I just got back from spending Easter in Europe and I am shocked at how much inflation has grown there and the whopping costs of living there.
Airfare
I was lucky enough to find “cheap” airfare to Europe for $760 but it was only because I have an alert on flash sales setup on my email. The normal cost is about $1300 right now and you can certainly expect to pay that during the summer unless you find a deal somewhere.
Car Rental
It is hard to gauge whether the car rental cost was high due to the fact that it was Easter weekend or if the costs of car rentals are always this high but the car I rented, a small economy car with stick shift, cost 200 euros ($215). As bad as that was, it was tolerable but the real shocker was gasoline.
Gasoline & Parking
The cost of HALF a tank of gas for the tiny economy stick shift car was 57 euros or $62 dollars. A full tank of gas would have been $124 dollars so a small economy car!
On the parking front, the cost was trivial and it really begs the question of why they bother to charge for parking because most of the time it was 1 to 2 euros for up to 4 hours. The annoying thing however, is that all the parking meters require a local bank card. My American credit or debit cards would not work in any of the parking kiosks so my kid would pay for it out of his bank account. Worked great until the day he forgot his bank card and we had to pay others with cash and asked them to charge the parking to their bank card. Good thing my kid speaks 5+ languages, maybe that private schooling wasn’t so bad after all?
Restaurants
The typical entree at most restaurants will cost 20 euros ($21.54) and that’s just for a meal. Adding appetizer, drinks or side dishes will bring the bill up to 30 to 40 euros per person. I spent about $100 every time I ate out and it was just two of us.
Lodging
The bulk of my stay was “free” since I stayed with one of my kids that lives there but we did set off to different cities and spent the night away from home. Lodging, in my opinion, was cheap, I got two rooms for $200 total per night and they were really nice rooms.
Museums & Entertainment
We spent $30 going into museums most of the time or about $15 per person and we went to a few places to have cocktails and beer which seemed to cost about the same $15/cocktail and about half that for beer.
Uber, Tram and Metro
While I rented a car, the rental was just for the weekend. My kid had gotten me a tram card which got me around the city. It’s a re-loadable card and we spent about $40 on trams going to and from home to restaurants.
Uber’s tended to be a bit pricey and most rides usually cost $30 (tip included) when it was raining or too time consuming to take public transportation. I probably spent $400 on Uber.
Conclusion
A one week trip “all in” to Europe cost me about $3000. That number included about $500 in costs for my kids apartment. He needed new sheets for the beds and some kitchen items so the travel cost was about $2500. If you plan on going in the summer, expect to pay more during peak season!
I’m sure you know it, but “Europe” is a very wide term. With the cost of 1 week in Switzerland you can probably get 6 weeks in Eastern Europe, so it depends a lot on where you are staying (even inside a single country the differences can be quite big). But you’re right in your first sentence, inflation has made everything quite expensive 🙁
BTW I also speak 5+ languages and never went to a private school 😉
Yes, “Europe” is a big term but I provided subtle hints like the image showing two people walking in a well known city. And I’ve been to Switzerland too and that is the most expensive city I have ever visited. If you speak five languages then you probably grew up outside the U.S. because that’s not common here.