Sabbatical Planning – Part 2

Everything is booked and ready and I’m now 10 days out from my European vacation. I thought I’d share my budget, how I planned on what I was going to do, and everything in between.

Less than $8,000 for 5 weeks in Europe is not bad, if I do say so myself! I can honestly say there are two things that saved me the most money: flying out of LAX instead of PHX and staying in hostels most of the time.

For the flight, I ended up going with Air New Zealand. Seems like a weird choice since I’m neither coming from nor going to New Zealand, however they had pretty good reviews online and a great upgrade option. I was able to get upgraded “Premium Economy” seats (which are basically Air New Zealand’s version of Business class) for the same price as flying out in economy from Sky Harbor airport. Since tickets from PHX to LAX are pretty cheap, it was definitely worth the change in airport. I’m a pretty nervous flyer, so making myself as comfortable as possible was key.

I thought my expenses went up a little bit because I ended up flying out of Edinburgh to Paris and Paris to London. I was originally wanting to take the train that goes through the English Channel, but unfortunately it sold out quicker than I was expecting. Taking a train from Edinburgh to London and then London to Paris was going to eat up too much of a day, so I bit the bullet and bought plane tickets. It did end up being cheaper than the EuroStar, however, so I can’t be too mad at it. I think I ended up saving about $50 or so.

In total, my transportation costs ended up being $2,423.32 USD. This includes flights, train tickets, and estimate of bus fare for my time in Edinburgh and London. This does not include costs for transportation costs in Paris, however that’s a part of another section.

Lodging total costs were $2,000.22. The largest expense was my AirBnB in Edinburgh, but I am staying there for a solid 3 weeks. It’s slightly more than what I wanted to spend, but I saved by staying in hostels. I also managed to get 3 days, 2 nights in a Disneyland good neighbor hotel plus a three-day ticket plus a meal plan for $477.28 USD. That’s a huge steal in my book! For finding the hostels I used Hostelworld.com. You can filter by rating, place, room type, etc. Most hostels had a lot of reviews, so I was pretty trusting of the ratings. I capped my price at $100 and set a minimum rating of 8.0. I then searched on the map, because I knew I wanted my hostels in good locations. I was adamant of having my hostel be in the 4th, 8th, or 9th arrondissement in Paris, and I lucked out with the MIJE Fourcy Fauconnier Maubuisson. It’s a decent distance from all of the touristy stuff, so I most likely could walk to where I want to go.

For entertainment or things to do, I knew the best deal for Paris would be the Paris Pass. This includes bus transportation in most centralized areas, entrance to museums, palaces, etc., and fast track tickets. This saved a lot of money, in my opinion. Sure, there are things included that I probably won’t take advantage of (I probably won’t do the river cruise of the hop-on, hop-off tour), but it saved a lot of time and money just getting entry into everything all at once. Plus the transportation being included was a huge plus for me. London has a similar pass, however I decided to skip it for this trip. I’ve already been to London and have been to some of the attractions listed, and there’s a lot more of what I wouldn’t do on the London Pass than the Paris. However, if it’s your first time in London, I would highly recommend it. I also booked a day tour to go to Stonehenge from Bath. I wasn’t originally planning on spending as much time in Bath as I am, but when I realized how easy it would be to get a day trip to Stonehenge, I figured why not? I’ll get to see all kinds of standing stones on my trip, apparently.

You’ll notice there’s not a whole lot of Edinburgh up there, even though that’s where I’ll be spending most of my time. Since I have less time in England and France, I wanted to make sure the days were planned out pretty well. However, in Edinburgh I’ll be able to go at a different pace. If I up and decide I want to do something one day, I can do it. I don’t have to plan out every moment. I do want to try and go up to the Orkney islands, and I absolutely have to go back to Glen Coe. I’d also like to go back to Culloden, since last time we had to leave when it started to rain. Perhaps I’ll hire a car for a few days and just take a road trip around Scotland. That will probably be my biggest adventure yet!