Gap Year Travelling on an Extreme budget with HelpX WWOOF etc.

Hi,

I am planning on taking a gap year next year and a friend and I would really like to travel together, mostly around Europe. :biggrin:

At the moment we have very little money, and so the plan is to work for about 4 or 5 months here in Australia (I live here) to earn some money and then set off. Obviously what we can earn in this amount of time won't be loads, and so we're looking at traveling on pretty extreme budget. However, we're both pretty happy to travel slowly and 'experience' a country by seeing the countryside, just wandering around nice places and meet the locals, we don't have to zip from capital city to capital city spending all our money on museums, attractions etc. Also, neither of us drink, so that's one less expense.

We want to travel mostly using HelpX (similar to WWOOFing), as this will really keep costs down, and apart from that we have quite a few friends and relatives throughout Europe and the UK who we can go and stay with. Since it seems to be quite unusual to travel like this from one HelpX host to the next, I've been finding it hard to find info on the approximate cost of doing this. I'm imagining about 10-12 HelpX placements, about 6 stays with friends, and about 5 different cities in which we'll actually have to pay for food and accommodation, since HelpX doesn't really exist in cities.

Could you please read my costing below and tell me whether that looks at all realistic? :smile:

Has anyone done something like this, and could give me some advice on how much it cost them???

My guesstimate costing (per person):
(For approx. 6-8 months)
Return flights to Europe -> £1100
Average £45 for transport each time we move from one place to the next. -> £45 x approx 22 places = £1000
5 Paying cities (3 nights in each) @ approx £30 per night incl accomm, food, little bit extra for transport and cheap sightseeing -> £30 x 3 x 5 = £450
= £2550

Thanks in advance. :biggrin:

EDIT: I should have included that We're looking to visit perhaps the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Greece? Croatia(??) and Turkey (??????????), and that we will probably take a whole combination of planes, trains, buses and ferries to get where we're going. My transport estimate of £45 was hard to come up with because I think in some cases it might cost under £10 and occasionally it may be £70 or more.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

WileyWanimal

Anyone have any experience with this??? :confused:

I'm now thinking of the following as a rough route: UK, France, Spain, Portugal, fly to Amsterdam, then Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Albania, Greece, Turkey.
Keeping in mind that we have friends/relatives that we'll be able to stay with at least some of the time in the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, some of Germany and Northern Italy.

Reply 2

Avispa

Looks like you have a lot sorted already; how many people are you travelling with?

Do you have flights already? If not, check Skyscanner or Momondo; you could always find the cheapest country to fly into, and then base your route around that.

Normally an Interrail Pass (called Eurail for non-EU residents like yourself) is useful, costs about £350 for a month's unlimited travel on trains in Europe, including some high-speed trains, and discounts on sleeper trains. If you're not moving between places very often, however, it might not be as a good a deal. Have a look at it though! Either way, try to go for trains, they're the best way to travel through Europe. There are lots of long distance coaches too, but they are much, much slower. Still, if you don't mind spending time on them, they're by far the cheapest option. If you book in advance, flying can be a cheap option too; there's loads of budget airlines, the biggest being Ryanair. Potentially very cheap, I'm talking £20 London to Amsterdam etc. But only in advance! An alternative option is carpooling; there's websites set up where people will post journeys they're making in their car, allowing people to pay a small fee in return for a seat on said journey. Options like this are normally very safe in Europe.

For accommodation, you could take a look at Couchsurfing? It's a hospitality exchange website; it allows people to offer spare room/bed/floor etc to other people for free. Worth a try! AirBnb is similar, but you pay instead. For hostels, have a look on Hostelworld or Hostelbookers, you'll find some great hostels in all the main cities, beats just booking a bed at the first hostel you see.

You route looks great, but you'll be spending more money by jumping across Europe instead of moving slowly in one direction (e.g UK down to Portugal then jump back up to Holland, which is right by the UK. With a Eurail pass, you'll also get a big discount on the ferry from Italy to Albania.

For finding cheap attractions, there's lots of websites that'll help you out, I've found Timeout is a good site for that. Look on TripAdvisor for good restaurants, museums, shops etc.

www.eurail.com
www.eurolines.com
www.skyscanner.net
www.momondo.com
www.ryanair.com
www.hostelworld.com
www.hostelbookers.com
www.couchsurfing.org
www.blablacar.com
www.airbnb.com
www.timeout.com

That's about it from me, have fun planning!

Cheers

Reply 3

WileyWanimal

Thanks so much for your reply!
I’m traveling with one friend, and the reason for the route jumping around is that we did want to start in Turkey then gradually work our way north-west, doing the UK on the way. However, since we’re two females straight out of high school our mums weren’t very happy about us starting in Turkey, whereas I have loads and loads of family and friend in the UK, so starting there will sort of allow us to gradually ease into traveling.
I had looked at eurail passes, but you’re right that given we won’t be moving around all that often it’s not very cost effective. Also, it’s quite a bit more expensive for non-EU residents.
What did you think of the cost estimate?
Thanks again... :biggrin:

Gap Year Travelling on an Extreme budget with HelpX WWOOF etc.

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