Europe is always a good idea!

By Hand On The Hip - 10/15/2016

Hello boys and girls!

Three months ago a friend rang me and asked me if I wanted to join him for a trip to Cambodia. Now all I know about Cambodia is that it's a Southeast Asian country and I was planning to go to Vietnam anyway in December. So I politely refused, but wanted to travel anyway. I asked some of my friends from Dubai if they were interested to join and that's when they said "Let's go to Europe instead"!

The offer was so tempting, but I was sure I would burn a big, ugly hole in my pocket if I were to do a Euro trip at this point of time. One of the Gulfies said that it was going to cost them 800 AED (less than 15K INR) from Dubai to Prague. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that it was actually that inexpensive! And within seconds, I was on my laptop doing my research on flights to Prague!



I checked on MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, ClearTrip, Yatra and all of them quoted ridiculous prices like 70K INR and 16-20 hours layovers! That is when I decided to design a package of my own. And believe it or not, the entire trip which was for 10 days where we covered 5 countries (7 in my case) cost me approximately 80,000 INR! Yes, only 80K! I thought I should share my experience with you guys!

The basic idea was to spend two days in each country in Central-Eastern Europe, eat some local food, do touristy stuff, stay in hostels and backpack across Europe! In my upcoming blogposts you will see how much I spent in each country, what I did there and of course, since this is a fashion blog, what I wore!

I booked my flights from Bangalore to Dubai (via Mumbai) which cost me approximately 10K, Dubai to Prague and back which cost me around 16K, Dubai to Mangalore which was 9K and then a night bus from Mangalore to Bangalore which was a few hundred bucks. Now, why would one go through such a crazy route? For starters, I had no crazy layovers, in fact, no layovers at all! Secondly, they were easy on my pockets! And most important of all, I did not need a UAE visa since I did not get out of the airport and saved a good 5-7K there! Also, one need a Schengen Visa to go to these countries and there are a bunch of documents you need to submit at the Visa office. You can find that on their website.


The biggest challenge I had to face was that I was allowed to carry only 7 kgs of hand baggage! Imagine my plight! I was told that Europe was freezing cold at this point of time - a good 6 to 10 degrees! I somehow managed with some basic tops, thermals, jeans, two pairs of sneakers and a jacket that was my saviour! I even made a mix and match list in my head while packing so that I can put my styling skills to use to make the best out of the situation!



We shared a rough itinerary with the Visa folks and eventually spent three nights on Skype, back to back, just a few days before the trip began and planned the whole trip, made hostel and bus/train bookings etc. Once we got to Czech Republic, we travelled to Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.


For the time being that's all I am going to reveal. Keep an eye on this space as I share my travel experiences with you.

Love,
Hand On The Hip

  • Share:

You Might Also Like

1 comments

  1. Ever since MakeMyTrip Ltd announced the purchase of Ibibo Group's traveling business in India last October, the joint entity's evaluation has approximately doubled your MakeMyTrip - Lucky Draw to Win Voucher Worth Rs 10000 in shopozo.

    ReplyDelete