A reader asks:

“In Barcelona, we’re thinking of staying in the Gothic Quarter to be close to everything, but we’re worried that it’s not safe. Is this area sketchy at night?”

Regina WB responds:

Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter has the Cathedral, Plaza del Rey and many other fabulous sites that most visitors want to ‘oohh and ahh’ over. And therein lies the problem, while St Juame’s Square is lovely, and the craved gargoyles frightfully fantastic, is it safe? Yes and no.

Petty theft in Barcelona is rampant. For the most part it is safe to walk the streets of the city center at any time of night, because there are always people out in Barcelona. Violent crime is not a problem. But, you’ve got to watch your bag, your camera, your wallet, your cell phone and maybe even that gold chain around your neck (less someone rip it from your being on the subway!). Small theft is not punished (really) in Spain, and thieves are well aware of this. The problem is HUGE.

A friend of mine visited for a month from the United States. During her visit she experienced three robbery attempts. My friend is no novice, having traveled to over 50 countries in her time. But thieves in Barcelona are good, and they are everywhere the tourists are, and tourists are usually in the Gothic Barrio.

I do recommend staying in the Gothic because it’s really the heart of what’s happening in the city. Just be aware, and stay clear of the following places: La Rambla, (a.k.a. La Rob-la), the Metro (one of the places I’ve seen the most robberies, averaging one sighting a week), Calle Ferran (filled with drunk tourists) Irish bars (obviously). To play it safe, get a bag with multiple zippers and be alert. Never set your bag on the floor or casually on a chair. Don’t be the guy with the camera hanging on his neck.

Finally, don’t be afraid of Barcelona’s Gothic area, just be a ninja!

Regina WB lives in Barcelona and wrote EuroCheapo’s guide to Barcelona hotels. Additional writing by Regina can be found on her website www.regwb.com and on PlanetEye.com.

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Like us, many of our readers are American. And regardless of nationality, probably all of our readers are aware of the unfortunate exchange rate currently greeting US travelers abroad. Today, for instance, the euro costs US $1.58. Yet we’re still traveling to Europe.

Newspapers and magazines have been abuzz lately with articles about stretching the dollar abroad. Some of our favorites include The Seattle Times, Budget Travel Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily News, and the Austin American-Statesman. As pro-cheapo travelers, we’re happy to see so much interest in budget travel, although saddened to think that many potential travelers might feel discouraged and choose not to travel to Europe at all.

“Maybe next year I’ll get to Spain,” one of my friends told me last week. “I can’t afford it now.” Alas!

Pete, Meredith and I just returned from two weeks in Europe, traveling from Berlin to Brussels, and then Bruges. Yes, I was quickly struck by the inflated prices of small, everyday items. But I was also amazed that we pulled off the trip so affordably. It’s as if we had been preconditioned to expect the absolute worst. When we returned and tallied up all of our costs, it wasn’t so bad, after all. Ironically, we overspent on the little stuff and kept our spending down on the big, obvious expenditures, like hotels and meals.

Looking over our costs, post-trip, I have some basic advice to those planning their trips to Europe. Please excuse anything that seems obvious—if it helps one traveler save, it’s worth repeating!

1) Watch out for the small stuff!

Those little, incidental purchases got us, biting away at our budgets. Why? Because we spent without thinking. Cups of coffee, bottles of water, chocolate bars, little snacks, the newspaper… each only cost two or three euros, but they added up very quickly. I felt like I was leaking euro coins everywhere I went.

These are “invisible costs,” because you don’t remember spending the money and you don’t have anything to show for the purchases afterward. Some of these things, like water, you need. But you need to be smart about where to buy it. After draining my pockets of a week’s worth of euros, I got smart in Bruges and started buying water and snacks at a grocery store near my hotel. Who knew that Evian could be purchased for less than a euro per bottle? (Above, I’m doing a week’s worth of laundry in Brussels for about €5.)

2) Hunt for your meal

Each night, the three of us roamed the city, taking in the sights and sounds, but also looking for dining deals. In the end, because we were “on alert,” our dinners were surprisingly affordable. We converted menu prices into dollar amounts (not simply imagining a dollar sign in place of the euro!) and steered clear of the pricier eateries.

In Berlin, meal prices are fortunately already low, so this wasn’t a problem. In pricey Brussels, however, we checked out plenty of charming restaurants—most of them quite crowded—and hit the road as soon as we saw a bloated menu. €18 starter plates? That’s $27… I don’t think so! We took time every night to find affordable set-price menus, and usually found something for less than €15, which at about $22, was in our budget. Of course, you have to be careful to avoid tourist traps (like the rue du Bouchers in Brussels, pictured above), which lure you in with low set-price menus, serve mediocre food, and charge you like mad for every incidental item. It’s best to ask the locals. 

3) Lighten up at lunch

This won’t be for everyone, but we chose to make only dinner a sit-down affair. In years past, when hotel hunting I would often treat myself to a nice relaxed lunch, sometimes accompanied with a little red wine. It was so euro. This year, I slimmed down, stopping for a quick sandwich or salad and a bottle of water. It was cheaper, faster, and dare I say, better for my afternoon hotel visits!

Pete and Mere did the same in Brussels. Pete lunched several days in a row at “Mer du Nord,” an outdoor oyster and fish soup joint on Place St. Catherine, where a bowl of soupe du poisson could be had for €3.50. (See photo.)

4) Take advantage of breakfast… or not!

Breakfast is another time to save cash. In all four of our hotels, in Brussels and Bruges, a buffet breakfast was included in the price of the room. Thus, we could fill up at breakfast, making the light lunch more bearable.

This is different in every city. In Paris, for instance, breakfast is rarely included and, when offered, is usually quite expensive for what you get. Rather than fork over the cash for a dismal hotel breakfast, head to a cafe or, better yet, to the grocery store or outdoor market.

5) Sleep cheap!

This seems rather obvious, as this is EuroCheapo, but come on, Cheapos, watch that hotel bill! When searching for your hotel, if you’re American, choose to see hotel rates in US dollars. (On CheapoSearch, prices show in dollars by default.) This will prevent you from momentarily pretending that the euro and dollars are “roughly the same.”

When choosing a hotel, consider a 1 or 2-star hotel over the pricier 3-star option. Fewer stars doesn’t mean the hotel isn’t good and clean. It could simply mean that it doesn’t have an elevator, ground-floor reception, or certain amenities (like hairdryers, TV, telephone, etc.).

In Brussels, we stayed at The Moon Hotel, a perfectly fine 2-star sleeper two blocks from the Grand Place. Our rooms weren’t fancy (they were, in fact, kind of “dormy”), but we slept peacefully knowing that we were paying a fraction of the rate that travelers across the square in the 3 and 4-star hotels were paying. In Bruges, the lady running ‘T Keizershof, a small 1-star hotel I visited put it to me best when she explained, “When you’re sleeping, we look just like one of those big fancy hotels.”

Serious Cheapos should also consider a room or a bed in a hostel, which can cost much, much less than a hotel. Travelers visiting a city for an extending period should look into apartment rentals, and adventure travelers might also consider couch-surfing for free.

6) Do free stuff!

We always recommend that travelers head straight for the visitors information center when they arrive into town. Conveniently, many of these are located very near the main train stations or main squares. There, you can pick up a list of free or cheap activities happening in town during your stay. In both Brussels and Bruges, I walked out of the visitor centers with stacks of information, maps, and walking tours.

In Brussels, I bought a guide to the city’s comic-book themed self-guided walking tour for €3, and spent the afternoon learning about the city for next to nothing. In Bruges, the woman working at the tourist office wrote down a list of free concerts happening that week that she thought I might find interesting. All of that information was free, and most of the activities were free, as well.

7) Budget flights and rail deals

Before you book that rental car or buy that Eurail pass, consider flying between European cities on Europe’s budget airlines. Using the newly launched CheapoSearch Flights, our guide to European budget airlines, you can find some seriously low prices. Not to be outdone, the national rail companies are starting to fight back, lowering their prices for train trips booked in advance through their websites.

Check out: TGV (French) rail website, Die Bahn (German) rail website, Trenitalia (Italy) rail website, British Rail website, Renfe (Spanish) rail, SNCB (Belgian) rail

Your tips

These are just a few of the tips we’d like to share following our recent trip. What advice do you have? Please add your tips, ideas, and suggestions below! 

You’ve found a great budget hotel in Paris and you’ve searched around on CheapoSearch for the best rates from different booking agencies for your dates.

And then it hits you: How can there be different rates for the same dates in the same hotel? And why are these small hotels offering booking with online agencies, anyhow?

A little back story

Ten years ago, most small, independent and family-run hotels in Europe weren’t on the radar for most first-time tourists to a city. They were simply too small to work with travel agencies or weren’t fortunate enough to be selected by the handful of travel guidebooks that recommended hotels for the first-time “independent traveler.”

During the past decade, these same hotels developed their own websites, presenting photos, room descriptions, and prices. Most built in some sort of booking form, as well. When we would visit them to inspect for EuroCheapo, many hotel owners and managers would explain that they didn’t need to work with online agencies, as they had their own websites.

Eventually, however, this wasn’t enough to really compete effectively for tourists. After all, tourists were flocking to online reservation websites, where they could compare hundreds of hotel rates in one city without having to go from one hotel’s website to another and check dates and rates.

And so, most of these small hotels realized that it made sense to offer booking with at least one online booking agency, like Venere.com or Booking.com (both of whom we work with in our “CheapoSearch” hotel search engine). When they did, the hotel found greater exposure (and more reservations) than they could have found on their own.

Once they offered booking with one of these agencies, they often were quick to realize that they could get additional exposure by offering reservations on another, and another, and another.

The booking scene today

The result is that today, many smaller hotels offer online booking with multiple booking agencies. To further complicate the issue, most of the agencies charge the hotel a different commission for their reservation services, often causing the hotel’s final rates to fluctuate from one agency to the next.

Travelers notice this when they comparison shop — and see a room at the Hotel Paris for €95 a night with one agency and €90 with another.

Ironically, booking the room over the telephone sometimes results in a higher price. After all, on a search results page online, hotels have to compete with each other for your attention. Over the phone, there isn’t the same competition at play. In other cases, the receptionist will offer a cheaper room than you could find online (often just the online price minus the agency’s commission).

What about the big American agencies? 

Why don’t these same small hotels appear on the big American search engines, like Hotels.com, Expedia, and Travelocity? They’re simply too small. A fifteen-room two-star hotel in the Latin Quarter (Oh, how we love thee!) is often too small and too inexpensive to capture the attention of the big booking agencies, who prefer to “move” a massive number of rooms at chain hotels (often in less-than-ideal neighborhoods) or smaller four-star hotels (with higher profit margins).

For this reason, EuroCheapo works only with online booking agencies that offer extensive listings of 1, 2, and 3-star independent hotels.  

Have a question about budget travel or planning your trip on the Web? Email us.

Q:  My wife and I are planning our daughter’s wedding in New York City this fall. We’ll have about fifty people traveling to the city for the occasion. Should I book 25 rooms myself or ask everyone to be in charge of their own reservation? – Steve K, Bellevue, Ohio

A: Good question, Steve! Planning a wedding in New York is already quite a project, and you probably aren’t in the mood to tackle reservations for 50. But there is a payoff to booking a group.

An “every man for himself” may initially seem easier, but could easily become a hassle, as plans change, people need different directions, and you need to arrange transportation. Most importantly, however, it rules out your bargaining power to get a group discount.

Hotels love groups, as they’re guaranteed blocks of filled rooms. Hotels will negotiate special rates with you, depending on availability and the number of rooms you need. These rates will almost always be cheaper than the rates you could book individually online, even on so-called “discounted” Websites.

Third-party reservation sites, like Expedia, Orbitz, and Hotels.com, offer “group booking” services to help you navigate the process. If you try to book more than nine rooms on any of these sites, you’ll be taken to a “group booking” page that asks for your contact information. A salesperson will then contact you, discuss your needs, and come back with quotes from hotels.

This is a helpful service, of course, but if you already know which hotel you’d like to stay in, we’d strongly suggest checking directly with their sales department, as well, as you’ll eliminate the middleman and most likely land a better deal. Good luck!

Have a question for us? Ask the Cheapos!

photograph courtesy of audinou

Q. I’ve heard that it’s possible to rent an apartment in Paris for much less than you’d pay for a hotel. Is this true? Where can I find these apartments? Do you recommend this option? Thanks for your help. Joe H., Washington, DC.

A. You’re on to something, Joe! Apartment rentals throughout Europe can be an economical alternative to hotels—and can be much more comfortable, to boot.

Pros: Apartments are often cheaper and roomier than hotels. They’re equipped with kitchens. Their surroundings and décor provide guests with an “insider” experience.

Cons: There’s often a one-week minimum—while you won’t need to stay for one week, you’ll pay for a weekly rental. And nobody will make your bed or clean up your mess.

How to do it. Vacation rental services abound. A quick search on Parisian Home reveals weekly rates as low as €400 in the most popular neighborhoods of Paris, although most are in the €500 to €700 range. You can also book a “vacation rental” without an agency on sites like Craigslist Paris and Paris Update, though you’ll book at your own risk.

Good luck!

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photograph courtesy of MacAllenBrothers

Dear EuroCheapo,

Is it possible to reserve a double room for three people? There are three of us traveling to Paris in the spring. We’re friends and could easily share a double. Do you think anyone would notice or care if we snuck our third friend in?

– A.H., Columbia, MO

Ah yes, the old “sneak an extra person in” routine. Quite frankly, this strategy works much better at motels in Milwaukee than at pensions in Paris, where budget accommodations tend to be small, family run affairs.

Ethical answer: Don’t do it. You’re depriving hotel owners of the rates they’ve set—rates that every other guest is paying.

Practical answer: Don’t do it. Sneaking an extra person past the front desk and into your room will almost certainly be noticed. Most smaller hotels and pensions only have one entrance, and it’s right next to the front desk. Sneaky hijinks will be noticed, and will almost certainly be foiled. From our position as experienced travelers, it’s almost painful to consider what might happen.

Furthermore, most European hotel rooms are small. A double room does not necessarily mean two double beds, as it does at American roadside motels. It means, quite often, a small room with one double bed or two twins.

Our advice: Book a triple. You might also try asking the hotel if it would be possible to book a double room with an extra bed. If this is an option, it will typically involve the addition of a rollaway bed and should be cheaper than a triple.

Either way, you’ll sleep better.

Have a question for our editors? Email us!

photograph courtesy of Xavi_Calvo 

A fellow Cheapo wrote us recently with this question:

“I’ve heard about these cheap flights (like $10 to fly from London to Florence!) that you can get around Europe. Your site seems really enthusiastic about these airlines, but a friend told me that you can only book them from Europe and you have to be European in order to fly them. Is this true?”

Sarah H, Ohio.

Thanks for you email, Sarah. Your friend obviously cares for you and is eager to help out with your travel plans. He or she is also dead wrong.

With very few exceptions, flights on European budget airlines (including industry leaders like easyJet, Germanwings, Ryanair, and Sky Europe) may be purchased by anyone using a credit card. The ability to purchase a flight is not restricted by nationality or location of purchase—after all, you’re booking these tickets over the Internet.

One of the best things about ticketless, budget airlines is that, in most respects, they’ve made buying and flying easier than ever. So fly, fly, fly, Sarah!

This question from a EuroCheapo reader came across our desk yesterday:

“Do you have any idea how I can get to Copenhagen from Madrid by train or bus? I’m looking for a cheaper alternative because flying will cost a lot more.

“Is there a site I can look into? I’ve been searching online but I haven’t found what I’ve been looking for. I need prices and schedules.”

Answer: Yikes. For your own sanity, please fly. Taking a train or bus from Madrid to Copenhagen is certain to be a very long—quite possibly frustrating—experience that is guaranteed to cost more in the end than flying on a low-cost air carrier.

The bus option: SAIA buslines, a Spanish member of the EuroLines bus network, will bus you from Madrid to Hamburg, Germany for €143, in 31 hours. You will then have to book a ferry from Hamburg to Copenhagen, which can also be expensive. Do you really want to rock the boat after 31 hours on a bus?

The train option: Eurail passes aren’t the answer for you, as they cover a minimum of 15 days of consecutive train travel ($636) or 10 days of travel over two months ($751). Booking a trip from Spain to Copenhagen directly through renfe, the Spanish railroad, will also be very pricey and doesn’t appear to be available online. Good luck!

The flight option: Though we couldn’t find any low-cost carriers flying directly from Madrid to Copenhagen, there are flights from Barcelona to Copenhagen on Sterling.dk, the Danish airline, for as low as €81, each way.

But how to get from Madrid to Barcelona? Vueling, a Spanish low-cost carrier, can fly you to Barcelona for €30 to €40. Another option is the train, which runs about ten times a day between the cities, for €63.60.

Have a question to Ask the Cheapos? Fire away! We can’t respond to all the questions we receive, but we’ll try!