{"id":199,"date":"2016-09-26T21:23:16","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T20:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/209.222.30.173\/?p=199"},"modified":"2021-03-07T18:31:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T18:31:39","slug":"how-can-i-set-a-budget-for-interrailing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/how-can-i-set-a-budget-for-interrailing\/","title":{"rendered":"How can I set a budget for Interrailing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diogo Lan\u00e7a of <a class=\"rank-math-link\" href=\"http:\/\/roaddelta.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Road Delta<\/a> shares his tips on how to budget and pack for an Interrail trip.<\/span><\/i><\/p><div class=\"inter-content-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;\" id=\"inter-4020268941\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4633244982126279\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block; text-align:center;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-4633244982126279\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7158573474\" \ndata-ad-layout=\"in-article\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you start thinking about going Interrailing, it\u2019s quite easy to get carried away. All of a sudden you realise that Europe is full of potential for a fantastic experience. You go online and spend hours researching the most beautiful cities, imagining your ideal route, and discovering how diverse Europe is. But after a while, your adventurous side starts to die down and your financial and more rational side starts to ask some questions:<\/span><\/p><blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How much money do I need to do all this cool stuff?<br>Can I afford accommodation<\/span> and food AND still enjo<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">y myself?<br>How can I plan all of this?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your previous adventurous state was trumped by a certain distress. Money and planning become a concern. This blog post seeks to relieve some of this concern by sharing some hacks that allow you to save time, money and headaches, so you can enjoy your Interrail trip<\/span>.<\/p><div class=\"inter-content_2\" style=\"margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;\" id=\"inter-2536900066\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4633244982126279\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block; text-align:center;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-4633244982126279\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7158573474\" \ndata-ad-layout=\"in-article\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The point of Interrailing is to get you out of your comfort zone, to do a leap of faith and give yourself to Europe &#8211; up to a certain point. Smart planning of both what you bring and how much you spend can make or break your trip. Smart planning will drastically reduce your concerns about your Interrail journey and allow you to enjoy all the wonderful places you spent so long researching.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tools like <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/\" class=\"rank-math-link\">Interrail Planner<\/a> can help you define the first steps in planning an Interrail trip. However, while planning, there are two recurring thoughts: <\/span><\/p><ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How much money you have to do cool stuff<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How much stuff you pack<\/span><\/li><\/ol><p>Getting these two things right <em>before<\/em> the journey starts must be a priority. This blog post covers those next steps: coming up with a budget and knowing how much you should carry in your backpack. (It also covers how <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/premium\">Interrail Planner Premium<\/a> can help you with your budgeting.)<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><b>Budget<\/b><\/strong><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s talk money first &#8211; the one that pops into everyone\u2019s minds first.<\/span><\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>How much money is needed to do an Interrail?<\/b><\/h3><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This depends and will vary from person to person: it depends on how well you want to sleep, how well you want to eat, what you want to do in each city, and how many days you want to travel\u2026<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, because you\u2019re reading this, I can assume that you\u2019re trying to find ways to go Interrailing on a budget, which means that you might be willing to sleep in night trains and eat supermarket food and drink funny coffee (a story for another day).<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every time someone asks me the \u2018money question\u2019, I\u2019m reluctant to answer. I know that the person will get attached to the amount without knowing what I actually did during my Interrail.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, my answer to \u201cHow much was your Interrail?\u201d is &#8220;Priceless&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Priceless? But really, how much did you actually spend? \u20ac1,700 over 25 days. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This included my Interrail pass, flights from Lisbon to Paris and from Venice to Lisbon, food, accommodation, train fees, and a lot of fun\u2026 the whole thing!<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does this mean that if you travel for 25 days you will spend the same amount? No. Can you spend more? Oh yes.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after my Interrail experience, I feel that it is possible to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">roughly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> estimate an amount for each individual case. <\/span><\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Estimating your Interrail budget<\/b><\/h3><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enter mathematics&#8230; <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">*cue dramatic music*<\/span><\/i><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For each day during my Interrail, I noted my expenses in my travel diary. By averaging all basic daily expenses (hostels, transportation, food) during the 25 days, I calculated the Average Basic Daily Budget (ABDB). My Interrail had an ABDB of 50 Euros per day. <\/span>Note that I didn\u2019t spend 50 Euros every single day of the trip. The number indicates a rough estimate for you to know more or less how much you need. And it works pretty well.<\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In my case: 25 days x \u20ac50\/day + \u20ac340 (Interrail pass) + \u20ac207 (flights) = \u20ac1,800<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An important thing to note is the \u20ac50\/day is based on my Interrail holiday, which means you need to know how well I treated myself in order to know if you can expect around the same ABDB for your Interrail:<\/span><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I always slept in hostels, booking them online a few days before (no hunting for low prices months in advance), and slept two nights on a night-train.<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I ate at hostels, supermarket food and occasionally sampled the local cuisine (I feel that I tried enough in each country).<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I always used public transportation.<\/span><\/li><\/ul><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s a typical budget experience. Cost per day will vary from country to country and it\u2019s a lot cheaper in Eastern Europe so try and incorporate a mix of Western and Eastern Europe in your trip &#8211; or just only go Interrailing in Eastern Europe!<\/span><\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How Interrail Planner Premium helps with budgeting<\/strong><\/h3><p>Interrail Planner Premium offers a Trip Cost Estimate feature, which works in a similar way to the method described above. You enter your budget for various expenses (like accommodation and daily spending money) and it then provides an estimated cost for your trip. This total is kept up to date as you edit your route so you can always keep on top of the estimated costs. You can learn more about Interrail Planner Premium <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/premium\" class=\"rank-math-link\">here<\/a>.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2633\" width=\"308\" height=\"381\"\/><figcaption>Interrail Planner Premium&#8217;s Trip Cost Estimate feature<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that the financial aspect is more or less figured out, it\u2019s time to discuss the next big thing.<\/span><\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><b>Backpacks<\/b><\/strong><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A big part of any Interrail trip revolves around the backpack. Carrying it from the train station to the hostel, storing it on trains and in hostels, constantly pulling stuff out and stuffing things in it. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, you want your backpack to be as small a burden as possible by making it light and functional. That makes total sense, right?<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So why do I see so many travellers complaining about their backpacks? There\u2019s two reasons:<\/span><\/p><ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If it is the first time they are backpacking, they don\u2019t understand the value that a light backpack holds. They are accustomed to stuffing a bunch of things in a suitcase and lugging it around an airport until eventually dropping it in a taxi or hotel. This doesn\u2019t really work for Interrailing.<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can be difficult to plan for something you can\u2019t predict. To compensate for the unknowns of an Interrail, many backpackers stuff their bags with extra clothes.<\/span><\/li><\/ol><p>These mistakes can be easily avoided by defining what is lightweight and by demystifying some of these unknowns. You can also make sure you get one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/what-backpack-should-i-take-interrailing-the-best-6-rucksacks-to-take\">best backpacks for Interrailing<\/a>.<\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>How much should you take?<\/b><\/h3><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is obvious that your luggage should be in keeping with how many days you are travelling for. But only up to a certain point. For example, if you were travelling for over a year, you would not take clothes for that whole year. You would just carry the necessary clothes and wash them on your travels.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The same approach can be used for an Interrail trip. Many hostels provide washing and drying machines for a very reasonable price. Plan the trip so that around the midpoint, you stay in hostel with such facilities.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pack clothes for only half of the trip and just like that, you saved a bunch of space in your backpack!<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 60 litre backpack is more than enough to carry everything you need. Start by packing the basics like underwear and socks. Then keep packing in order of importance. If you keep in mind the previous advice, your backpack should weigh around 10kg. Try not to go above this weight. Trust me.<\/span><\/p><p>Learn more about what to pack from our <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/what-to-pack-for-an-interrail-trip-a-complete-packing-list-for-europe\/\" class=\"rank-math-link\">comprehensive Interrail trip packing list<\/a>.<\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, packed and ready to go! Wait wait\u2026.<\/span><\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Did you do The Walk of Truth?<\/b><\/h3><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Strap your backpack to your back, go outside, and walk. Seriously, pretend that the Interrail trip has started and you need to go from A to B with your backpack. If you feel comfortable wearing the backpack, then great &#8211; you are ready! If not, you might need to remove a few items or even change the backpack. Remember, you will be carrying this thing <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a lot<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Final Thoughts<\/b><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Budgeting doesn\u2019t mean poor planning. With the power of the Internet, travellers have access to tools and know-how from other travelers that can make their trip more enjoyable.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use Interrail Planner to plan your route, estimate your budget using the method above (or get <a href=\"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/premium\" class=\"rank-math-link\">Interrail Planner Premium<\/a> to estimate costs as you plan), and carefully choose what to take in your backpack. Planning means that you won\u2019t have to worry about it while travelling. Still not convinced? Learn more about <a href=\"http:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/why-plan-an-interrail-trip-in-advance\">why you should plan your Interrail trip in advance<\/a>.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want more tips on how to save money? Here are 5 more tips to help you save money while travelling:<\/span><\/p><p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iy9yqD9tL0M\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/p><\/iframe><\/p><p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diogo Lan\u00e7a is the owner of Road Delta, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to spreading ideas of self-development to proactive young minds. Visit <a href=\"http:\/\/roaddelta.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">roaddelta.com<\/a> to learn more about his content.<\/span><\/i><\/p><div class=\"inter-after-content\" style=\"margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;\" id=\"inter-1190595372\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4633244982126279\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-4633244982126279\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"8015293915\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diogo Lan\u00e7a of Road Delta shares his tips on how to budget and pack for an Interrail trip. When you start thinking about going Interrailing, it\u2019s quite easy to get carried away. All of a sudden you realise that Europe is full of potential for a fantastic experience. You go online and spend hours researching&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interrail-advice"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"Credit: Gerrie van der Walt","source_url":"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@gitfo"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/photo-1505164294036-5fad98506d20.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interrailplanner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}