[Editor's Note: Today's WCI Network post comes from Physician on FIRE and is all about a past vacation he took with his family. Wondering how FIRE advocates and other frugalistas go on international trips? Well, this is what they look like.]
Last fall, my inbox teased me with a remarkable deal. Paris for $410 Roundtrip.
I clicked where the e-mail told me to click for further details. Amazingly, the deal offered lined up with time I had off from work and partially coincided with our boys’ spring break.
The flights were on Icelandair, an airline I’ve flown on a couple prior trips to Europe. As I have twice before, I took advantage of the free stopover option, extending our layover on the way home from a couple of hours to a couple of days. Within an hour of receiving the e-mail, our family of four was booked for a trip to France and Iceland. After visiting Florida over spring break two of the last three years, embarking on a European vacation would be quite the departure for us.
Pre Flight Preparations
We wanted our boys to be excited about the trip, but also to understand that it wouldn’t be all about them or entirely for them, like a family vacation to Florida tends to be. Amazon Prime had some videos that highlighted our destinations, including a show specific to touring Paris with younger children, and we saw the highlights of Iceland in another.
Our local library had a book about Paris aimed squarely at the grade school crowd. A kind cousin sent the boys a care package that included a Mission Paris book that sent our boys on discovery missions at many of the major attractions throughout the city. There were practical considerations. We had to apply for passports for the young ones with plenty of time to spare. One of their pictures was rejected for too much smiling of all things. The kid’s eight. He’s happy. Give me a break.
My wife and I also viewed Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris a second time, and borrowed tourist books on both Paris and Iceland from the library, and renewed them to take on the trip.
Our cell phones work worldwide on wifi, so we knew we could keep in touch without much trouble. The AirBNB apartments we rented were equipped with wifi, and the apartment in Paris had a washing machine, so we would be able to pack light.
How We Spent $500 a Day
This is a money blog with a side of travel, so I’ll be reporting on our trip from a perspective that focuses on the cost and value of our various adventures.
We vacation much in the same way that we live our lives. We don’t splurge often and don’t like to waste money, but we target our spending to get the most bang for our buck in the areas that matter to us most. To some people, that will be food, and it’s really easy to splurge on food in Paris and Reykjavik. Others like to pay for comfort and luxury in travel and accommodations.
We like food, but we’re not foodies, and we’re perfectly happy with three-star accommodations. We’re most interested in seeing the sites we want to see, snapping the photos I want to shoot, and making sure the boys get a rich cultural experience.
I’ll break down our choices and costs by category:
- Transportation
- Lodging
- Food
- Drink
- Experiences
That covers just about everything other than gifts we bought for friends and family back home, but I’m not gonna lie — that was just Icelandic beer and booze from the Keflavik duty free shop.
Transportation
European capitals are typically easy to navigate by subway and train. Paris is no exception. We probably hopped on and off the subway 30 times and never waited more than four minutes. The express RER trains come a little less frequently, but zip you across town with fewer stops.
The morning of our first full day in Paris, we bought 3-day Visite passes for unlimited public transportation within zones 1-3 (we never left zone 1). We would have bought a 4-day pass, but they don’t offer that flavor. On the fourth day, we bought 1-day passes.
Day five, we bought the 5-zone pass on the RER train to Disneyland Paris, and bought one-way tickets back. Day six, we bought one-way tickets to our departing airport, Charles de Gaulle, which, although further from the city than Orly, is an easy single train ride away. For four of us, it still cost just about as much as the taxi from Orly, though.
In Iceland, we rented a car. Gas, like everything else under the midnight sun, is quite expensive at nearly $8 a gallon, but we wanted to drive the Golden Circle and have transportation to and around Reykjavik, so the car was a no-brainer at under $60 a day for two days.
What about airport parking back home while we were away? I planned to park at a shuttle lot near the airport, but when we pulled up, it was full! We phoned a friend who lives reasonably close, and asked if we could park in the driveway. Thank you, friend!
I dropped the family off at the airport, parked at our friend’s house, jogged the 3.1 miles to the light rail transit stop, and joined my family at the airport shortly thereafter. I could have taken an Uber (I did on the reverse trip when we got home), but an impromptu 5k seemed like a good idea at the time.
I snapped this photo of geese walking on water with my phone along the route.
Total Transportation Costs:
- Iceland Car Rental $113
- Iceland Gas $50
- Paris Taxi: $37
- Paris Public Transport: $198
- “Parking” = Uber + Light Rail: $13
- Four Roundtrip Flights: $1,668
- Total: $2,079
Lodging
Paris and Reykjavik are known to be a couple of the world’s more expensive cities. A small hotel room in a central location in either city starts at $200 US and goes up from there. Traveling as a family of four, we were not enthused at the thought of squeezing into a few hundred square feet, listening to our youngest snore (he was getting over a cold), looking for laundromats (or packing 3x as many clothes), and eating every meal out.
Airbnb to the rescue!
Our criteria for an apartment in both locations were specific. Two bedrooms. A kitchen. Within walking distance of the town center. And no more expensive than a hotel.
We were able to find a place in both cities that met all our criteria for about $160 a day, and we had quite a few places to choose from.
our view from the paris apartment
In Paris, we had a seventh-floor apartment with views of the Eiffel Tower, Parthenon, Notre Dame, and Sacre Couer. Within a block, we had a small grocer, a bakery, and a few small cafes. A few blocks further, we had metro stops and a supermarket. We were on the “Right Bank,” a block north of the River Seine. It was a great location.
the boys’ room
The Icelandic apartment was a quirky setup in the basement of a home about a block away from the large pond known as Lake Tjörnin, and a few blocks south of downtown and the main shopping district along Laugavegur. There was a public swimming pool (these are a big deal in Iceland) within walking distance, but we chose to drive to a couple better ones that were equipped with waterslides.
bonus points if you spot the boy
If you haven’t tried Airbnb before, I recommend it, and I can save you $40 if you sign up through this link. Be sure to read reviews and understand that you’re usually staying in someone’s place. Expect to see some personal effects, have a half-full pantry, and in Europe at least, there may not be a coffee maker, much to my wife’s chagrin.
Airbnb is a great way to find unique lodgings, like treehouses, houseboats, and Airstreams.
Total Lodging Costs:
- Paris Airbnb $1,010
- Iceland Airbnb $321
- Total: $1,331
Food
There were no vegetables. My wife wants you all to know how I deprived her and our once-growing children of any vegetables.
I did pick up a salad mix once and bought some frozen cauliflower in Iceland, but compared to our normal diet, vegetables, like us, were on vacation.
As I stated, we’re not exactly foodies, and I’ve got more food aversions than I like to admit. We’ve also got American kids that eat like most American kids, so fine dining was not on our menu.
Our first evening in town, we sat down at an outdoor café where little English was spoken. We ordered the fixed price meal of the day, and a chicken quesadilla for the boys. I’m not sure what we ate — there was an appetizer that was cheese and tomato based, the main course had shrimp and some kind of food in a hollowed out squash, and a dessert that was the yummy love child of crème brulee and bread pudding.
After dinner, we went grocery shopping.
Breakfast every day consisted of fruit, bread, and cheese. We picked up fresh baguettes daily and packed sandwiches with cheese and three or four kinds of meat (deli ham, prosciutto, salami, chorizo) to go. We generally had our dinners out, but sauteed a couple kinds of fish at home one evening in Paris.
In Iceland, on average, everything costs about double what you would expect to pay. By the time we were settled in our apartment, it was past dinnertime, and we somehow ended up at the mall. A plate of subpar Chinese food was $17 USD and a footlong sub with a drink was over $10 — and that was the daily special.
After looking over a few menus at the mall and downtown, we decided to do some grocery shopping. We somehow spent nearly $100 for two days worth of food. That included a nice big chunk of marinated salmon, more sandwich supplies, gelato, chips, crackers, cheeses, breakfast cereal, and four cans of a Redbull knockoff that was the bargain of the trip at 59 Icelandic króna (about $0.55) or half the price of a diet cola.
Drink
There was no coffee. I get nasty looks when I book a place that doesn’t have a machine where you push a button as you roll out of bed and have fresh coffee by the time you wipe the sleep from your eyes. I got nasty looks in two countries.
The French apartment had only instant coffee, and the Icelandic one had a malfunctioning French press (you’d think the French place would have had a French press, am I right?). My wife jerry-rigged a drip system and somehow survived. I get my fix from diet soda, which was not hard to come by in either destination.
There was beer. While on vacation, I crave good beer in the evening as much as she needs her morning java. The Carrefour Market in France was the best source for all our grocery needs, including €0.55 baguettes, and it was a superb beer stop. 33 cl bottles of Chimay and Duvel for ~ €1.50. Six packs of Leffe Triple and Hoegaarden for ~ €5.50 and €4.50. €3.00 to €4.00 bombers of IPA. Six evenings of quality “imports” set us back less than $40 USD.
happy hour: royale with cheese
In heaven, there is no beer. In Iceland, there is no affordable beer. The first evening, I bought three singles for $13 and decided to save them for our last night. I bought a $29 six pack of an Icelandic Imperial Stout at the duty-free shop, which was actually a nearly 50% discount from the shelf price at Vínbúðin.
Total Food & Drink Costs:
- Paris Restaurant & Snacks: $146
- Paris Grocery & Drinks: $124
- Iceland Restaurant: $25
- Iceland Grocery & Duty Free Shop: $122
- Total: $417
Experiences
Experiences are where it’s at. There are plenty of great travel experiences that don’t cost a thing, but you can’t experience the views from the top of the Eiffel Tower without paying for the right to go up there.
There are probably ways to sneak into Paris’ catacombs, but we took the safe route, paid the price of admission, and waited the two hours in line. The bones had been waiting for us for centuries, so two hours seemed reasonable. That was the longest line by far that we experienced on the trip.
notre dame: our son’s first communion
When you’ve got six days to explore a city like Paris with a rich history and a main attraction on every other block, you’ve got to pick and choose your experiences, and try to squeeze in at least a couple each day.
so much to see
Our whirlwind tour included The Louvre, aforementioned Eiffel Tower and Catacombs, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Sacre Couer, Opera Garnier, several other churches and historic buildings, numerous parks, playgrounds, and the happiest playground in Europe: Disneyland Paris and it’s neighbor, Walt Disney Studios.
Our boys (6 & 8) impressed us with their stamina and relative patience. They loved the subway system and probably walked at least five miles a day. We were out of the apartment eight to ten hours a day and they were troopers, even in places that weren’t particularly exciting for them.
It helped that we had the Mission Paris book and the promise that if they earned enough points, we would take them someplace amazing on our last day. A place I referred to as “le church de Saint Mickey (pronounced Mi Kay)” They didn’t get the joke, which made for a wonderful surprise.
Amazingly, four one-day passes to both parks only set us back $196. You couldn’t snag two one-park passes for that in the states.
In Iceland, we had grand plans to drive the Golden Circle which includes a continental divide, a geyser with the killer name Strokkur that spews hot water every five minutes, and a ginormous waterfall called Gullfoss.
gullfoss from our 2007 trip
We stepped out at Þingvellir to see the place where the tectonic plates are spreading apart at the same speed our fingernails are growing (true story).
Þingvellir 2017
We stepped into 40 mph winds to be pelted in the face by small hunks of slushy wetness. We sprinted to the crowded visitors center and back to the car a minute later. I snapped one quick photo and recalled how lovely the place was when my wife (fiancee back then) and I visited in June nearly ten years ago.
We were less than halfway to the geyser and waterfall when the road started to look impassible with accumulating slush and blowing snow. I’m no stranger to driving in inclement weather, but when the axles and muffler start to forge a path through the wet packed snow, it’s time to turn around.
Þingvellir 2007
We regrouped, took a few hours stroll through town, made dinner, and hit up a neighborhood swimming pool.
These pools are all the rage in Iceland. You can’t pass high school without being a proficient swimmer, and the geothermal energy keeps these mostly outdoor waterparks cozy warm year round. This was my third two-day stopover in Iceland in fifteen years, and I made my third pilgrimage to Laugardalslaug that first evening.
We found an even better pool at Árbæjarlaug the second evening. The weather became atrocious by the end of our third hour there, but you haven’t lived if you haven’t walked from the sauna to the 42° to 44° (107.6° to 111.2° F water) hot pot in a full-on blizzard.
Your blood is near boiling, your head and neck are at risk of hypothermia. On average, you’re just right.
Árbæjarlaug on a good day
Total Cost of Experiences & Admissions:
- Paris Experiences: $428
- Iceland Experiences: $38
- Total: $466
The Grand Total
Cost of our European Vacation:
- Transportation: $2,079
- Lodging: $1331
- Food & Drink: $417
- Experiences: $466
- Total: $4293
Altogether, this nine-day trip (which was essentially eight days in Europe plus travel time) cost us just under $4,300 or nearly $500 a day.
Extrapolated to a 365-day year, it would cost us $174,105 to live this way year-round, and that’s not accounting for any other fixed expenses. Of course, we wouldn’t choose to travel at this frenzied pace all year long.
How We Would Slow Travel Differently
With an early retirement feeling imminent, I view most vacations not so much as escapes, but as scouting missions. We see how our boys handle different environments and schedules (better than anticipated). We learn what it’s like to live and how much it might cost to be in these far-flung places.
I find myself thinking about how I would do these trips differently if I had a month or two rather than a week or two. For example, I read with envy the detailed breakdown Justin @ Root of Good gave us for his upcoming European vacation. He’s planning nine weeks, 8 countries, and 14 cities with a budget of $10,000.What would we do differently if we had 90 days instead of nine?
We would stay further from the city center, perhaps renting for a month at a time at less than half the cost.
We would do one big paid experience every two or three days instead of two or three a day, and would have time before and after to learn more about the museum / historical site / iconic tower.
We’d be more efficient with grocery shopping and meal planning.
We would have reloadable public transport cards and would pay for trips as needed.
Beer drinking would resemble our home pattern of maybe three nights a week and not eight.
Adopting a slow travel mindset, we could probably stay someplace five times as long for about double the cost of a one-week trip. The airfare is a fixed cost. We probably would not spend much more on admissions to attractions. We’d spend more on food and perhaps more on lodging, but certainly less on a per-night basis.
Have you had an opportunity to slow travel? What’s your biggest travel splurge? Questions about traveling with kids? I’m happy to swap stories in the comments below.
Nice to hear about your vacation. We hope to go to Iceland one day.
Just as a side note. Financially we felt that Airbnb was never a good deal. It was overpriced, inconsistent quality and worst of all, every trip gets slapped with 100s of dollars of fees such as cleaning, Airbnb’s cut, taxes. Is was often cheaper to book two rooms in a good hotel instead of their two bedroom apartment.
We’ve had the opposite experience.
You can’t blame Airbnb for some of the issues — it’s up to the homeowner to determine how much to charge per night, whether to offer a weekly and/or monthly discount, and how much the cleaning fee will be. Also what’s included, how clean the place is, how it’s furnished, etc… Airbnb is just the platform that connects you.
I would guess we’ve used Airbnb or VRBO 15 to 20 times around the world. We had issues with a place not being as advertised in Puerto Rico, but have generally been very pleased with the value and options. YMMV.
Best,
-PoF
I am simply making a point. This website deals with spending money wisely. All I am saying is Airbnb may not be the most cost efficient way.
Wonderful to have choices isn’t it? We’ve had a lot of trips where we were better off renting a house than multiple hotel rooms, both in terms of what we got and the price. Other times a hotel works out better.
It doesn’t really count as “slow travel,” but we are currently at the end of an 11-day vacation; a deviation from our typical 7-day. The mindset and pace has been entirely different. And really nice. There’s been time to sleep in, revisit favorite spots, try something new, and just savor our surroundings. I’m hooked.
It’s great to slow the pace when traveling. Our best family trip ever was three weeks in Guanajuato about a year and a half ago.
Note I didn’t use the term “vacation” because it’s a different sort of feel. https://www.physicianonfire.com/three-weeks-guanajuato/
Cheers!
-PoF
my burning question: what alerts have you set up, on which sites, that let you know about airfare deals? I’ve tried a few but end up getting spammed.
Thanks
My burning answer: That was a Travelzoo alert, but more recently, I’ve found Scott’s Cheap Flights to be the best for amazing flight deals, specifically. I’m on the free list, and they do offer a paid version.
We booked 4 round trip flights to spend 2 months in Ecuador late fall / early Winter for $387 apiece. Had to fly out of Chicago to get that rate, but we’ll find our way there.
Cheers!
-PoF
What airline offers Paris round trip for less than $420? You must live near a main hub. Because I can’t fly that price domestically let alone internationally.
Icelandair out of MSP.
It does help to live close enough to fly from a major city. We’re actually a couple of hours north, but we have taken an affordable airport shuttle and figured out cheap parking (downtown ramp ride fly program) for lengthier trips. Stay-n-fly with a hotel works, too, and we’ve done that several times with a Hyatt Place.
Cheers!
-PoF
Glad you had such a fun trip with your clan! You have a talent for writing, PoF. Thanks for the laughs.
You jogged 3 miles to the airport before an international flight? I find that amazing.
It does sound a bit silly looking back, but it was one of the first nice days of the spring and it felt great to be outside in March after a long, cold winter. And by nice, I mean 50 degrees Farenheit. So I didn’t work up a sweat.
Cheers!
-PoF
Now that my husband has retired we’re finally going on longer trips and I’m really enjoying it. I’m still full time but can get two weeks off in a row fairly easily and sometimes even three weeks off. Two and three week trips are just a huge step up in awesomeness and relaxation from the hectic four to seven day trips we used to have to take before his retirement.
POF, that is spectacular that you’ll have two months in Ecuador! Pure luxury to have that long!
Sounds like a wonderful trip. Re lack of vegetables – you went to the supermarket in both France and Iceland. I haven’t been to Iceland, but French supermarkets are full of vegetables!
Great blog. Thanks for posting. Just want to give one tip that may help others. We live about 45min away from two major airports. Calculating the parking costs (which usually is one day more than the time away), it may be cheaper for us to rent a car locally, fill up gas near the airport, give the car back upon arrival to the airport, and do the reverse when we return. This is not always the case but twice we have done this on long trips (one at each airport). Uber and other transportation shuttles are more expensive.
Closest thing we’ve done to slow travel was on our most recent trip. Spent a few days in Chicago and a few in Seattle. But in between we took the Amtrak train Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle. 46hrs of just sitting around spending time with my wife and watching the world go by. PoF, I waved at you when we went through Minnesota, did you see me?
My wife and I have talked about spending a month or longer in some of our favorite cities instead of more frantic trips when we finally do retire.
My problem with slow travel is I get bored. I actually kind of like a frenetic pace. If I had more time in a location, I’d just do more, not the same amount of stuff at a slower pace! Maybe it’s my ADD….
Curious about why you chose to celebrate your son’s reception of the Sacrament of First Holy Communion in Paris and how hard that was to arrange with the church and your home parish. That must have been the highlight of the trip for him. What a wonderful memory for him and your family.