Calling all European Backpacking pros! Will you please help me?

Question

I am planning a trip to backpack through Europe with a friend. I need to know if this budget is correct and if it will be enough for one person. We are going to be there for 60 days and we both have ISIC cards.... PLEASE FEEL FREE TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS IF YOU SEE A BUDGET IS TOO HIGH OR TOO LOW! If you do, please tell me how I can improve. Thank you so much!

Backpack- 90$

Plane Ticket- 500$

ISIC Card- 22$

Eurail Pass- 700$

Lodging- 700$

Other Transport- 300$

Emergency- 400$

Passport- 100$

Guide Books/ Maps/ Discount Cards- 150$

Food- 1500$

Spending- 1000$

Travel Clothes/ Shoes and Toiletries- 850$

Answer 1

Lodging will be more like $1500 each.  Most hostels in Western Europe cost $20-25 per person.  Cheap hotels are generally $40-60 for a double room.

The plane ticket will probably be higher than $500 - in the summer more like $1000 unless you are flying between two major hubs like New York - London.

You don't need $150 each for guidebooks.  You need one good all-Europe guidebook each, and then maybe buy a guidebook for a city that you plan on spending a lot of time in.  I would recommend that one of you get Rough Guides and the other get Lonely Planet.  A good guidebook will have basic maps for every city, and you can usually get a free detailed map from the tourist office.  If you want to spend a lot of time in a specific city and see a lot more than just the basic tourist stuff, I would recommend the Time Out guides, which are written more for locals than tourists.  Their Paris and London guides are excellent.

I don't see how you are going to spend $850 on travel clothes and shoes.  What do you need to buy that you don't already have?

Do keep in mind that British trains and Greek Island ferries are not covered by the Eurailpass - if you plan on traveling around England and/or Greece you may need to add a few hundred to your transport costs.

Answer 2

Are these US dollars?

I think you need to budget a fair bit more for lodging. In europe I found i spend much more on hostels than I did on food, perhaps swap those 2 figure.

Accommodation, food and transport costs can vary greatly depending on which countries you are visiting. generally eastern europe is much cheaper than western europe.

If you wanted to get more accurate in your budgetting you should map out a rough itinerary, get a guidebook such as lonely plant and use that as a base for costs. To be safe I'd add on about 15% to the lonely planet prices as between their research is done and you read the guide prices would have gone up.

You also really should get travel insurance to cover you for emergency medical expenses, repatriation and possibly for lost or damaged luggage.