Europe Trip 2019 Cost

What did we do in Dublin, Ireland and what did we think of it.

We were in Dublin, Ireland for a total of 3 nights, we got here on a Thursday afternoon and left very early on Sunday.

I’d say that was more than enough time to go checkout downtown where you can find all kinds of bars and restaurants such as The Temple Bar which is extremely expensive but well worth the money. The atmosphere at The Temple Bar was great, lots of people super happy to be there and great live music playing at all times. We also went to check out the Guinness Storehouse where we learned to drink Guinness the right way (they’ll teach you how), they said the beer we were drinking there was anywhere between 3-5 days old which is extremely fresh and that probably explains why it is so tasty compared to the stuff you get in the United States; also they teach how to drink it properly and I think that has a lot to do with why it was so tasty. The Guinness Storehouse has like 7 different floor levels and in each of them you’ll see the process that it takes to make Guinness beer. They of course have a gift shop, restaurants, free tasting rooms, and bars in a couple levels where you can get Guinness beer and many others. If you’re and IPA lover you’re out of luck because they only have one single IPA that was 5%, it was pretty weak, in my opinion it tasted like Coors Light with a bit of hops.

Anyways…

My girlfriend and I walked around Dublin all day long for like 9 or 10 hours and we managed to check out many of their bridges, churches, pubs, and other other attractions. To be honest we didn’t keep track of the names of the places we saw but we are both very satisfied with what we saw and got to experience.

If you go to Dublin, we recommend that you stay downtown that way you don’t have to deal with taking the bus into town because the bus system here isn’t the best, buses are usually late, sometimes 5 minutes sometimes 40 minutes, but that was just our experience here.

We stayed in Blanchardstown and it would take about an hour to get into town by bus, Google maps would say that by taxi/car it would take 15 minutes but the fare for a taxi was about 30-35 euros one way trip (from where we were staying at). We decided to only ride the bus because it was the cheapest option from where we were staying at, we paid 35 euros for a three day pass each. The three day pass gave us discounts to other attractions as well, such as the Guinness Storehouse; they only discounted a euro though but we got a free pint of beer at any bar in the Guinness Storehouse.

Kayla had the opportunity to work with a very kind, energetic and professional photographer in Dublin. If you didn’t know, Kayla is a model, now you know. The photographer took us to two different castles and a beach north of Dublin. The experience was awesome for both of us because we got to know a local that really knew the history of Ireland and he drove us around to the three places where they took photos.

My favorite thing about my visit to Dublin was walking around the city near The Temple Bar, I liked their architecture and the colors the city has. People seem to be friendly and open to help you find your way around town. Sometimes they’ll just see that you look lost and they’ll come up to you and offer to help you find your way. My least favorite thing was the bus system and how arrival times were never accurate.

Check out some pictures we took in Dublin.

Check out what we bought and how much we spent during our three night stay to get an idea of how much you will need to visit Dublin, Ireland.

Check out our Instagram Dublin highlights in our profiles for more videos and pictures and to get to know who we are @lalinho80 @kaylalal0 @reneekayla.redhead

How we got Euros and Swedish Krona for our Europe Trip 2019.

Kayla and I are very excited to travel, as I write this, we are less than a week away from departing to Dublin, Ireland which is our very first stop to our month long European trip in which we will also visit Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Rome in Italy, Copenhagen in Denmark and Lund and Malmo in Sweden.

This will be the first time for Kayla traveling to Europe and my third time going. I am just as excited about it as if it was my very first time going out there. I know I want to explore places that I didn’t have time to do before and of course I am excited to show Kayla some of the places that I have already experienced.

You may not know but Kayla and I are keeping track of how much we spend and what we spend our money on during this trip in all the cities we visit. We are doing it to give people an idea of how much travel fare, accommodations, food and entertainment cost; we are also doing it for ourselves, so we can stay accountable for what we spend our money on and to stay within our $5000.00 USD budget. If you wish to see our expenditure go check out the website where we upload it to.

Anyways…

Now actually how we got Euros and Swedish Krona for our Europe Trip 2019.

So a couple weeks ago we decided we wanted to get foreign currency for the countries we are going to visit in August 2019. The two types of currencies we needed were Euros and Swedish Krona.

We decided to get $802.33 & $101.16 USD, we wanted to get $900 but it ended up being a little more because we could only get amounts of money that ended with the number 0, for example 100 Euros would be okay but not 102 Euros; that’s because banks in the U.S. don’t normally work with foreign coins, they only handle bills.

Then we ended up paying $7.50 USD for the foreign currency to be mailed to our local bank where we decided we wanted to pick it up. They offer the option to have it shipped to our door step but we declined because it would have require one of us to be at home at the time of arrival to sign for the shipment, and that was not possible in our case. That is why we went to pick it up at the bank instead.

In total we paid $910.99 USD. Let me break it down:

We got 680.00 Euros at the rate of 1.1799 so that was 802.33 USD that we had to pay for Euros

We got 900.00 Swedish Krona at the rate of 0.1124 so that was 101.16 USD that we had to pay for Swedish Krona.

We ordered the foreign currency in mid July and it took about 4 or 5 days to get to the bank, we took a couple days to go pick it up; the process to pick it up was less than 15 minutes, we were the only ones in the bank so that was a huge advantage to not have to wait in line.

We decided to do it before leaving to Europe because it seem more convenient to have cash in hand without making any stops in the annoying airport lines where they will charge you some crazy fee simply because they can take advantage of the fact that you need the cash right there and then.

We now have to subtract $910.99 USD out of what we have remaining from our $5000.00 USD budget. Feel free to check out the website where we keep track of what we have spent towards this trip.

If you got this far, thank you for taking your time to read this post! We both appreciate it.

Going to Europe for the third time with a first timer.

And our plan to keep each other accountable to keep track of our Europe trip 2019 expenses.

So if you don’t know, I (Lalo) have been to Europe twice before, the first time in the year 2015, I travel through Europe for two months (July and August); If I remember correctly I travel through Europe in this order, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Lund, Venice, Rome, Cinque Terre, Milan, Barcelona and then back to Lund to rest for a few days but really I went back because I met such great people and I felt welcomed there, then to Paris to fly back to Portland, Oregon. In this trip I made several friends who I still stay in touch with to this day, I saw some of the most beautiful cities in the world and created great memories to carry with me the rest of my life.

Then two years later, 2017, I went for a three week trip in August; I landed in Paris because it was the cheapest option to fly into Europe and not because I like it, in fact I don’t really think Paris is that great, I’ll explain some of the reasons why I don’t really like Paris in a different post. From Paris I flew to Madrid for the first time ever, Madrid is the most beautiful city I’ve visit so far and the people there who I got to interact with were all so kind, I got to see a friend I had in Madrid; I met this guy in Afghanistan during a deployment, and now I have more friends in Madrid thanks to him. From Madrid I travel to Malmo and Lund, Sweden to meet some friends who I met back in 2015. These two cities are only a 30 minute bus ride away from each other and I was constantly traveling between the two during the time I was there depending on the occasion.

This year, 2019, I will be traveling to Europe again with my girlfriend; we will visit the following places, Dublin in Ireland, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Rome and surrounding towns in Italy, Copenhagen in Denmark, and Lund and Malmo in Sweden, all in that order. We will be traveling from August 7th to September 8th. This will be my third time stepping into Europe and the first time for Kayla. As you can imagine Kayla is extremely excited to travel overseas and so am I. I am very excited even though I am visiting a lot of the same cities I have been to in the past, It is nice to go see friends and places that I haven’t seen or that I wish to see again. Dublin, Ireland and Copenhagen, Denmark are the only new cities I will be visiting, for Kayla it will all be new.

The last two times I travel to Europe, I planned to keep track of my expenses but I always manage to fail myself and didn’t keep track of it very well, in fact I have no idea what I spent in 2015 or 2017, I can probably give you a rough estimate but it won’t be accurate. This year, 2019, Kayla and I are committed to keep track of it accurately, we promised ourselves to stay accountable for our finances at the beginning of the year. I am lucky I have Kayla by my side to help me keep track of it and to keep each other accountable, we will be sharing this information with the world so even the world will be keeping us accountable.

Here is what we will be sharing with the world: Travel fare, accommodation, food and entertainment expenses. Of course you will also get to see videos and pictures of the stuff that we do out there. Like I said before, we are sharing our budget to keep us accountable and to actually follow through with our plan of keeping track of our travel expenses. It was my idea to keep track of it on a website for anybody to see because whenever I come back from Europe a lot of people always ask me “so how much is it to travel in Europe?” Or “How much did you spend?”. If I keep track of it on my website, then I can always just point them to it so they can see the complete breakdown of what it actually cost. I also hope that this encourages a lot of my friends and close relatives to go travel abroad. They all seem to think it is too expensive and that they can’t afford it, some of them of course are scared to be far away from home but I hope that Kayla and I will take quality pictures and videos to share with them to convince them; although, pictures and videos don’t always give justice to show how beautiful some of the cities are. We will also write blogs like this one and share them with you guys, we will tell our stories of things that went well and things that went bad, anyways, we will simply share our experience out there and we hope that you enjoy it and that you get an idea of what it takes to go to multiple countries and cities in Europe.

If you want to find out more about us, we wrote a small biography of ourselves on our website. You can also follow us on Instagram @kaylalal0, @lalinho80, and @4theloveoffreckles