photograph courtesy of Josh Clark on FlickrParis Runners Visiting Paris as a tourist usually means long days of hiking across town, climbing steps, and carrying a backpack. With so much physical activity, you can just forget about the need to hit the gym, right? Well, for us it also means days that begin with a butter croissant (268 » Read more

If you’re the kind of Cheapo who prefers a rollicking “hostel environment” to a quiet mom-and-pop hotel, you should consider a Busabout bus tour of Europe, if you’re traveling during the summer months. What is it? Busabout operates a “hop on hop off” bus line that shuttles young and indie travelers along “loops” of major European cities. » Read more

Maybe it’s Van Gogh’s trippy sunflowers or that wacky, tacky Red Light District. But there’s something about Amsterdam’s love of the unusual that pops up in its hotel offerings. We’ve weeded out the ho-hum hotel experiences to bring you a few of our favorite joints (so many puns, so little space!): Hotel de Filosoof What: Three-star hotel near » Read more

Most Cheapos we know have at some point faced a budget travel rite of passage: sleeping in an airport. This is commonly due to a canceled flight or a super-early flight, although the occasional ”super-Cheapo” chooses a night at the airport over a hotel on the last night to save some cash before returning home (completely respectable!). While airport overnights » Read more

photograph courtesy of Tour Magazine We were psyched to get a reminder from Gridskipper that the Parisian city-wide “soldes” sales event will be in effect January 9-20. A government regulated program, Paris slashes prices (anywhere from 30-50 percent off) on clothing and the like twice a year, once in January (“soldes d’hiver”) and again during the » Read more

  Alas, with Roman hotel rates higher than ever and the dollar at depressing lows against the euro, it can be difficult to find any budgetary relief for tourists in Italy’s capital city. Or is it? This morning we were doing a little research on the value of “all-in-one” tourist passes in Rome, when we » Read more

While walking to the office this morning, coffee splashing out of our coffee cup sip-top, we started wondering: If we were in London right now, where would we grab a morning cup of joe and how much would it cost? When last we pounded the pavement researching hotels in London for our guide, we remembered » Read more

photograph courtesy of Newtonxl at Flickr We’re big fans of the French TGV rail system. These sleek trains zip throughout the country, transporting passengers comfortably at speeds up to 200 mph. The trains are such a success that short flights between most cities in France don’t make sense — the TGV is faster, and much less of a hassle. Tickets, » Read more

Which European airport guarantees the worst experience? Which has the longest security lines, the craziest gate transfers, or the most disorganized baggage claim?  We chuckled our way through Elisabeth Rosenthal’s piece in last Friday’s International Herald Tribune in which she gives results of her own unscientific poll. The results: 1) London Heathrow “Hands down the worst” cited by “100 percent » Read more