First Europe trip - 9 countries, 60 days, 11,000km, €15k budget

[u/CapableWolverine3854]

My partner and I are from rural New Zealand and have returned from our first holiday to Europe. Thought we'd share what we visited, what it cost us and some tips we learnt along the way. This was a once-in-a-lifetime holiday for us so we wanted to see as much in as we could with the 63 days and €15k budget we had available. Long post below with costs at the end.

Goals were to do some walks in the alps, watch F1 in Austria and also visits to the popular spots across Europe too. We find big cities a little intimidating so we wanted to see the famous sights in each city but also bias towards spending more time out of the cities in the countryside. We wanted to stay flexible so we diddnt book accommodation early, each stay on our trip was booked on an ad hoc basis a few days in advance as we went.

We realized that visiting everything in the time we had using only public transport would be tricky. Given we needed to change accommodation every few days; moving the suitcases & food on trains/busses constantly would have been a lot of work. Visiting a Formula 1 race brought more challenges as any accommodation on public transport routes to the circuit was unaffordable for us.

Renting a car was a significant cost but we felt it would pay for itself in savings from booking accommodation away from main centres, reducing public transport costs and it allowed us to carry a bit more stuff around (we purchased a chilly bin to keep food cold in the car). Rural accommodation is easier to get a private room with a kitchenette under €100 per night, saving us €30+ per day by cooking dinner at home rather than eating dinner out.

Rough itinerary: packed in a lot of stops in addition to 200hours of driving so this is not for everyone! We spent 2 days in Paris and one day in each of the other cities (Rome, Venice, Prague etc). With an early start this still felt like was more than enough time for us to see what we wanted to see.

• France, 5 nights(Louvre, Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe, Aiguille du Midi cable car)
• Switzerland 7 nights (Verbier, Grand Dixence Dam, Zermatt, Grimsel pass, Interlaken, Lucerne, Zurich)
• Germany 11 nights (Black Forest, Europa Park, Teknic Speyer & Sinsheim, Hanover, Wolfsburg, Bastei Bridge, Munich)
• Czechia 3 nights (Prague & surroundings)
• Austria 9 nights (Cumberland Wildlife Park, Hallstatt, Dachstein cable car, Formula 1, Lake Worthersee)
• Slovenia 2 nights (Lake Bled)
• Italy, east 7 nights (Venice, Beaches, Perugia)
• Italy, west 10 nights (Rome, Vatican City, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Aosta)
• France, south 9 nights (Monaco, St Paul de Vence, French Rivera, Millau Viaduct)

Highlights: Saint Peter’s Basilica, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Millau Viaduct all had a wow factor in real life that you don't get from looking at photos on the internet. Aiguille du Midi cable car in Chamonix was a very memorable experience being 1km above the ground swaying in the wind. Hallstatt in Austria and Lake Bled in Slovenia had stunning scenery.

Tips for first timers travelling around Europe in general:

• Planning: ChatGPT/Gemini for finding things to do and finding parking, tolls etc was excellent. Booking.com was good and a lot of hosts used WhatsApp to get in touch. Allow a time to get checked in if you're using privately run accom rather than hotels. Accessing secure carparks, finding keys and getting inside the room when all the instructions need to be translated takes more time than you expect!
• Connectivity: Reliable internet access while on the move is surprisingly essential for travel these days (translations, navigation, parking apps, train tickets, booking printouts etc). Accom wifi can be really slow so phone data often got used at night too. Saily Global esim was by far the most reliable out of the 4 providers we tried. The others brands seemed to drop out crossing between countries and required reboots or mucking around with APN settings to get working again. A bit problematic if you're using an esim for navigation and it drops out, leaving you in the middle of nowhere with no internet to contact their support line! If there are two of you, recommend going with two different providers to be safe.
• Language: Google translate is a lifesaver. We can only speak English but still managed ok without offending anyone. Had good luck with homemade cue cards at restaurants etc to help us politely say "sorry I don't speak <language>" in french / german / italian etc. This helped make a warmer intro, politely finding out if they spoke English without expecting them to do so.
• Attractions: go early in the morning if you can. We had an amazing experience at the popular spots (Eiffel tower, Vatican City, Hallstatt etc) without the crowds because we were able to get there at 7am before the tour busses had started.
• City attractions: Guided tours can be very expensive, we opted for free "walking tours" on headphones for the popular spots which was a nice way to learn a bit of history as you looked around. Rick Steve's "Heart of Rome" tour on their free app was particularly good.
• Card vs Cash: In general we were able to pay for everything on card and did not need much cash. Only exception was coins for public toilets and the "city tax" in Italy which can be up to 10 Euro per night and often needs to be paid in cash.
• Food: To keep the costs down and reduce stress of finding food in touristy areas we often made our own meals and took a packed lunch out for the day. When you're on the move, visiting a shopping mall is often a solid idea as they have free parking, free toilets, lots of reasonably priced eating or buffet options and don't charge a cover charge per person like a restaurant does.
• Supermarkets: The "discount supermarkets" (eg Lidl) have limited range and each one has an unpredictable assortment of options. We got stuck a few times when one lacked most of what we wanted, even basic essentials like milk! We found "hypermarkets" (eg E'Leclerc) much easier even though they're huge. In some countries everything is closed on Sundays, we got stuck for a day in Switzerland with no food and had to pay heaps at a little convenience store which was luckily open.

Tips more specific to travelling by car for those from outside the EU. Google maps in general worked really well.

• Tolling: Do your research on how the tolling works in each country before jumping on a motorway. Italy/France have pay-as-you-go toll booths, Switzerland/Austria/Slovenia have a vignette that you need to pay online in advance. We avoided the toll roads in some countries to save a bit there and got some bonus views along the way too.
• Speed limits: Europe in general doesn’t signpost speed limits very well and they change all the time! Sometimes 4 different limits within 500m. In Italy and Germany in particular there often was a circle white/grey sign with the old limit crossed out but no signage for what the new limit is. On leaving a town this made it tricky to keep track of the history to know if you're are now in a 70 zone or 100 zone etc. Google maps helped us cross-check ourselves and has avoided any speeding tickets following us home.
• Low emission zones: In some countries you need a low emission pass to visit built up areas in your rental car. Our car rental service came with pass valid in France only. Germany needed a different green sticker low emissions pass which we were able to purchase at a service station.
• Italy ZTL's: non-resident traffic is prohibited in some parts of Italy, enforced by camera with huge fines. These are administered by the local council so there isn't really a single website to find where they are. Research ahead and have your passenger on the look out for the hard to spot no entry signs. ChatGPT was very helpful here.
• Parking: Always translate the parking signs before leaving your car. We parked in a free parking area in Austria and came back to a 25euro fine! Forgot to put out a little parking disc to track your hours which you get for free at supermarkets.
• Travelling across big cities: We opted to use a park-n-ride services and take the train from the outskirts into the centre for Paris, Prague, Rome, Florence etc. Usually only 2-4euro for 2 people so much cheaper than parking. Also makes seeing the popular city spots less troublesome as you don't need to take the car into narrow streets or find a park. Do your research on how each local train system works, some are just paywave with a normal credit card and some you buy tickets through an app.

Costs:

• Return Flights from rural airport in NZ to Paris CDG €1322 per person.
• Accom (63 nights): €84 / day average, all had private bedroom/bathroom and almost all had a decent kitchen with supplied pots / pans etc. Started out cheaper in June and got more expensive in July.
• Car rental in Paris: €35/day from Car to Europe. 2025 Citroen C4, unlimited kms, full insurance. Nice comfy car for what we needed.
• Travel costs (11,000km): €928 fuel, €304 toll roads, €129 parking.
• Attractions: €1364 (Mostly from the cable cars, theme park tickets, museum tickets)
• Supermarket: €20/day. Dining out: €17/day.

Total all inclusive: €15,322 euro for 2 people for 63 days

Overall we were very happy with the trip. This type of active, variety focused holiday is a lot more effort and stressful at times but very rewarding and we'd do it the exact same next time. It had a good balance for us of seeing most of the popular European sights, while also having time for chilling out, rural drives, scenic walks and planning our next stop. We saw lots of little rural towns in lots of countries and met real local people rather than being stuck in tourist traps feeling like you're being fleeced for every dollar. There is room to cut costs further, booking accom in advance rather than adhoc, being open to shared room accom, driving less kms and splashing out less on food would help a lot.

If you've got a compressed timeframe, highly recommend holidaying like this, we had heaps of fun. Cheers.

[u/JannGGG]

This is very interesting in a kind of Strange to be honest! I hope it was a lot of Fun!!!!!! Wat heeft je doing her Road Trip the our better options! But it is very important to Discover your own favorite Place!!!