Touring - European daily budget?

I'm touring around Europe for 4-5 months with my Dad next summer, and starting to think about what kind of money I'm going to have to save to survive. My route is completely undecided, and I suspect it's going to have to be somewhat budgetarily constrained. So I'm hoping I can get some thoughts out of you folk on how much I can expect to spend daily. So just for functionality's sake, lets split europe up into parts:

Western Europe: UK, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, etc.
Northern Europe: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark
Southern Europe: Italy, Spain, Grece, Bulgaria, Turkey, etc.
Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, all the way to Moscow

(These lines are not fixed, just rough guidelines to help with categorizing the fantastic advice I'll be getting :) )

Now, I'm a super-cheap kind of bike tourer. I'm a stealth camper, bulk food eater, wash up in the local McDonalds kind of guy. My dad is not. He's not a powderpuff, but he'll deffinitely be a hostel/ cheap hotel and decent restaurant kind of guy.

Can you can help me get an idea of what my dad would spend per day in each of the regions, and what I would spend per in each of the regions? Functionally, I figure Dad and I will have to duke it out day by day to decide whether it's a dad-budget day or a me-budget day :)

Thanks for the thoughts (in advance).

Finland: so called Everyman's rights allow stealth camping as long as you don't do it in somebody's front yard. See http://www.metsa.fi for terms and details. So Baz-budget accommodation would be 0 euros, or maybe 5-15 euros for a tent spot in a camping ground or a B&B in some farm. Dad-budget accommodation varies from 15-30 euros / night (cheapest hostels, cottages) to 30-70 euros (motels, hotels, even quite nice hotels) and up (really good hotels).

Meals: a Big Mac meal currently costs somewhere around 4,5 euros here, that might give you an indication of the general price level. Eating out, a budget meal would be 5-8 euros. As anywhere, you can cut costs by cooking yourself.

Sweden will be about the same (methinks), except in Swedish crowns, Denmark (euros) maybe somewhat more expensive and Norway (Norwegian crowns) clearly more so. All Nordic countries AFAIK have a version of everyman's rights allowing free camping in the woods. Terms may vary.

For rough ideas of relative costs around the world see http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/index.htm - there's "Money and Costs" -section for each country.

--J

From my experience the United Kingdom can be expensive, especially in and near London. In most cases pounds (rather than Euros) spend like dollars. That is to say, an item you expect to be a dollar is actually a pound.

I save money by not eating in restaurants. Even rural areas have large food stores that sell pre-cooked and often heated food to take away. You can get a whole roast chicken for less than 3 pounds. If forced indoors Wetherspoon's is a chain of pubs. They always have some beer on sale and food specials. They are everywhere. http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/

You can also buy beer and wine in these markets and discreetly down your tinned Guinness along with the roast chicken in a local park. Unless it is signed, drinking beer or wine in a public space is not a crime. (Or so it appears.)

As for stealth camping, it is commonly agreed that camping for a night on unimproved, unfenced land that is not marked as private is accepted, especially if you are back in the woods and can't be seen. I agree that you should ask if you can find a dwelling near by.

I'm working on a story currently for a local paper. A month is Europe for $CAN1500 including air fare. It is possible if you get discount airfare ($500), stealth camp and ride a bike, you should be able to do that.

It sounds like you might have a bit of a hard sell with your dad. He sounds like my son. We vacation separately

Yep, Britain is rather expensive! Figure £5 to £10 per night for campling, hostels may be between £10 and 15 per person. Best places apart from camping are YHA (www.yha.org.uk and www.syha.org.uk for scotland). Food is obscenely expensive as is beer and wine - when I lived in northern switzerland it was cheaper! You can save money by cooking yourselves and looking round for good deals on beer, alas the cheaper places are usually out of town supermarkets.

Rough camping is only really possible in rural areas like the far south west and the lake district and scotland - the south of england is one of the more continuosly urban areas in europe in my experience. Most green land is farmland and farmers are not who you want to meet first thing in the morning - some of my friends parents are farmers and they do interesting things to people they find camping..... Ask permission as a refusal is better than a randy bull. If you really want to be cheap the art of 'squating' may be the way forwards - just find a derelict building (plenty of factories) and off you go. A tent is quite conspicuous.

In germany and italy food and beer/wine is a lot cheaper - I can happily eat two courses and have some wine for €10. Picnic food is excellent in italy, you can get bread, fruit, cheese and proscuitto+salami nice and cheap. In northern italy if you like apples you can live for free from windfall in september!

As Stokell says, alcohol can be consumed pretty much anywhere in the uk (unlike canada so I'm told?). Expect a pint to vary from £1.50 (north yorkshire) to £3.00+ (London).

Why not try bulgaria - it's cheap and they have wondeful scenery and wine.

Have fun.

Baz,

I can only speak about Germany. When camping allow around 10 - 12 Euros per head per day. The definitive guide to this is the ADAC Campingfuehrer which is available in 2 vols; one for N Europe and one for S Europe. They have all the detail you will need (including an overview map). Despite being in German they will be of use because you'll probably only want to work out the prices and quality levels of the sites.

Outside the bigger towns accn costs are quite reasonable. You can get a room in a pension for 25 - 40 Euros a head (poss a bit cheaper if you share a double). Hotels tend to be more expensive but I've just found one on a route I'm doing where a double works out at 36 Euros per person.

If you want to get an idea of accn prices in any German town try www.townname.de
Nearly every German village seems to have its own website, usually with an English version available. Click on tourism and then Hotels (the word Unterkunft means accommodation).

You can also keep down your mapping costs in Germany if you use the bigger routes e.g. the Main, Rhine or Danube routes. The best guide books are the Bikeline series published by Esterbauer Verlag. They're designed to fit in the map holder of a bar bag and cost around 9 - 12 Euros per book. Despite being in German they are of great use as the mapping is great and there is a list of hotels for each town on the route at the back. The hotels are graded by price band.

Food. If you're camping, eat in Stehcafes (literally standing cafes) which are small corner shop-type bakeries. They do coffee, filled rolls and buns etc. Virtually every village has one and in the bigger places there's one every few streets.

For evening meals on the cheap (but not necessarily for the waistline) use Schnellimbisses or Grillimbisses. They'll typically do various kinds of meat + chips (Pommes) and salad for less than 10 Euros. Greek schnellies are particularly good. You should also save a bit to try typical German regional cooking which is usually excellent. (Unfortunately there is a rash of McDonalds throughout Germany so if expensive blandness is you're thing you'll be well catered for.)

Best of luck,

Andy