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Europe on the cheap

Meecrob

Meecrob

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 25, 2006
78
0
New England
So, I am taking my savings and going to europe, probably spain, ASAP (probably as soon as the school year ends). I'm finishing my freshman year of college. Has anyone has any experiences (good or bad) with a cheap flight to europe? I've been looking around with kayak.com and Zoom airlines, and everything is in the $500-$600 range. Is this the best i'm going to get? The flight itself is probably going to be the most expensive part of the trip, so the cheaper the flight, the longer I can stay.

A couple things:

-I will probably be traveling alone. Not that I don't have friends who would come with me, but going solo gives me the kind of ultimate freedom that I'm looking for.
-London is the cheapest city to fly to. Is it feasible to fly there and then go overland to Barcelona?
-I know the dollar sucks right now so europe might not be the best choice to go and be a bum, but its something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Thanks for any input/experiences.
 
You should look into InterRail passes for traveling around Europe.

Juan Moro said:
About the flight, I don't know. About everything else, if you haven't signed in yet, you're gonna love me:

www.couchsurfing.com
Click to expand...

Meecrob said:
Wow that's a cool site - have you used it yourself?
Click to expand...

One of my friends used this site for traveling and said it was brilliant. I am thinking about doing something similar either this year or the next.
 
Meecrob said:
So, I am taking my savings and going to europe, probably spain, ASAP (probably as soon as the school year ends). I'm finishing my freshman year of college. Has anyone has any experiences (good or bad) with a cheap flight to europe? I've been looking around with kayak.com and Zoom airlines, and everything is in the $500-$600 range. Is this the best i'm going to get? The flight itself is probably going to be the most expensive part of the trip, so the cheaper the flight, the longer I can stay.

A couple things:

-I will probably be traveling alone. Not that I don't have friends who would come with me, but going solo gives me the kind of ultimate freedom that I'm looking for.
-London is the cheapest city to fly to. Is it feasible to fly there and then go overland to Barcelona?
-I know the dollar sucks right now so europe might not be the best choice to go and be a bum, but its something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Thanks for any input/experiences.
Click to expand...

Flying within Europe is much cheaper than flying to Europe (obviously), so you might be able to save a bit of money flying to London and then hopping a flight from there to Spain. My girlfriend lives in London and flies to Milan quite often, and she said she's gotten fares as low as 99¢! :eek: Gotta love government subsidised airlines...
Anyway, United has pretty good fares to London right now to celebrate their new Denver to London nonstop service (the lower fares are good from other cities too), but if I remember right tickets have to be purchased by March 26th to fall within this promotion.
 
Meecrob said:
-London is the cheapest city to fly to. Is it feasible to fly there and then go overland to Barcelona?
Click to expand...
Going overland to Barcelona isn't really a good choice - it's about 1000 miles by road/rail - I've driven it and it wasn't that great. Better to get a cheap flight from whichever London airport you fly into. Getting between the airports can be tricky as they are quite far apart and the traffic can be very very bad.

You get better deals if you don't fly over weekends. Have a look at www.skyscanner.net for the best deals in Europe. They have whole month searches to help you get the best prices.
 
Stampyhead said:
Flying within Europe is much cheaper than flying to Europe (obviously), so you might be able to save a bit of money flying to London and then hopping a flight from there to Spain. My girlfriend lives in London and flies to Milan quite often, and she said she's gotten fares as low as 99¢! :eek: Gotta love government subsidised airlines...
Anyway, United has pretty good fares to London right now to celebrate their new Denver to London nonstop service (the lower fares are good from other cities too), but if I remember right tickets have to be purchased by March 26th to fall within this promotion.
Click to expand...

Which airline did your girlfriend use?
 
Stampyhead said:
My girlfriend lives in London and flies to Milan quite often, and she said she's gotten fares as low as 99¢! :eek: Gotta love government subsidised airlines...
Click to expand...
You still have to add tax onto those prices so it will be about £30/$60 for the cheapest flights - expect to pay about £50 to £100 for most European flights from the UK.
 
Meecrob said:
Wow that's a cool site - have you used it yourself?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is GREAT.

So far, I've hosted 2 girls (Maine), 4 Latvians, 1 Australian (Sydney), 1 Indian, 1 Australian (Sydney), 2 Germans (Köln), 1 Australian (Tasmania) and his Lithuanian girlfriend, 2 Australians (Melbourne), 1 Norwegian, 1 German (Berlin) and 1 Portuguese.

I've couchsurfed in New York, and plan to do it extensively in Australia.

They organize meetings and hikes from time to time. It would be a good chance to meet other couchsurfers from your area. The average couchsurfer is around 25 years old, university educated, and very nice! :p

It works like ebay, with feedback. If you plan to use it on your trip (it would be dumb not to do it), consider getting verified while you're still in the US. Also, fill your profile, with pictures, and everything. Once you've logged in, if you're curious, you can have a look at my profile (couchsearch->juan_mlm). Create your profile with your name as a user name, not meecrob, or anything like that (unless Meecrob is your real name, in this case, I'm sorry)

If you reserve in advance, you can get very cheap flights from London to Barna with Ryanair. Train will be much more expensive than any low cost airline. Avoid it for long distances.
 
steveza said:
Have a look at www.skyscanner.net for the best deals in Europe. They have whole month searches to help you get the best prices.
Click to expand...

Ditto on Skyscanner. Make sure you click on their links to the actual airlines as sometimes their prices will be off.

steveza said:
You still have to add tax onto those prices so it will be about £30/$60 for the cheapest flights - expect to pay about £50 to £100 for most European flights from the UK.
Click to expand...

And from the UK, you'll be hit with the pound, which is worse than the Euro. If you're not going to fly directly to spain I recommend flying directly into the EU. Also I absolutely hate flying via London. Their security is a pain in the neck and even if you're not staying and just flying through. Besides Heathrow is an embarrassment of an airport, in my opinion.

Stampyhead said:
Ok, she told me RyanAir and EasyJet.
Click to expand...

Other cheap airlines include TuiFly and Germanwings.

Another lesser-known secret is to fly with major airlines - if you book in advance - and browse the US version of the website. For example, last week I flew from Munich, Germany to Verona, Italy and back for a total of 70€ or about $110. The prices were higher on the German version of the website, I think because EU folks have to pay more taxes than maybe tourists. Anyway, I still have a US address so I book all my flights using that info with Lufthansa. A train ticket just one way costs over 70€!

This also works with Air France, as a friend just visited from New York and he flew via Charles de Gaulle and bought directly from Air France's US site for cheaper than the prices quoted by Kayak and Orbitz, although he bought only 1 week in advanced.

I really recommend flying directly into Spain (and $500-$600 is a good deal) or Charles de Gaulle. It's a gorgeous airport and less of a hassle compared to London's.
 
Just saw you're in New England, so you may be flying out of Logan, yeah? Just fyi, American airlines fly from lame terminal C. You go through security and there's absolutely nothing to do and the area where your family has to say goodbye to you is sad.

Air France, Lufthansa, etc, fly through E which is modern and nice.

Oh yeah, forgot another airline, Emirates. Heard amazing things about them. Luxurious was the word actually that my friend used.
 
jng said:
Oh yeah, forgot another airline, Emirates. Heard amazing things about them. Luxurious was the word actually that my friend used.
Click to expand...
Emirates is a fantastic airline and along with Singapore Air probably 2 of the best airlines. Connecting through Dubai is a pleasure too - not sure what route they use from the US to Europe though.
 
I've discovered that Air Canada can get me to London for $519, and then I can use a fifty dollar Ryanair flight to get to Barcelona... this seems like probably the best option?
Air Canada lands in Heathrow and Ryanair flies out of Luton. I figure that I can either get a same day flight and use the coach service, or else couch-surf for a night in either London or Luton before continuing to Spain, which could be fun.
 
Meecrob said:
I've discovered that Air Canada can get me to London for $519, and then I can use a fifty dollar Ryanair flight to get to Barcelona... this seems like probably the best option?
Air Canada lands in Heathrow and Ryanair flies out of Luton. I figure that I can either get a same day flight and use the coach service, or else couch-surf for a night in either London or Luton before continuing to Spain, which could be fun.
Click to expand...

$519 is a pretty good deal. You might also look at Virgin.

I highly recommend easyjet. Train travel in Europe is great but very expensive.
 
Meecrob said:
I've discovered that Air Canada can get me to London for $519, and then I can use a fifty dollar Ryanair flight to get to Barcelona... this seems like probably the best option?
Air Canada lands in Heathrow and Ryanair flies out of Luton. I figure that I can either get a same day flight and use the coach service, or else couch-surf for a night in either London or Luton before continuing to Spain, which could be fun.
Click to expand...

It should work out ok, but remember that London is one of the most sought after cities to couchsurf in. When I went to NY with CS (short for couchsurfing) I only had a couple of positive answers out of maybe 25 requests I sent, so make surf you ask in advance. Also, a good way to search for potential hosts is "% of requests replied" (for instance, I'm at around 85%) or "last login". Recent members will probably want to build some feedback so they'll be more prone to accept your request. The key is to make a good first impression, be nice thereafter, and if there's any change in your plans, let them know.

For instance, this is a good request I received one month before the arrival date:

Hola,

Hi Juan, I'm part of a two person team currently
travelling around Europe and thinking of heading to
Valencia in the middle of March. We're currently in
Portugal and we'll be travelling through Spain and
Morrocco before heading to the east of Spain. Most of
my info can be found on my profile but if you have any
other questions about me please do not hesitate to
ask.

The girl I'm travelling with is a friend since high
school. She's lovely, same age as me (23), from
Melbourne Australia like me, just finished her studies
and traipsing about Europe with me before heading back
to Australia for work. We're both up for adventure in
any form and keen to meet new faces and see new
places.

In that vein I was wondering if you had any
recommendations for visiting your hometown. We're
looking for couches to surf, people to meet, place to
visit or anything else people are willing to share. I
understand that time of year we'll be passing through
is likely to be fairly busy with Fallas and we have
one travelling buddy already sharing his couch with 4
others.

Thank you in advance for your time and maybe you will
see us wandering through your city in a month or so.

Cheers,

Holly Valance
Click to expand...

"Holly" and her friend ended up sleeping three or four nights at home, and are right now in Florence, Italy.

P.S: Jim, if you read this, I hope you don't mind I changed your name :p
 
steveza said:
Emirates is a fantastic airline and along with Singapore Air probably 2 of the best airlines. Connecting through Dubai is a pleasure too - not sure what route they use from the US to Europe though.
Click to expand...

My friend flew NYC to Hamburg.

Meecrob said:
I've discovered that Air Canada can get me to London for $519, and then I can use a fifty dollar Ryanair flight to get to Barcelona... this seems like probably the best option?
Click to expand...

Make sure you have LOTS of time in between then. If your flight is late, Ryanair won't wait for you and because you're booking with 2 diff. airlines, you might get screwed into paying your own way to Spain then. Also, factor in the cost of traveling from one airport to another (in British pounds) - esp. if you stay overnight - and in my opinion, it's a hassle.

I know people who've missed flights that way and it's a nightmare. It's a risk you should be aware of.
 
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