Italy Costs
Posted on November 18, 2012 4 Comments
Our hotel in Trieste, on the Adriatic, fancy!
Some of you asked me how much my Italy trip cost.
The honest truth is that I don’t yet know the true cost of the trip. Several elements factor into that:
- The trip was a gift to my mom. Therefore, I started putting money into an account for her about 5 years ago. The first check I wrote was for $500, and since then I’ve put checks of about $50 to $250 in the account for her birthdays, mothers days, and Christmas gifts. I don’t have access to the account (my brother, who also contributes, managed the account), so I don’t know how much I’ve put in over the years. I’m not going to factor that portion in to this recap.
- I split a few costs with other members of the trip, including the cost of the rooms and the rental car and gas. We still haven’t settled the costs. But I estimate they probably even out, since we each paid for a different portion. I only included my estimated portion here.
- I have a few hundred Euros that I still need to exchange and deposit in my account. Every time I’ve had the opportunity to go to the bank to change them back to dollars, the exchange rate has been lower than the price at which I bought them. Since I don’t want to lose as much as 10 cents on every dollar, I’m waiting for exchange rate to even out before depositing them. I don’t need the money right now, so I have luxury of waiting. It’s just going back into my savings account.
- Through no fault of their own, my parents underestimated how many euros they would need. I estimated pretty well, so I ended up serving as a bank for them at the end of the trip (they don’t use a bank card and the cash exchanges rates were ridiculously high). It was OK, because I anticipated that this would happen and loaded up my checking account before we left with some money for them. It ended up being a pain in the ass though, because I had to keep factoring exchange rates for money I had gotten in advance vs. money I took out in Italy (…they wanted to give me American dollars every time to stay squared away. Until they ran out of those dollars too. Oh well.). I tried to be very good about keeping financial records on the trip, but towards the end I sort of threw my hands up and pledged not to worry about it. After all, the trip was a gift, and if I spent all day bookkeeping and worrying about finances, I wouldn’t have had time to enjoy the scenery.
So what I’ll share with you are the costs I can account for right now. Obviously I still have some accounting work to do. But here is a good ballpark of what I spent. As I said, this is NOT the trip I would have planned for my cheap-o self. The costs were high for lodging and in-country transit (cars vs. trains).
Airfare: Via AirFrance, Chicago to Italy, roundtrip, with one layover in France
$875
The view from my bathroom in Trieste. What?
Lodging, 10 days: Goal was for each room to be no more than 100 euro per night. To accomplish this, I split my room with two other people on the trip. We stayed in rooms that were 250 to 300 euro per night, and split the cost among the three of us. These were very swanky hotels. Though these costs are not yet set, I think this would end up being just about right once we’re all settled. TBD, though. This is what was on my card:
$1,414
Spending money: I estimated 100 euro (or $130-ish) per day for three meals, drinks, transportation (including gas for our rentals and any taxis, buses, or trains), sightseeing costs (entry fees) and souveniers. I did not spend all of this. I probably spent closer to 600 or 700 euro.
$1,369.50
So, before I include any major purchases, I’m already at $3,658. Ouch. But, I returned with 200 euro and $300 American dollars in my wallet. The American dollars were for Euros other travelers bought off me on the trip, including one trip to the ATM. The euros were from my original stash. I never went to the cash machine for me, only for others. (Can you see how this was a headache?)
Our hotel in Venice, on Il Lido.
I have been saving for this trip for about five years. I didn’t need to put anything on credit; I bought the whole trip in cash, and I didn’t dip into my downpayment savings account for it. So whatever the hell happened with my cash while I was there was fine. I kept focus on my bottom line and tried not to worry too much about anything else. Was my wallet and my brain messy? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.
Prior to the trip, and on the trip, I made a few purchases outside of the spending money I brought.
On the trip I spent 170 euro unexepectedly on a camera lens after mine fell out my hand in Assisi and crashed onto a marble floor, breaking the lens lock. I was trying to do too many things at once, such as taking a photo, holding stuff, and watching a baby. That teaches me my lesson. The lens ended up costing $226.14 American dollars, because f’ing Chase charged me a fee on top the exchange rate. Dang.
I also bought some new boots, walking shoes, jeans, and a backpack prior to the trip, but I’m not counting those as solely trip expenses because I’m using all of these items heavily at home. I did feel I should at least share that cost in this recap, about $300.
Entrance to our Florence hotel. So pretty!
For my accounting, 10 days in Italy and Slovenia, with very swanky digs in many different cities and a sweet European ride, appears to have cost me about $3,600 to cover my own costs. I have a side job this month that will make about $1,000 of that back, which is awesome. It all came out of cash, no credit. It’s more than I’ve spent on any other trip, ever. But I remain glad I went, and because we planned so far ahead it didn’t make a dent in my finances.
We don’t have any trips planned this winter (bummer, we usually try to spend a frugal weekend somewhere warm to escape the bitter cold here) or for next spring. After Yellowstone and Italy, we need to curb expenses for a bit before the holidays. Frankly, I’m really glad to be done planning and accounting for this adventure, and am looking forward to thinking about our next budget trip in 2013!
Category: Money
Tags: Italy , Travel
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4 Responses to “Italy Costs”
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November 19th, 2012 @ 9:11 am
Sounds fun and totally worth it! You’ve got some lucky parents.
November 19th, 2012 @ 12:04 pm
I am so glad you had a great trip! And what a great daughter!
November 20th, 2012 @ 5:01 pm
Sounds like it was a great investment! I’m impressed it didn’t cost a lot more.
November 21st, 2012 @ 4:16 pm
Woah! Hi Tim! Well, mostly I am EXTREMELY cheap. I would have liked to have spent more money on food and drink, but we were so incredibly busy every day we didn’t have a lot of time to relax!