We recently concluded our 12 day trip to Europe (Austria & Netherlands) with stays at 3-4 star hotels within our planned overall budget of INR 700,000 (~ 8400 USD). This included return economy fare flights for the 3 of us (me, my wife and our 11 year old), food, experiences and on ground transportation.
I am sharing the breakup of our expenses as well as our detailed itinerary in the hope that it will help fellow travellers with their planning. All expenses mentioned in INR.
While the experiences can be booked closer to the dates of travel or a day before in most cases provided its not an insanely popular attraction and its sold out months in advance, once you nail down on the places to visit, try to book your flights a minimum 3 months in advance for good rates. For experiences, there are a plethora of sites available but I recommend using Klook, GetYourGuide and Thrillophilia. The prices across these vendors are similar and the best part is you skip the line with their e-tickets at most attractions, you simply scan the QR on the phone to enter.
For the flights, we used a combination of Google Flights and Sky Scanner to finalise the operator/route according to the best prices with least stop overs. Tip: You can also use the calendar functionality to view prices for the entire month on these sites to try and plan your travel based on cheaper travel dates if flexible. Try to book flights directly with the airline instead of going through a third party travel portal or agent. In my experience, it is easier to deal with customer service of the airlines in case you need help.
For e-Sim’s; on the Europe trip, we purchased the 10 GB plan from Maya.net. It worked well overall except for some downtime for a few hours in Amsterdam. Do not know what the problem was, it got resolved on it’s own. We have also used Nomad on a past trip to Dubai. These vendors send you the instructions to install the e-Sim the moment payment is made, fairly quick and easy process.
| Airfare (Emirates + KLM Royal Dutch) | 264000 |
| Schengen Visa & VFS Charges | 28000 |
| Hotels (Used a mix of money + points at Accor stays) | 146000 |
| Experiences | 114000 |
| Euro Train & Local Transportation | 36000 |
| Food | 110000 |
| Medical Insurance | 2500 |
| Data e-Sim (10 GB 5G data) | 1200 |
Please note this trip was planned and executed in early 2024 so do account for inflation depending on when you’re reading this article.
Use the link below to download the full itinerary that includes day wise plan and places visited in each city traveled to. I will write about our experiences from each city in the coming months, keep checking back!
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