France and England on $98 a Day - Accommodations

Jaime and I met for lunch last week to talk about our upcoming trips. She is an artist who will spend two or three months traveling in early summer from the beaches of the French Riviera to the fjords of Finland. Since she is lucky enough to have been born French and still has relatives in several European cities, she only needed to find accommodations for a few places. She has discovered, as I have, that the very best and least expensive accommodations are apartment rentals.

Dining area in our Rome apt.

While David and I prefer one of the Home Away/VRBO listing services, (I'll tell you about our rentals for this trip in upcoming posts.) Jaime, who often travels solo because her husband must stay home, thinks Airbnb is best. Renting a room in someone's home can be extremely inexpensive and a built-in friend/host often comes with the accommodation. After weeks of independent travel, it can be comforting to know there will be someone at "home" to hear all about your day's adventures.

Jaime says she has filed a "User Profile" because she wants potential hosts to know she is a mature, professional woman who will treat their property as respectfully as she would her own. She would want to know the background of anyone staying in her home, so she assumes her European hosts feel the same.

One of the aspects of the program she particularly likes is that her rental money goes directly to Airbnb and will not be sent to the host until after the first day. Not releasing the funds until the second day is the company's way of guaranteeing that the guest is satisfied with the accommodation. If the apartment has been misrepresented, then Jaime's money will be refunded any time within that first 24-hour period. The company would also help her find another place to stay.

This kind of reassurance, the ability to use credit cards, and the friendliness of Airbnb hosts will leave Jaime free to concentrate on her art. Instead of worrying about arranging for rooms in impersonal hotels, Jaime will feel "at home" wherever she goes in Europe.   

Practicalities -

The Airbnb site is full of helpful information, FAQ, and even videos.

In a conversation this morning with Rachel J, a company representative, I was told the best way to handle reservations was to use the "Contact Me" button on the site to e-mail the host. After viewing the photos, reading the apartment description, and going over other people's reviews, you can deal directly with the host about any other questions you might have. When you are satisfied that you've found exactly the right rental, then use the "Book It" button to confirm your choice.

One of the major advantages to Airbnb is that there are multiple ways to pay the rental fee. All major credit cards, PayPal, or e-check are acceptable. 

I also really like the way security deposits are handled by Airbnb in the case of long-term rentals. A guest's credit card is authorized 24 hours before the reservation begins and credited back to the card within 48 hours of the guest's departure. Using the credit card carries its own safeguards and so does having Airbnb handle the transaction. In the case of damage claims, Airbnb mediates with the guest and host until matters are fairly resolved.

Here is an article by Linda Lacina that recently appeared in Smart Money magazine about the pros and cons of the apartment rental market.

France and England on $98 a Day - Itinerary

Metro in Paris

Because David and I are heading this spring to some places off the usual tourist track, we've relied even more than usual on the Internet. We had to find mass transit to get to and from London and small towns in France with car rental offices. While we rely on public transportation in big cities, we are traveling much of the countryside in France where train and bus service is limited. We'll need a car.

Since we've always wanted to take the Eurostar which travels under the English Channel, we'll take that train to Paris after our overnight flight to London. It's possible to buy a ticket 120 days in advance, and the earlier the purchase the more the ticket is discounted. Buying our Eurostar tickets months in advance meant we saved 50% off the usual price!

We didn't want to rent a car in Paris and have to deal with traffic snarls, so we next had to find a small French town that was easily accessible from Paris. Vernon seemed to be the answer. It's only 45 minutes from Paris, easily reached by train, and is the gateway to Giverny where Monet's house and gardens are located. Starting our trip in such lush, inspirational surroundings will be an auspicious beginning we hope.

Driving the car to Brittany should be easy. After touring Giverny, we're heading to Dinan, one of the best preserved and still functioning medieval cities in France. Our rental house is within walking distance of the ancient town so we plan to park the car and explore on foot. We'll also take in as much of Brittany as we can on daily drives.

We follow that town with a trip to the countryside in Normandy. Our gite near Picauville and St. Mere Eglise will put David in the center of the battle area he longs to see. 

Where Guidebooks Fear to Tread

Michelin's map of Brittany

Actually, guidebooks do exist about a couple of the lesser known places on David's and my itinerary this spring, but we had to special order them. While several books about European countries crowd the library shelves, there were none about the Brittany and Normandy areas of France. 

Still, we were undeterred. I've wanted to see Brittany ever since I read Mark Greenside's intriguing book, I'll Never Be French. When I wasn't laughing out loud about his attempts to understand French culture, I was delighted by his description of an area that seemed to jut away from France like some rogue appendage, 150 miles out to sea. A place where rivers meander aimlessly but, nevertheless, charmingly, down to harbors clustered with sailboats.  Not only is the whole of Brittany dotted with cobblestoned old cities and a few castles while a rugged coastline jogs along its perimeter, but it's inhabited by independent folks of Celtic and French descent. Add culinary treats like crepes and galettes (made from buckwheat), artisanal cheeses, and special buttery cakes called kouign amann, and you can see why I absolutely have to see this part of France.

David's goals are more noble. He's wanted to visit the Normandy battlefields since his dad first told him about World War II. He wants to walk every battle site, linger at the museums, and see the town where The Longest Day parachutists were shot as they floated down from the sky. We've scheduled four nights near Picauville, but it may not be long enough for him.

Wheels for Less

For getting around in the city, this woman in Florence, Italy, has the right idea!  

The countryside is another matter, though. Bike riding means you cover little territory per day while you cannot rely on public transportation because it is often non-existent. Getting from one village to the next is problematic unless you rent a car.

But which car rental company offers the best deal?

A 23 January 2012, e-mail article on Budget Travel suggests using a car consolidator. In the article, "Can You Spot the Travel Rip-Off?" (Click here if you'd like to take the quiz.), the author says, "...many agencies act as consolidators, or legitimate brokers, for rental-car brands. These include Argus Rentals, Auto Europe, Kemwel (a sister company to Auto Europe), Nova, and Tiger Car Rental. Because consolidators buy deals in bulk, the savings they're able to offer can be dramatic."

I agree with Budget Travel that this has often been true in the past, but the advice doesn't seem to be on target this year.

Free Pet-Sitting Revisited

 Last January we worried about leaving our beloved pets behind, especially our shy cat, while we toured Europe, but we certainly couldn't afford professional house sitters on a Tightwadder's budget.  Our solution was to recruit a pet-sitting couple using the website Housecarers.com.  This is the article I wrote about the process.  At the end of the article, I'll tell you how it all turned out.

When David and I returned from a month in Mexico last summer, [July of 2010] Guido the Cat let us know he had not appreciated our absence. He sat on the steps all afternoon as we unpacked and loudly meowed the entire time. Either he was bawling us out for having the audacity to leave for a month, or he was catching us up on all the cat-news he'd been storing up for thirty days. In any case, by the time it was dark, poor Guido was completely hoarse. His raspy, barely audible voice continued until midnight, though, so great was his need to communicate.

Our dog, Lena, on the other hand, was happy to see us but a little blasé about welcoming us home. She'd been at Club Med for Dogs, after all, so we could have stayed away for another month or two as far as she was concerned. Life with our wonderful neighbors meant lots of walks and lavish attention from two adults and two children. Even if she had to contend with Legos in her water bowl and afternoons dressed in elaborate costumes complete with bandanas, she had enjoyed affection 24 hours a day.

Guido had none of that.

It really wasn't anyone's fault. Our neighbors came in every day to give Guido water and food and clean his litter box, but because Guido is shy, he hid every time he heard the door open. They never saw him. Not once. No wonder the poor guy was lonely.

Plan Early to Save Big

January is traditionally the month for money-saving tips, and this year I'll start off with a great one that can save you big bucks when planning a European trip.  Even better, I can summarize the tip in two words: plan early!

The sooner you start making reservations, the better. David and I usually bandy around destination ideas at least a year in advance, pick up a few guidebooks at yard sales to read about areas in our chosen location for the next several months, and then hunker down in the dead of winter for serious planning so we can make reservations at least four to six months before we plan to leave.

The trip we're taking this spring was in the hazy planning stage most of last summer, but after perusing guidebooks and deciding on our destinations, we began making reservations in December.

We set an alert on Kayak, but, really, after last year's experience, we knew we had to get a non-stop flight to London even if it cost a few dollars more. (After spending close to 23 hours in transit last spring to reach Rome, we almost got divorced during a four-hour layover in the Madrid Airport--and we haven't even gotten married yet!) It will be worth the extra $50 to avoid that experience again.

So that we can explore the Normandy and Brittany areas of France, as well as the great city of London, we'll be taking the Eurostar across the channel. That's where early reservations truly save money. By buying our tickets three months in advance instead of three weeks, we paid £56 each instead of £112 for the London to Paris rail trip. We saved 50% just by making our reservations early!

We love getting train tickets for half price, but the early bird rewards don't end there. Unlike friends of mine who cobbled together a trip to Europe a couple weeks in advance and had to take what they could get in terms of rentals, we had the pick of the choicest apartments with the most reasonable prices. More details about the rentals will be posted later, but I'd like to note here that our apartments in France will average €78 per day while we managed to snag a lovely one-bedroom apartment in ridiculously expensive London for £83 a day.

I've said many times in previous blog posts that apartments are as cheap or cheaper for two people than private rooms in hostels and this is no exception.  One of the top-rated hostels in London is the Travel Joy Hostel where a private room for David and myself would cost the exact same price as our one-bedroom flat.  But instead of sharing a building with a hundred others, we will have peace and quiet along with a garden terrace, full kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath!

So, don't delay. Get busy planning your trip today. Cut the cost of the two most expensive aspects of travel--transportation and accommodations--by making reservations as early as possible.

Practicalities -

Unlike airlines, where you may luck into a flash sale at the last minute, train tickets are guaranteed to be cheapest several months in advance. Purchase 60-90 days in advance for most trains and 120 days in advance for the Eurostar.  But note that it is pointless to try to reserve earlier than these time frames because routes and prices will not be posted yet.

If you haven't already bookmarked the website, The Man in Seat Sixty-One.com, do so now. His award-winning site will tell you everything you need to know about trains, including seating, ticket purchasing, and routing, for trips all over the world.

Packwhiz Lets You Pack Like a Pro

When I'm getting ready for a trip to Europe, I never forget what to pack as long as I've got it on a list.  But keeping track of the scribbled lists is another problem altogether.  One list is on my desk, another flutters on the refrigerator door, a third sits on my dresser and one is taped to the bathroom shelf.  By the time I get around to packing, the barely legible lists have suffered their share of abuse, and it's a wonder I pack the map instead of a mop!

My life is about to get easier, though, because I've discovered a site that makes list-making a snap.  I can either use someone else's list like the one for "17 Days in Europe," modify a generic list, or make a list from scratch.  When I print the finished product, I'll have a legible, organized, comprehensive list of everything I need.  I think Packwhiz will be the next best thing to having a professional pack for me!

Where I've Been

After David and I returned from our Italy/Spain trip this spring, two friends asked me to help them plan their own frugal trip to Europe. Although they could have looked at my blog, since most of the advice is there, my friends wanted me to give them a step-by-step procedure to follow in organizing their first European trip. 

As we worked together over the next couple weeks, I understood why they wanted personal help instead of looking through the blog on their own.   I had trouble, too, finding particular articles I wanted them to read. Most every tip is indeed on the blog....but locating the exact piece of information when you need it can be problematic.

It finally occurred to me that a book was in order. If I consolidated all the tips and tricks David and I have learned along the way and through the years, and arranged all the information in a step-by-step format that anyone could follow, maybe everyone would be able to take a meaningful and affordable trip to Europe (or two or three or twenty) the way David and I do.

So, that's what I've been doing--writing a book that I hope will benefit travelers and would-be travelers. I'd like to tell you a bit more about it in the article below.

Close to the Bone Traveling

In the process of writing this book, my travel philosophy has crystallized.  I realized that not only is my way of travel cheaper than any other approach, but it is also far more meaningful.  Although "cheap" has a negative connotation when applied to products, it is high praise when it applies to travel. I've come to think of it as "close to the bone traveling." 

Jon and Vonda Look, creators of the wonderful blog, Life Part 2, (See my article about them here.) gave me a chance to write about this travel philosophy when they asked me to contribute a guest article (published a couple weeks ago).  This is what I wrote.

Close to the Bone Traveling

The most beneficial by-product of traveling cheaply is that it guarantees traveling close to the bone. Nothing gets between you and the place you came to experience.

Renting an apartment instead of a hotel room means you shop the grocery stores, dicker in the markets, practice your foreign language skills on the clerk who now welcomes you with a smile at the bakery around the corner, and use the subway system like a pro. The apartment, although cheaper, accomplishes what a more expensive hotel never can; it puts you in touch with the pulse of a neighborhood. At the end of a long day, as you arrange the flowers you picked up at the corner stand or have a glass of wine to toast a spectacular sunset, you feel as though you live here. Here in Paris or Rome or Madrid.

Feeling like a resident means you enjoy all the advantages of traveling like a non-tourist. Dallying is an advantage, not a liability. You savor every moment, sleep in late, run across the street to get fresh croissants for breakfast, take the leisurely route to today's museum, amble down the alley chock full of antique shops you stumble across on the way home, and get take-out for dinner. Living in the city, even if only for a few magical days, means feeling and tasting and smelling it. Slowly and completely, with all your senses.

When you "live" in a foreign city, you become intimately acquainted with its history. The first time I went to Paris, my inexpensive B&B was located in the sixth arrondissement, known as St. Germain des Prés, where writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir compared notes and wrote in the mid-1900s, and, later, the "Lost Generation" of writers and artists shared ideas after World War I.  I almost swooned when I realized that the cafe, Les Deux Magots, was around the corner. Now I could go there and have a hot chocolate in the very place where Sartre and Beauvoir wrote and where Hemingway and Fitzgerald bantered with Picasso and Gertrude Stein. This alone would nurture my soul and imagination for months.

After dreaming of seeing Paris for twenty years, the excitement of actually being in the city propelled me out of bed each morning before dawn, but I crept silently out of the house so as not to wake the other guests. My little room, a gold and turquoise Louis XIV gem that could only be reached by going through the dining room and across a terrace, was an extra that Madame rented only when the rest of her house was full.

The day I went to the Eiffel Tower, I used my guidebooks and city transit map to carefully plot my route the night before. Up at 5:30, I quickly showered, tiptoed out of the pension, stopped at my favorite patisserie to practice my college French and order a croissant, and made it to the Metro subway station before rush hour.

When I reached the correct stop, I climbed the steps to the street and looked around for the Tower. But it wasn't there. Only houses and apartments lined the neat streets. The Eiffel Tower was too big to hide, but I couldn't catch even a glimpse of its top. Evidently my carefully orchestrated route had a flaw or two.

Trip Planning Tools

A  sculpture on San Diego Bay 

Before you take off, you'll want to use Budget Travel's ten most useful travel websites to plan your next trip.  Here's the article by Sean O'Neill.

Many websites make lofty promises, but few deliver. From booking a flight to outlining an itinerary to tracking frequent-flier miles, we scoured the Internet for 10 essential websites for today's traveler.

The Web should make things easier for travelers, but the sheer volume of services out there is often more overwhelming than useful. Unfortunately, you don't always know which outfits pay off until you've already invested your time. The Budget Travel team puts websites—new and established—to the test every day. So when it came time to line up our favorites, the task was easy—we just turned to the sites we keep revisiting because they're so darn helpful. Our top picks can help you avoid overpaying for airfare (Bing Travel), bag the primo room at a hotel (Hipmunk), and never miss a deal on a rental-car reservation again (AutoSlash). Some of our favorites are as useful as a mind-reading tour guide (Plnnr); others are as handy as having a personal secretary track your frequent-flier balances (Award Wallet). Put them all together, and they become Budget Travel's picks for the best the Web has to offer.

FOR PLANNING
1. Bing Travel
Buy plane tickets at the best possible time.
Like other booking sites, Bing lets you comparison-shop for tickets across more than a hundred sources. Yet unlike most other sites, it also analyzes historical data to predict whether the price you see on the screen today is likely to rise (or drop) in the coming week, clearly marking the bargains with a big, green Buy Now icon. What's more, Bing is the only airfare search site to have its predictions independently audited. With an accuracy rate of 75 percent, it's not perfect—but those are better odds than blind guessing gets you. bing.com/travel.

2. AutoSlash
Lock in the lowest rate on rental cars.
Here's how it works: Reserve a vehicle from a favorite agency through the AutoSlash site, and the site will instantly begin tracking rate changes for your reservation. If a sale pops up later—snap!—it automatically locks in the lower price on your behalf. You can even use AutoSlash if you've booked independently. Just enter your confirmation number, and the site will notify you when it's found a lower rate (which you'll have to rebook on your own). Neither AutoSlash nor the company you first booked with charges a fee for the service. autoslash.com.

3. Fly or Drive Calculator
Determine the cheapest way to reach your destination.
Coupon site befrugal.com crunches data from sources such as AAA and Google Maps to power its Fly or Drive estimator (found in the site's Tools & Calculators tab). The more details you supply—the make and model of your car, the number of travelers in your group, whether you'd be springing for a taxi to the airport—the more accurate the estimates. For the eco-minded, it even includes a carbon-footprint estimate for each mode of travel. (Note: The calculator only works for trips within the continental U.S.) befrugal.com/tools/fly-or-drive-calculator/.

4. Plnnr
Get instant itineraries tailored to your tastes.
Whether you have a full week or a few hours, Plnnr can craft a (free!) customized point-to-point trip guide for 20 popular urban destinations across North America and Europe. You supply the length of your stay, desired activity level, and interests (such as outdoors, kids' activities, and culture), and the site spits out a fully formed itinerary, factoring in each attraction's opening and closing hours and travel times between spots by taxi or on foot. You can further fine-tune the results by adjusting the priority level for even more specific subcategories—architecture, breweries, and even cemeteries—or reject individual suggestions outright. (Plnnr won't get its feelings hurt.) plnnr.com. [See Tightwad Travel's step-by-step guide to using Plnnr here.]