Hawaii Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Need Help Estimating Travel $$
The Travel Nesties haven't been the nicest, so I'm turning to my FAVE Nesties for some guidance. I'm trying to estimate how much spending money I'll need for my trip to Rome in 2 weeks. I'll be there for 9 days (although, I guess 2 of those become travel days). How much money should I plan on spending? The hotel is 'paid' for with points, so that's a non-issue, it's food, sightseeing and spending money. Is there a 'standard' for figuring stuff like this? TIA!
Re: Need Help Estimating Travel $$
Hi Amy, let me just say how EXCITED I am for you
I had a budget going the entire time I was planning our trip to HI and it helped a lot. I'd say we spent the most on food, well, we spent a TON on food... and we tried to cut back on dinner's out every night. We would alternate, one dinner out at a restaurant and a 'lighter' dinner, take-away or something to that effect the next night. I'm not sure about Europe but I'm sure it's even more money for food there (I've been to Holland it wasn't ridiculous but not cheap either). I would budget the most on food and as far as attractions go, is it possible to look up online what you might be doing and factor it in that way? Not sure if that would work or not
I budgeted about $40/day PP for food and was nearly on par with what we spent. HTH, yay, I can't wait to see your photos already!
I love Hawaii!
Tara & Ian . 4/24/2008 . The Kahala Planning . Married
When J and I travel together, I always figure a minimum of $100/day for food (usually breakfast in the hotel...continential style or just coffee/muffin, etc....light lunch (pizza, salad, sandwiches...so yummy in Rome!), a snack (usually gelato when I am in Italy!) and then a good dinner at a nice restaurant with wine, etc.
Then I'll add $20-$50/day for activities/souveniers....that said, I am a totaly budgetzilla! If you tend to splurge more on dining or activites or shopping (i.e. if you plan to buy art, jewelry, designer shoes/clothes), you should bump it up. If you plan on organized tours with a guide factor in tips too. My advice? If you can "tag along" behind a group you can eavesdrop on the guide's spiel without hiring your own!
Or better yet, get a great guidebook and DIY.
I also assume you'll be taking taxis and/or buses, etc. around town, so you'll need to make sure you have money for that as well. Rome is walkable, but if you want to head across town or late at night, taxis are a great idea.
Of course, you'll need to factor in the exchange rate, taxes, etc. When traveling to a place where our dollar is strong, you can get more bang for your buck. Unfortunately, Italy is now using the Euro and our dollar is weak...about $1US= $1.45EU. Not that favorable for us, unfortunately. So I'd err on bringing more money and then having the option not to spend it.
Last time I was in Italy I traveled for three weeks and was in about 12 different towns so I kept my shopping limited to small/lightweight items like scarves, earrings, small pieces of art (love to buy from street vendors), paper, fabric things. I did get one pair of shoes in Milan though.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
Oh right, breakfast! I forgot to add that we always have cereal, fruit, etc. in our room so my budget doesn't include breakfast (we went out once for breakfast in HI).
I love Hawaii!
Tara & Ian . 4/24/2008 . The Kahala Planning . Married
I always think $100/day is good for when I travel alone. I get gov't per diems for work travel and in bigger cities is always around $60-70 and that is just for food (hotel and transport gets reimbursed separately). So I don't think my travel for fun figure is way off. Plus the exchange rate will instantly reduce your money
However, I usually try to eat pretty cheaply and just splurge occasionally and usually have lots left over for spending money. If you are planning to splurge on something really nice like a handbag or jewelry I would budget that separately.
When I was in Italy it was part of a 3 month long trip so my figures were no where near that and I was definitely on a budget so I can't really remember how much I spent per day. My hotels/hostels were budget class and always included breakfast but they were gross (especially outside of the bigger cities) - stale bread and/or crackers and room temp meat and cheese. I usually just got coffee and got super excited if they put out some fruit. (this was after traveling in Greece where the included breakfasts were amazing)
Lori took the words right out of my mouth - I use the same estimates.
Ballpark $100 a day for food (or more, considering the poor exchange rate at the moment), and usually around $30 a day for shopping (BUT I'm not a big shopper when on vacation - I usually prefer to do stuff like visit museums, go to restaurants, etc.).
Thanks ladies! I am not a huge spender (since my ginormous paycut 18 months ago, I've been cured!), but we will enjoy nice meals out and I'm sure lots of wine. We usually have breakfast in the concierge lounge at the Marriott, but I don't know if this Marriott has one. I hope so, because that always saves us a lot.
The only tour we are splurging on is one for the Vatican (I think it's 59 Euro), and it's pretty comprehensive. Other than that we'll see most things on our own. We can get a Roma Pass for 23 Euro that gets us in to 2 monuments or museums and all others after those two are discounted. The Roma Pass is also a Metro pass so we'll have access to get around the city that way. The other 'big' thing we're doing is taking the train to Florence. That will cost us 88 Euro, and then we're doing the hop-on-hop-off tour there. Not sure how much that is, but Florence and the Vatican will be our 2 higher priced days.
It's funny, I obviously want something from Italy to remember the trip, but I don't know what. In Switzerland I knew I had to bring home a watch, but Italy.......I'm thinking shoes!
Thanks again for the feedback, keep it coming if you have more!
I'm no good with budgeting, but one of my favorite things to do in Italy was visit an alabaster workshop where they carve the stone into statues, jewelry and other small tokens. I have an alabaster chess set from one trip, and a necklace from another. They were relatively inexpensive, and jewelry is easy to pack to bring back. They are beautiful...just in case you're looking for a souvenir idea!
Also, if you're going to Florence, I highly recommend the Accademia, if you're into art at all. I fell in love with Michelangelo there. David makes me cry every time I see him, and I can't even explain why!
MH and I couldn't believe how relatively inexpensive good wine is in Rome. Some nights we would go into an Italian convenience store and pick up a bottle for 6 Euro, swing by a bakery for fresh bread, then pick up an assortment of cheeses and call it dinner! And it was, like, the best dinner ever! One word of warning: we found that, the closer you are to the more famous tourist destinations, the crappier and the more expensive the restaurants are (because they cater to those tourists who will never return).
That's awesome you're already onto the Roma pass; I was going to suggest that. The Metro pass was really handy to have, although we also walked aaaalll over Rome because it's such a walkable and visually interesting city (but no trying to wear heels to look cute or something -- with all the cobblestone streets, you definitely need comfortable walking shoes).
I did buy a pair of Italian black leather boots as a souvenier. It seemed appropriate.
Yay! I'm excited for you!
To figure out spending money, I'd start by deciding what you're probably going to do -- I always read up on TripAdvisor.com for recommended activities and price my days that way. Then I'd add an estimate for food and incidentals. (Shopping, I think, is totally separate and really depends on how much you are willing to let yourself spend)
When we were in Europe, we only ate out once a day -- we ate breakfast at the hotel (included), picnicked our lunches at parks (fresh bread, cheeses, fruit, meats were amazing!), and then ate out for a nice dinner.
After adding in our snacks and other incidentals (public transportation), I'd say we spent about $100 a day for the two of us (at the 2007 exchange rate, not sure what it is today), which didn't include money for souvenirs or shopping.
Good luck and have fun!