Mrs. Money and I are still riding the high from our July 2023 Italian vacation. Oh the gelato, the pasta, the sites, the sounds, the walking around aimlessly, the afternoon siesta we took every day. It took a lot of planning and research, but we pulled it off. I estimated we spent about 1 million miles/points to get there and you can read about how we pulled off Emirates Business class on an A380, stayed in the St Regis, enjoyed a Tuscan villa with a pool and stayed in a few other hotels all for free (well with points/miles). However in this post, I wanted to share a few tips on travelling effectively in Europe, mostly around saving money which as odd as that sounds – like shouldn’t you ball out on your vacation? – I’m a believer in not overpaying and stretching my dollar so that I can get more vacation out of my vacation. I wrote a similar post to this a few years ago and thought I’d update it with a fresh 2023 perspective on it!

Note – these tips come from my experience in Italy, but I would imagine most if not all would apply to other countries in Europe and even outside of Europe!

Google Maps works surprisingly well

This is one that you could probably skip over, as most phone plans now offer a pretty affordable way to get data and calling when travelling internationally, I think like $5 or $10 per day or something like that you can use your phone just like you would at home. There was a big part of me while in Italy that really wanted to disconnect and although I don’t have much social media it was still nice to not have the thought of grabbing my phone every few minutes pop into my mind, or if it did knowing that I really couldn’t do much with it. Wifi is also very common with basically any establishment you visit having free wifi. There are security concerns of course but I just tried to limit time and not do things like check my bank balance while at a coffee shop. I did bring my work phone as my work phone gives me free data interntionally, but I really only used this when we rented a car and were driving – Google Maps for directions in a foreign country seemed smart!

Onto my tip though – Google Maps works surprisingly well. I had my phone in airplane mode all trip and it was able to generally know my location. I think hopping between wifi spots periodically helped and I was able to zoom in and see my location and navigate without directions just looking at where I wanted to go and plotting my own path. Granted I only tried this in big cities while walking and it wasn’t 100% perfect, but we were able to get around decently well! You can also download maps for offline use, which worked great – and we would use cross streets to understand where we were and where we needed to go!

Free drinking water fountains are still a thing!

WhatsApp is pretty helpful

There is a widely popular app outside the US called WhatsApp which I had loosely heard of but had got a little while back to correspond with some family travelling internationally – and they have Android so iMessage wouldn’t work. WhatsApp is widely used across Europe (and I think most of the world) and I would recommend downloading it if you don’t have it. If you are corresponding with locals or businesses, there’s a good chance that communicating via WhatsApp will be your best bet. This came in handy when we booked a walking tour (more on that later) and our guide messaged us via WhatsApp with instructions on where to meet etc. Granted this only happened once but it took all of 30 seconds to download and get signed up so I’d recommend it to have handy!

Free/Cheap Walking Tours are Great

A few years ago on a previous trip, we were searching Trip Advisor for recommendations on things to do in Venice Italy and Mrs. Money stumbled on a “free walking tour”. I think at the time it was for locals that were trying to practice their English but now it’s morphed into a full time gig for many of the folks giving tours. I’ve found that most cities have them and a quick google search is all you need to find them. The kicker is they’re not actually free (nothing in life is!) – they just don’t have a fixed price and you pay what you feel is worthy at the end of the tour. We normally pay like 10 euro per person (and I’ve noticed others paying about that too), which turns out to be pretty good for a 1-1.5 hour guided tour.

We love it for not only the history but also the chance to get out and see the city and potentially explore a little off the beaten path. It can be hard to navigate in a new city on your own even if you know what you’re looking for and a guided tour really gets you out and about! We’ve gotten tons of great recommendations for restaurants, bars, shopping or even neighborhoods to check out. In our most recent trip, our walking tour guide took us to southern Venice and it felt like a whole different city – almost tourist free! And it was like a 10 minute walk just off the beaten path! Walking tours for the win! Here’s an example of a service we used.

If you’re getting wet, bring a towel or get ready to buy one

When Mrs. Money and I were arriving in the beautiful coastal city of Rapallo Italy, we realized very quickly that if we wanted to enjoy the beach we would need a towel as we had not brought one. Last time we were at a beach in Europe, YoungMoneyFinance put his foot down and we basically sat on the sand and had a less pleasant experience. SlightlyOlderandSlightlyRicherYoungMoneyFinance this go round quickly declared that a towel was to be bought. 10 euro later we had our towel and the beach time was more enjoyable! The same was true for our Tuscan villa that had a pool – no towels were provided. You can sometimes rent towels but that was not always the case.

So, if you’re planning to get wet in a pool or the beach, it might be wise to bring a towel, or be ready to buy one!

Beautiful beaches and water, towels not included

Keep some cash and small bills handy

Every country is different and every traveller is different in how they like to spend their money, and although I probably use a credit card for 99% of my purchases here in the US, I still always feel it’s wise to have some local currency on hand when travelling. ATMs are super common and safe and many times banks these days will have low fees to withdrawal. My bank (Bank of America) has a partnership with a few banks abroad, which allows me pull money without international fees.  In 2023 most, most, most shops / restaurants / stores / excursions all take cards and it’s tap to pay pretty much everywhere (yay smart watch for tap to pay!).

However, there are a few times that cash was not taken or when cash was more strongly preferred and for things like tips cash can be handy. So, I recommend having a small amount of local currency and try to avoid changing money at the airport – their fees are too high! If you can, get small bills too so you are not handing some shopkeeper a 50 bill asking for 48 in change!

Be strategic with free vs. clean bathrooms

As is here in the US, public bathrooms are fewer and far between and may or may not be the cleanest (although some are!) and a lot of businesses are interested in letting just anyone use their bathroom, mostly just paying customers. Some bathrooms charged 1 euro to use it, which could be cheaper than buying a meal or a coffee or something. Also the 1 euro many times was a coin slot so back to my point on having a few small bills/coins with you! But then again most businesses had bathrooms, as you are on vacation and liking exploring/excursioning you might be a little far from your hotel and a bathroom might be needed!

Photo by Victor Grabarczyk on Unsplash

Grocery stores exist here too!

Mrs. Money and I love popping into grocery stores when we travel internationally. A) It’s super cool to see what types of food you can buy (we love German chocolate) and B) It’s often much cheaper to buy things like water and snacks at a grocery store, same here in the US. So, if you are drinking water (which you should be!) and enjoying little snacks or beverages here and there, a grocery store is the place for you! Mrs. Money and I enjoyed getting water for 0.60 Euros vs the 1.5 euros we paid at a little convenience store! Money saved is money saved!

Don’t go to restaurants with pictures on their menus

This last one comes from Mrs. Money who loves great food (as do I but she loves it more) and loves eating as authentic and quality food as she can when we travel. One tip we learned this past trip is not to eat at restaurants with pictures. A few of our walking tour guides confirmed this too! The worst meal we had in Italy (which to be fair was good…it just wasn’t great… or it didn’t slap for the young folks) had pictures. The thinking is that a place with pictures will cater more towards tourists and sometimes touristy spots are not the most authentic and/or do they have the best quality food. Just a thought!

I hope you’ve enjoyed these Europe travel tips for 2023! Remember just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean that you have to spend more money than you need to! Get more vacation out of your vacation!

Bonus Tip – hire a local to make your itinerary

Planning a trip can be overwhelming. A google search for “best places to eat in Italy” will give you endless options and they’ll all seem amazing. Travel bloggers can be great too but you wonder behind the scenes what their incentives are here in writing or sharing this restaurant. So, for this past trip we needed a bit of help – particularly finding a Tuscan Villa – so Mrs. Money found a travel blogger we both know from college who lives in Italy and she has a service where she can give you Italian recommendations. We ended up getting like 30 recommendations for $30 and it was tailored to our cities and a good mix of places to stay, things to eat and things to do. We used a good handful of those recommendations and they were all fabulous. Her website is here if you wanna take a look!