All about the benjamins

Good news: I made my budget, including the air travel that I had to purchase unexpectedly and last-minute! Which means that without it, I would've been pretty well under. Darn it.

I don't normally talk about money, but I'm sure some of you following this would be interested in how much this all costs. My budget for 3 and 1/2 weeks of Western European travel was $1500. This didn't include the railpass, which was purchased and paid for before. So what this did include was:

- accommodation
- food
- souvenirs
- transportation within cities
- air travel for last 2 weeks
- ATM fees

Perhaps that sounds like a lot of money. Of course, I could definitely have lived cheaper, like less eating out and cheaper hostels and no souvenirs. In other words, I definitely could've made a budget of $1000. But I didn't want to be a down and dirty backpacker. For example, when I was alone, such as in Switzerland and Portugal, I definitely paid more for the hostel that I normally would have if I was with other people, for security and safety and weirdo hostel people reasons. For food, cooking or eating out alone is still lonely, but at least by eating out, I could try local dishes that I couldn't otherwise make. The last week in Nice I did actually cook in the hostel, but I was with a friend I knew previously and two new friends from our room. And souvenirs? Well, I didn't actually buy that many to begin with.

The morale of the story is that you could definitely make it under that, especially if you're a bit more adventurous with things like hitchhiking or couchsurfing, but you could definitely spend way more, so I think my number was pretty reasonable.

Anyway, now begins my marathon of picture uploading. Stay tuned!