|
enki42 posted:Regarding minimizing transaction fees while in Europe, it's worth checking if your bank has some sort of uber-elite account with no foreign transaction fees that you can switch over to if you're on a particularly long trip. My bank had one for about $20 / month, still better than paying fees constantly, and on top of that even the fees were waived if you had more than $8000 in the account (which was true for a good chunk of the trip) TD Bank in Canada has this, it's 24.99/mo, so over 5 transactions/month and you've made it up - Worth it in cheaper/smaller countries where you won't be spending a lot of money/time and can afford to take out 30, 40, whatever dollars worth. Also is good piece of mind (especially in developing countries, doesn't really apply to europe) to not feel obligated to take out $300 at a time and then wander the night streets dodging vagrants with a pocket bulging with cash thanks to the largest bill being worth pennies. Anyway, my brother, myself, and a friend hit the road in eastern europe this summer, biking and camping and just generally being tramps (and taking lots of trains when it was too rainy, too hot, too hungover, too lazy, too far, too hilly etc etc etc) around. We spent probably as little as 60 Euro/wk for some legs of our journey (camping in forests/out of sight of people/out of sight of the authorities, eating wheels of cheese & cans of beans). It was utterly fantastic. I'll definitely plan another bike ride next summer (even if it's just the rockies). Countries cycled: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria. Countries visited but with no/only slight cycling: Sweden (Stockholm, flew in to), Finland (couple days cycling the turku archipelago), Germany, Serbia (Cycled belgrade-novi sad, for exit festival), Bosnia (regret immensely not cycling more, Mostar-Sarajevo is absolutely beautiful countryside and it broke my heart that my bike was taking a break in dubrovnik while we rode a bus through some of the most fantastic scenery of the trip. Photos slightly organized, not captioned 
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2010 20:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 10:18 |
|