The Impressively Low Cost To Spend A Month In 7 Spanish And French Cities Without Slumming It

A travel blog post that actually contains numbers, details and useful tips

My partner and I are going back to Spain and, for the first time, for me at least, France. For the month of February 2024.

In today’s post, I detail the cost of the trip so far, comparing it to this past February’s sojourn to Spain and Italy. So far, we have booked the flights and lodging for 27 nights. And I’m pretty happy with — if not super proud of — what we’re spending.

Hopefully, seeing how we did it can help you do likewise or better on your next journey. You’ll also get to see the view from one of the apartments we secured for less than $100 a night. In fact, with just two exceptions, everything we booked came in under $100. Throughout the trip, we’ll post photos of the interiors of the places we stay — something we didn’t do in our posts earlier this year — as well as of the outside, surrounding areas and, of course, food, drink, cityscapes and architecture!

All of this content will appear exclusively in my Living The Semi-Retired Life newsletter for paid subscribers only. Today’s post helps give you a glimpse of what you can expect from the newsletter. At least from a travel perspective. Because the newsletter covers much more than travel.

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• concrete personal finance ideas and strategies you can adapt to your situation.
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Anyhow —

Here’s how the trip we took earlier this year (February 2023) looked from a cost standpoint —

We paid $485.87 for two roundtrip flights from LAX to Barcelona.

So the main flights come to $971.74 for two people.

When we booked that deal, we thought we were badasses. However, we outdid ourselves for this upcoming trip. Here’s the lowdown on how that happened —

When my partner and I went to Spain in February, we flew low-cost carrier Level. I’d put the experience somewhere between Iberia or Air Canada and super low frills airlines such as Spirit (who I flew with once and will never fly with again).

For the February trip with Level, we flew nonstop from LAX to Barcelona for $486 each. We thought this was an incredible deal. The year prior we flew Iberia to Rome, via LAX and Madrid, for what we felt was an even more incredible deal at $350 each.

Come to find out it’s (was) Level’s 6th anniversary. And they’re were selling flights — through the month of June — for as low as $6 roundtrip. While we could not find anything that cheap (note the “as low as” part and the fact that you book each leg separately these days), we did score a nonstop roundtrip from LAX to Barcelona for $241 each.

So, two roundtrip flights from LAX to Barcelona for $482. Less than the cost of one ticket earlier this year.

Now, onto lodging.

Here’s what we spent on the trip we took earlier this year —

• 4 nights in Barcelona’s Gracia neighborhood: $468.67 / $117 per night
• 4 nights in Valencia’s Russafa neighborhood: $337.83 / $84 per night
• 6 nights in Madrid’s Malasana neighborhood: $454.79 / $76 per night
• 4 nights in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood: $291.68 / $73 per night
• 5 nights in Naples’ Spanish Quarter neighborhood: $282.28 / $56 per night
• 4 nights in Barcelona’s Eixample district: $578.87 / $145 per night

So, a total of $2,414 for 27 nights, which averages out to $89.40 a night.

Add the two flights to the 27 nights and we spent just under $3,386 for the two most expensive elements of our February 2023 trip to Spain and Italy. Not bad for an entire month when you consider people spend more than that on a week’s vacation to Europe or even within the United States. True story. I know and know of these people.

Now, let’s look at lodging costs for the forthcoming February 2024 trip to Spain and France —

• 7 nights in Barcelona’s Eixample district: $688.13 / $98 per night
• 2 nights in Girona’s Old Town: $146.95 / $73 per night
• 1 night in Montpellier’s historic center: $76 / $76 per night
• 4 nights in Lyon’s Old Lyon neighborhood: $376.85 / $94 per night
• 7 nights in Paris’s Le Marais neighborhood: $794.78 / $114 per night
• 2 nights in Bordeaux’s city center: $177.59 / $89 per night
• 3 nights in Tolouse’s city center: $204.75 / $68 per night
• 1 night in Barcelona’s Gracia: $111.70 / $112 per night

The cost on a couple of these bookings is subject to change based on exchange rate fluctuations between now and February 2024.

At the moment, we’re paying a total of $2,577 for 27 nights, which averages out to $95.44 a night. Add the two flights to the 27 nights and we spent $3,059 for the two most expensive elements of our February 2024 trip to Spain and France.

Compared to the February 2023 trip —

• We’re spending $327, or 9.7%, less on flights and lodging for February 2024. Thanks to the flight deal.
• Our average per night increased from $89.40 in February 2023 to $95.44 for February 2024. That’s a 6.8% increase.

Given that travel, particularly international travel, is almost back to 2019 levels and that tourists are flooding European cities, I’m not surprised that we’re paying a little more for hotels and apartments. But not that much more.

Granted, we’re going in February, not mid-July and August. However, this is part of the key to saving money. When I see the crowds over summer in Europe, I can’t imagine ever wanting to take a trip there during peak tourist season. It looks as if it could be miserable. We prefer walking around cities, taking in day-to-day life, rather than traveling in a pack from tourist destination to tourist destination.

Plus —

• We opt for small, but comfortable and perfectly-located hotels and apartments. The number of people I see booking more space than they need blows my mind.
• And my girlfriend opened my mind to using Booking.com to book hotel rooms in Barcelona and Girona, given the cost savings relative to Airbnbs.

On that note, I was somewhat surprised to read in a Spanish newspaper the other day, that Spain is the second most popular tourist destination so far this year, only after France and ahead of the United States. While fewer people are visiting than in 2019 (only by a couple percent so far), they’re apparently spending more money. And part of this absolutely has to do with the increased cost of lodging.

You can stay in big European cities for less than or around $100 a night. The first two bookings (Barcelona #1 and Girona) are Booking.com hotel rooms. Everything else is an apartment through Airbnb, with the exception of Barcelona #2, which is a small hotel room booked through Airbnb.

For the record, we could have gone about $200 cheaper in Lyon, but we just weren’t feeling the bargain apartment we originally booked. It was nice enough, but, for four nights, we wanted something a bit nicer. Plus, we ended up suckers for this view from the place we did book — for under $100 a night.

The other thing is — I think — my girlfriend and I have a knack for this. We both have a good sense of how cities function and might feel even before we set foot in them.

While I’m one to sometimes over-research things, we don’t do this when booking lodging.

We —

• Search for the best neighborhoods in a city.
• Read the descriptions to see what suits us (lively, walkable, restaurants/bars, locals).
• We maybe do a run through on Google Maps, often using Street View.
• We search apartments, zoom in on the map of options.
• Narrow it down to a few.
• Pick based on price, preferences, location and how much we have spent so far.

So far, we have been more than happy with every place we have stayed. Of course, some have small issues. Many more have quirks. But, more often than not, we’re happy for these quirks, as they’re part of why we love to visit cities. To experience how life might actually be if you lived there (even if you have no intention of doing so).

Now, we pick up the research by searching our cities on YouTube and Instagram and reading articles. If something comes up that warrants a change of plans, we’ll change plans. We have time. And most, if not, everything we booked (other than the flights) has flexible cancellation policies. We don’t want to wait too long on this, as the closer we get to the trip, the more expensive lodging gets amid decreased supply. This is why we ended up paying $145 a night in Barcelona at the end of this year’s trip. I made an error in waiting too long.

If you’d like to know more about the journey I’m on, follow me on Medium.

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