Travel Routes

Below are some of the cheap budget travel route’s we’ve taken over the last couple of years on our trips. For the summer holidays, due to the length of time we travel for, we require a big budget. However, we’re not rich so we need to plan the best logistical routes, the cheapest way of travelling and the cheapest places to stay which are in nice, central locations.

We do this through a lot of research. Firstly, there’s a bank of photos and a list of places where we’d like to go. Next, we need to think of when we’re going and which places suit the weather for this. Therefore, you’ll see our summer consists of Europe because this is the best time to visit if you’re wanting hot weather, festivals, parties but also a chance to wind down and relax. We then see where else we can go to on the cheap budget travel route.

We’ve learnt now that the city breaks can be challenging in summer but sometimes if they’re nearby on our route then it’s too hard to resist going and ticking it off the list. A day trekking in 30 degree heat isn’t ideal but we’d also rather be there when the weather is nice.

We have plans to travel to other continents such as Asia, Africa and South America but these for us would have to be during the Christmas or Easter break. Due to us having such long holidays in the Summer, we want to make the most of it and these Easter and Christmas breaks would eat too much into our summer budget. Although, we do still intend to go soon. We’ve included some of our journey’s below, we hope they can inspire you for your travel. Tip – When travelling around Europe, check bus travel as this can save you a lot of money. We recommend Omio, GetbyBus and FlixBus. If looking for cheap flights then make sure you compare prices on Skyscanner.

Summer 2020

The summer that Covid affected. We had to rearrange summer plans several times and by the time we finished school for the summer, the countries we were able to visit was limited. Thankfully, our favourite countries, Croatia and Greece were fine. We decided to stick to these countries to minimise any potential cancellations due to the unpredictable coronavirus.

All previous plans were put on hold for a year, unless they were Greece and Croatia, although some flight cancellations meant that we had to change some ideas in these countries too. Once we were in Greece this was easy and the island hopping was so much fun. So much though, we’re already planning on including Greek island hopping for Summer 2021. If you want to see how fun and easy it is yourself, check out ferry hopper to plan your journey.

26th – 30th July – Dubrovnik
30th July – 2nd August – Makarska
2nd – 3rd August – Overnight stay in Athens
3rd – 9th August – Milos
9th – 12th August – Folegandros
12th – 17th August – Ios
17th – 21st August – Santorini
21st – 26th August – Paros
26th – 29th August – Naxos

October 2019

Just a short week half term break for us here but we found the flights very cheap. We flew from Manchester to Rome airport, where you can take a bus from outside the airport to the city centre. It’s very straight forward. To get to Amsterdam we got the train from Rome city centre to Rome Fiumicino airport and then a flight to Amsterdam before returning to Manchester. Total flight prices – £140

20th – 22nd October – Rome
22nd – 25th October – Amsterdam

Summer 2019

A very eventful itinerary as we travelled on lots of buses when we arrived in Croatia. Transport-wise this was an easy route. Transport for the whole trip probably cost around £500 each. Accommodation was around £800 each with most of it booked on airbnb where we rented whole flats to ourselves. Remember that you’ll probably hardly be in your apartment when travelling.

To save costs try and find a nice location and an entire place for yourself, but you don’t need to go fancy (something we’ve learned from). As long as the place is clean, looks comfy and has good reviews book it! We always make sure the location is good, so we don’t have to trek in the scorching heat.

A map of europe with lines pointing out the cheap budget travel routes which were taken.

20th – 23rd July – Venice and Lido Di Jesolo
23rd – 30th July – Cagliari, Sardinia
30-31st July – Naples
31st July – 6th August – Hvar, Croatia
6th – 8th August – Lake Bled, Slovenia
8th – 14th August – Budapest, Hungary
14th – 16th August – Bratislava, Slovakia
Short break home for a wedding.
19th – 28th August – Kefalonia, Greece
28th – 29th August – Berlin then home to Manchester

A very easy, cheap budget travel route. Once in Italy, flights to other Italian cities are very cheap and even to Croatia. Which made it very convenient for us to switch sides to the Adriatic coast. From there busses are very cheap and convenient to travel around Central Europe. We wanted to aim for Sziget festival so on our way we found the opportunity to visit Lake Bled and it was beautiful. After the festival, we had to head back to the UK for a wedding and the cheapest airport to do this from was Bratislava which is a couple of hours away from Budapest. The perfect chance for us to explore another city in Bratislava. After the wedding we wanted to relax in Kefalonia, we arranged this individually and found it was much cheaper on the way back to fly to Berlin and then to Manchester. It saved us £200 and gave another opportunity to explore the wonderful city of Berlin.


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