Welcome Back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

Soundtrack for this newsletter: Les Petits Parisians - Valse de la Rose

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Vacation Showdown:

1 Week at Disney World

vs

3 Weeks in Europe

Does anyone else feel like there’s so much misguided information out there about the costs of travel? Especially of the international variety.

There’s a lot that goes into that - the idea that somehow domestic travel is cheaper (it’s not really), the idea that round trip flights to Europe are impossibly priced (they aren’t), and I think, mostly, the difficulty of understanding all the associated costs of traveling overseas. And let’s be honest, social media makes it easy to assume that the person twirling around whilst eating a baguette in front of the Eiffel Tower must be mega wealthy enough to leisurely travel (and twirl) in Paris.

It’s all totally understandable, but unfortunately misguided.

Just to prove this point, I threw together a full itinerary complete with costs for two very different trips.

Mostly because — why go to Epcot when you could, for the same price, see the real thing?

I know there are tons of Disney lovers out there shaking their fists at me (read: Lisa.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love a fun trip to Disney, and I get that they’re totally different experiences, but, just humor me.

I looked up all of the exact costs for every flight, hotel, car rental, theme park ticket - everything that I could find. I brought receipts.

The first, a 9 night trip to Disney World for two.

The second, a 22 night trip to Europe for two.

Let’s get into this.

Trip #1 - 9 Nights in Disney World

Let’s assume that we’re flying from Chicago in September for both of these trips, and that the intention is to do this trip in a reasonably budget-oriented way. No hostels, but also no 5 star hotels and crazy expensive meals. Right down the middle.

Comfortable without being bougie.

First, the easy part - the flights. We’re going from September 1 to the 10th, maximizing our time over the end of one week to the end of the next weekend. I know how hard vacation time is to come across in the USA, you gotta really squeeze out every hour.

There’s a cheap Spirit Air option, but you only have to fly Spirit one time to realize that you should never fly Spirit ever again.

United is $20 more, let’s do that.

Roundtrip flights to Orlando for 2, sorted for $452.

Next up - the hotel.

After looking at all the options, and because this is a Disney trip, I think we want to stay right at the park. It gets you a slight, but still real, discount on the tickets, and it’s not that much more expensive than staying in nearby Kissimmee.

There are some pretty junky and cheap hotels there, but that’s not the type of trip we’re trying to have.

So let’s pick the middle of the road hotel in Disney World.

$223 a night—as it turns out, not bad for the area.

The competition in the area isn’t exactly budget friendly either.

9 nights at Disney’s Port Orleans, it is.

Realistically, there’s no way that we’re going to go to the park every single day, so we’re only getting 4 days of single-park entry tickets for the two of us. If we went with 6, or all 8, the price would just skyrocket.

Walt always gets paid. Always.

That price. WHEW.

Just the tickets were $800 of that, and the rest is just the hotel.

Hotel + Park Tickets = $3380. 😳

Ok, since we’re only in the park for 4 days, and we probably can’t afford to eat every single meal in there, we probably a rental car for this adventure. Here’s the cheapest rental I could find via Kayak.

Rental car = $180 for all 9 days..not bad.

We’ll probably go back and forth to town a few times for dinner and groceries, so let’s say like $50 in Gas.

Ok, next - food and drinks.

I think we’ll cook our own breakfast with the microwave in the room, let’s say like $5 per day for that for the both of us.

Then lunch in the park on days we’re there, and lunch somewhere in town when we’re not at the park.

$35 per day for a decent budget lunch should do it.

Then some fast food dinner in town, McDonalds or something else cheap.

$20 per day.

And let’s say another $150 for other expenses - souvenirs, tips, maybe a fancy meal out, a photo with Donald Duck, you know. Whatever comes up.

FAFO.

Ok, so for this week-ish trip we have:

Flights: $452

Hotel + Park Tickets: $3380

Car: $180

Gas: $50

Food and Drinks: $540

Other: $150

Overall Total: $4,752

Alright, let’s a look at how much a 3 week trip in Europe costs for two. 

Definitely Lisa and her family not buying a photo souvenir and taking a picture of the picture at Disneyland.

(Btw: that’s her mom and her then-91 year old grandpa in the back.)

Trip #2 - 22 Nights in Europe

The idea here is to keep it simple, and travel a leisurely pace through some of Europe’s best destinations.

Let’s do 1 week somewhere awesome that has cheap flights to it, then 1 week in Rome, followed by 1 week in Paris.

The baguettes are calling, and we must answer.

We’ll be doing a lot of walking around these cities, enjoying as many free things as we can, of which there is plenty, and leaving some budget for the really once-in-a-lifetime thing, like going to the Louvre, eating all the pizza and pasta, and of course sharing a nice bottle of wine on the river while looking at the Parliament Building in Budapest.

First, the flights.

You might be clutching your wallet closely at this point, wondering if your credit card in there is going to catch fire just by thinking about taking a trip to Europe.

Let’s pull up the Explore tab in Google Flights, type in a Friday from Chicago, and then the Saturday 3 weeks after, putting in the vague “Europe” as the location so that we get the sweet map that shows how much it costs to fly to anywhere… and…

Budapest seems like the perfect place to start this trip. 

It’s an incredible city with so much to offer - especially those sweet, sweet Szechenyi baths. It’s a pool sized hot tub in a historic and beautiful building.

The food is delicious, the drinks are reasonably priced, there’s more than enough to do there and nearby for a week, and the flights are affordable.

$1272 for two people RT to Budapest. Let’s book this thing.

Ok, now that we’re there, let’s find our place to stay.

Me not twirling.

A quick search on Booking.com and I found this sweet apartment right in the center of the city for $376 for our 7 night stay there. Not too fancy, not too budget - just right.

Done and done.

Next, let’s head to Rome.

Flights are pretty affordable, just grab this flight for $108 on good ole’ reliable Wizz Air for the both of us and we’re good to go.

This nice apartment is just $519 for a week in Rome. Looks pretty great actually.

Next stop, Paris. 

$60 for the two of us. Done and done.

It’s a bit pricier to stay in the City of Lights, no matter what time of year, but there’s still some great options.

Let’s book this apartment in the 9th for $665 for the week. That’ll do.

Then we just need a flight from Paris back to Budapest to catch our return flight home, and one night in a hotel near the airport.

Flight = $123

Hotel = $43

Now let’s talk food and drink - we can do grocery store breakfast everywhere.

Maybe the Lisa and Josh special, some muesli or a giant baguette with meats and cheese - $5 per day on average.

Then we can grab a sandwich or some street food to picnic for lunch every day (must also not forget the always reliable kebab) - $15 per day.

Picnicking in Venice

The Florence Cathedral never looked so good

And let’s go out for dinner every night, at some mid-range spot for under 10 euros per plate.

Budapest will be cheaper than Rome or Paris, I think $20 will work as an average.

And, a beer for us both or bottle of wine every night would cost about $5 (bonkers, right?)

I can be fancy.

Then for transportation, let’s budget $15 per day for getting around town - taking the subway, buses, or street cars depending on which city we’re in. But, we’ll more than likely just be doing a ton of walking.

Total for that over the trip will be $315.

Not sure why I thought to pick up this newspaper like I could actually read it.

Ok, let’s add all that up.

3 Weeks in Europe Trip for 2:

Flights

RT Flights to Budapest: $1272

Flight to Rome: $108

Flight to Paris: $60

Flight back to Budapest: $123

Accommodations 

Budapest Apartment 1 Week: $376

Rome Apartment 1 Week: $519

Paris 1 Week: $665

Last night in Budapest: $43

Food and Drinks

$45 * 21 days = $945

Transportation

$15*21 days = $315

Overall Total : $4426

So, if we take the difference between the cost of this one and the Disney World trip that leaves us with $386 extra that we can spend on whatever fun things we want to do.

Like more pasta, please.

Now, neither of these trips are particularly super-cheap, and both could assuredly be done for a lot less, (or a lot more.)

But I do think that we accomplished the mission of finding a budget-conscious trip to both destinations, without going overboard into too luxurious or too cheap.

However, just the fact that a 3 week trip to Europe is even close to the cost of a single week in Disney World, let alone it ending up almost $400 cheaper, says it all.

That’s it for this week! Hope you enjoyed this one :)

Today

After a couple of months out and about traveling and filming, we’re back at home and it feels pretty sweet. Seeing friends and family, making coffee with our coconut pour over, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and editing the remainder of our 3 Days in X videos. Life is good :)

The (Near) Future

Australia? New Zealand? What do you think we should do?

Our Latest Videos

The much requested Kyoto and Osaka video. Come and get it :)

The second of our series—3 Days in Taipei! (Ok…more like 3.75 days.) This one was a special one for us. Still dreaming of the food.

The first of our series—3 Days in Mexico City! We had a blast.

See you next week…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

Oh, and if you want to learn how we afford to take all these trips after quitting our jobs 3 years ago, you’ll likely be interested in our Skillshare course on Travel Hacking and Frequent Flier Miles.

It’s been really taking off lately, but we still have a few uses of this link left for those of you who want to see the class for free. It comes with a free month of Skillshare, which is more than enough to watch our class and any of the other great courses on there!

Check it out here: https://skl.sh/lisaandjosh02221

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