The Frugal Traveler or: How to Get Lodging in Europe for Less Than $10/Day

Travel On the Cheap

This week, I returned from a European vacation with my family. I recognize a trip like this isn't a typical family vacation because of the costs associated with airfare, lodging, food, and museums/entertainment. We are fortunate that we were able to make the trip.

Being the Frugal Family that we are, we always do our best to minimize expenses.

When it comes to airfare, my wife has a knack for finding low-cost airfare using websites that track prices. I still don't know how she has the patience to scour all of the travel sites, but she consistently finds great deals.

As for food, it's relatively easy to keep your costs in check. For example, rather than eating out at every meal, you can eat breakfast in your hotel/apartment or pack a picnic lunch/dinner. This was especially easy while in France where you can make a delicious, inexpensive meal out of a baguette, cheese, salami, fruit, and of course, wine. 

In true Frugal Planner fashion, my wife and I found a way to significantly decrease the cost of lodging - while making new friends. There is some work involved, but it's not too much of a hassle.

The Home Exchange

Services such as Airbnb have made it easy to find alternatives to traditional hotels. Allow me to add another service you should consider: GuestToGuest.

GuestToGuest facilitates reciprocal and non-reciprocal exchanges:

  • In a reciprocal exchange, you stay at the home of a person who comes to yours. What's nice is that the exchanges don't have to be at the same time or for the same duration. It's up to the users to negotiate the terms.
  • In a non-reciprocal exchange, you use GuestPoints to stay in another person's home. You can earn GuestPoints by hosting other members. The only downside of hosting guests is that you need to clean before and after the guests visit. I don't think this is a dealbreaker.

We've hosted guests from the United States, France, Argentina, and Spain. In some cases, we've stayed in our house while guests stayed in a spare bedroom. These types of exchanges enable us to make new friends and give the girls opportunities to learn about other countries. At other times, guests have stayed in our home while we were out of town. I like this because it means there's someone watching over the house for us - and watering our garden. Fortunately, we've never had any problems. In addition, GuestToGuest requires a security deposit and insurance during the stay.

An Example

Here's an example of how GuestToGuest worked during our recent trip to Paris. Please note that while I list the GuestPoints we paid, I don't factor the points into the overall out-of-pocket cost of lodging because we earned the GuestPoints by hosting people at our house.

Paris:

  • We stayed in Paris from 8/8 until 8/16.
  • GuestPoints paid = 824
  • Our security deposit was €400 ($477), of which we paid a 3.5% commission to GuestToGuest = €14 ($17).
  • Insurance was €4/night = €32 ($38)
  • Total out of pocket in Paris = €46 ($55)

Lyon:

  • We stayed in Lyon from 8/16 until 8/20.
  • GuestPoints paid = 896
  • Our security deposit was €1000 ($1,193), of which we paid a 3.5% commission to GuestToGuest = €35 ($42).
  • Insurance was €4/night = €16 ($19)
  • Total out of pocket in Lyon = €51 ($61)

Our total out-of-pocket cost for lodging in France was $116, or $9.67 per day.

Listening / Reading / Watching

Here's what has my attention right now:

  • The XY Planning Network's 2017 Conference. I'm currently in Dallas, TX for the XY Planning Network's annual conference. I look forward to learning a lot while catching up with my fellow financial planners.
  • The Punch Escrow, by Tal M. Klein. Looking for a smart, funny summer beach read? Check out this sci-fi book about nanotechnology, teleportation, and a future where corporations control everything.
  • Game of Thrones, season seven finale. Yes, there have been some serious lapses in logic this season. For example, how quickly can ravens and dragons fly across Westeros? Have the White Walkers been wandering aimlessly beyond the wall throughout the entire series? Setting aside those and many other issues, this season has been great. Now if only George R.R. Martin would hurry up and finish writing The Winds of Winter.