Cyprus Mail 11 July 2021 - by Andrew Rosenbaum
As a great many of us here in Cyprus either are already fully vaccinated, or are close to getting both jabs, the possibility of European travel, armed with our EU Digital Covid-19 Certificates (very easily available at https://www.eudcc.gov.cy/), becomes quite tempting.
Many of us had simply given up on travel, as we’ve been effectively barred for such a long time, but now it’s time to compare and contrast the various possible destinations.
How do costs compare among the EU 27? (We have deliberately left Greece off the list as most locals here are well-acquainted with the country).
It probably won’t surprise many, but France gets the title as the most expensive country for travellers, according to World of Wanderlust, with a cost-per-day to tourists of €182.19. Meals cost on average €33 per day, and transportation is about €25.
This is because everyone goes to Paris and few get out into les provinces. Paris now even tops the Economist list of the world’s most expensive cities, although it’s largely because of the euro’s rise against the dollar.
The simple fact is that most of France’s very considerable wealth resides in the seventh and sixteenth district of Paris, and merchants who operate in the city of light expect more.
The answer for visitors to France is to see Paris, but then to spend part of your time in the country in other parts. There is almost no place to go in France where you won’t find great sites to visit, and there is no place where you won’t find great food. So get on the TGV!
Malta is right up there with France. According to Budget Your Trip, it can cost even more per day than Paris, but this depends almost entirely on how much your hotel costs.
Travellers should expect to spend, on average, €35 on meals for one day and €19 on local transportation. Add your hotel to that and it’s not cheap.
Switzerland is also right up there at the top, but there are two good reasons for this. Like Paris, Switzerland collects the wealthy with its tax system and (unlike Paris) with its great organisation. So you have to expect more than €200 per day on a hotel, €40 on meals for one day and €25 on local transportation.
Finally, the prices drop as we move on to Denmark, which will cost you about €160 per your vacation day. Hotels are again the expensive item, at €140 per day, but you can save a lot by finding cheaper accommodation. Meals will set you back about €40 per day, and transport about €25.
The Netherlands is not much cheaper, sadly, although Copenhagen is actually much more expensive than Amsterdam (lots of cheap places to eat in the latter). Hotels, however, will still set you back €130 per day in the city of canals, although outside Amsterdam, the prices are a lot lower as a rule (try the Hague, which also has great museums). The average cost of meals is about €35, and transport will cost about €20 per day.
Now, Italy should be fairly hard to generalise about, and we cast a bit of doubt on these numbers. It is possible to find very cheap and acceptable accommodation in Italy, though not in the centre of Rome, of course (look on the east side of the Vatican, behind the Basilica). For the record, the average price of a hotel is €134. You can certainly pay €36 for meals in one day, but you can also get a plate of pasta and glass of rosso for about €10. Average local transport costs are €21, but this can be much more or much less depending on what city you are in.
Germany comes surprisingly far down on our list at about €120 per day. The cost of living in Berlin has always been very low – an economic inheritance of the days when the Berlin Wall still deterred visitors. Berlin is still the cheapest capital in Western Europe, according to housinganywhere.com. But tourists always pay a bit more (even in Cyprus) so you should expect to fork out €32 per day for meals and €19 for transportation.
One would perhaps expect Spain to be like Italy, but it has stayed at a fairly accessible level for many years, costing only about €110 per day. Hotel costs really vary in Spain, but meals are still about €32 and transport €22. Again, budget travellers recommend getting out of the big cities and enjoying some provincial sites, in which Spain is just as rich as France.
And everything said about Spain applies almost perfectly to Portugal.
Now let’s get down to the real budget destinations: At €80 per day, we have Estonia, Czech Republic, Croatia.
Between €70 and €60 per day we have Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia.
And the cheapest place for tourists in the EU is, somewhat surprisingly, Poland, at €45 per day.
To get a basis for comparison, here is how budgetyourtrip.com places Cyprus:
“How much money will you need for your trip to Cyprus? You should plan to spend around €82 per day. Past travellers have spent, on average, €33 ($39) on meals for one day and €9.82 ($12) on local transportation. Also, the average hotel price in Cyprus is €75 ($89).”
