a discount. Get a credit card that automatically covers your car insurance. My MasterCard World does. That saves me at least 100 bucks every time.

Pick 1 or 2 countries you really want to see and just stay there. My first big trip to Europe, I tried to see 10 countries in one month. That's crazy. You're not going to run out of interesting things to see and do if you just spend two weeks in Italy. I could happily spend two weeks in Sicily alone.

If you're adventurous, look at WWOOF, HelpX, and other short-term work exchanges. This is the real Europe, anyway.

Take it easy, sit back and relax. Don't try to see it all. Constantly being on the go is expensive, anyway. And 3 or 4 weeks of running around gets old fast.