Sometimes, you just want to get away from it all for a little while and get into the adventure! The ingenious thing is that you don’t even have to fly far away or spend a lot of money – on the contrary: In and around Europe there are endless cool cities and beautiful nature waiting for you, which you can discover even with a small budget. How about a trip to Ireland or a visit to the Portuguese capital?
We’ll tell you about 5 adventurous yet inexpensive weekend trips that you can take for less than 200 euros. And best of all: At the end of the entry we not only raffle off a super cool Osprey backpack for your next micro adventure, but also add 200 Euro as travel money!
Off to the weekend!
Cheap weekend trips: The coolest ideas and best tips for an unforgettable micro adventure!
A few tips on how to travel cheaply in general
Before I tell you which micro-adventure you can experience for less than 200 Euro, there are a few tips on how you can save money when travelling and how you can make cheap weekend trips in the future!
Cheap weekend trips Tip 1: Travel only with hand luggage
My first and most important tip is: travel with hand luggage! “Why that?”, you might ask yourself. The answer is very simple: You can save a lot of money when booking a flight ticket! Most airlines nowadays charge an additional fee for checking in a piece of luggage and this can sometimes be up to 50 euros and more for a return flight! Pretty gross, isn’t it?
So you’d rather do without a few clothes than pay extra for them. Usually you need for a weekend, even if it’s a long one, not much – maybe two outfits, your neck bag, a camera and a book or a Kindle. For weekend trips, for example, I only take one extra pair of trousers and two T-shirts or shirts as well as underwear and socks with me for the number of days – after all, I’m already wearing a complete outfit including jacket and shoes. Depending on the season, I put on a sweater and I’m good to go!
So you realize you don’t need much for a weekend and thanks to hand luggage you can save a lot of money! The only important thing is that you pack as lightly as possible, as some airlines control very strictly and you are only allowed to take 7 kilograms with you. We’ll tell you how to pack easily in this article with our best tips!
The Osprey Farpoint 40 is a really cool backpack that is perfect for hand luggage. As its name suggests, it has a capacity of 40 litres and plenty of room. Line even travelled the world with this backpack, so you can use it for longer trips than just a weekend!
The cool thing about this model is the clever partitioning of the compartments and the possibility to open the backpack like a suitcase. So you won’t have any problems packing and with a few Packing Cubes you’ll keep everything tidy at the same time. There is also a padded laptop compartment and several small compartments for personal items such as your passport or your Kindle.
The backpack is also really well made and comfortable to carry. The cool thing is that there is now also an extra women’s version, the Fairview 40. And in the new colors the backpack looks really good! If you really pack it easily with the help of our tips, you have the perfect hand luggage backpack!
Cheap weekend trips Tip 2: Make an effort when searching for a flight
Many book the first flight they see. You can save a lot of money if you try a little harder to find the right flight. For example, I always use momondo* to search for cheap airline tickets and play with different factors.
For example, sometimes it’s cheaper to take an open jaw flight, which means you fly back to another airport when you left. Here is an example: you fly from Cologne to Lisbon, but from Lisbon you fly back to Düsseldorf – or vice versa. This can save you a lot of money, even if you have to pay extra for the train between Cologne and Düsseldorf.
Another trick is to add a tail flight, i.e. an extra flight that you don’t take. As absurd as it may sound, some routes actually become cheaper if you add another flight. Here’s another example: You fly from Berlin to Glasgow, and back to Berlin and on to Munich. But you won’t accept the flight to Munich, but you might save some money. But: This method only works if you are travelling with hand luggage, because otherwise your checked luggage would continue to fly to Munich without you!
Also the actual departure day or time can make a huge difference, as can the point of whether you are flying directly or with a stopover. A detailed article with all my flight search tips and how to find a cheap flight ticket is here for you.
Cheap weekend trips Tip 3: Look out for bargains!
In order to be able to travel cheaply, one thing above all applies: Keep your eyes and ears open for bargains! For example, it doesn’t always have to be a flight, sometimes there are unbeatable special offers at Deutsche Bahn. While on hotel platforms such as booking.com* you can sometimes get really crass discounts for hotel rooms, especially last minute. However, I can recommend you to search with momondo*, because momondo lists all hotel portals and you will find the cheapest price for your desired hotel.
Cheap weekend trips Tip 4: Stay overnight in a hostel
It will be really cheap if you stay in a multi-bed room of a hostel instead of in a hotel room. Although you have to share your room and bathroom with others, you can also save a lot of money and make new friends. In addition, hostels often have a communal kitchen where you can eat yourself and save money for expensive restaurant visits. If you don’t feel like joining the company, more and more hostels are now offering inexpensive single or double rooms.
Cheap weekend trips Tip 5: Stay overnight in an AirBnB apartment!
If you’re travelling with friends, you can also save a lot of money by renting an AirBnB* apartment instead. Because these apartments are usually cheaper per night than hotel rooms and the best thing about them is that you can prepare your own food yourself and don’t have to spend your money in restaurants several times a day. But here it’s better to book earlier than last minute! Because the closer you get to your travel date, the less choice you have and usually only the expensive or really uncomfortable apartments remain.
Extra tip: Stay overnight completely for free!
But there are also possibilities to stay completely for free. Very famous is the platform Couch Surfing. Here you as a member can stay for free with a private person and with a little luck you will not only be provided with a sofa, but a real bed! But there are more options to stay for free all over the world. In this article you will find out what these are by reading about 6 options to stay overnight for free!
If you are an absolute animal lover like me, there is another alternative for you: House sitting! Here you take care of the house or apartment of private persons who are on holiday or business trip themselves. Mostly they have a pet, like a cat or a dog, that you have to take care of during your stay. The advantages for both sides are obvious: You have a cool free place to sleep and not only animal company, but sometimes you can also use the car or even the pool of the owners.
If you think that this is just the right thing for you, I also have a suitable contribution for you. In this post I’ll tell you my best tips on how you can travel around the world as a house sitter at a reasonable price! And if you really want to start off as a house sitter and be successful, I can recommend my eBook!
