Barca on a Budget
I don’t know about you, but my Instagram feed for the past four months has been various college students country-hopping every weekend. From Florence to Copenhagen, Sorrento to Dublin, Mykonos to London — life seems like an absolute dream. Coming from someone who did go abroad in the fall, it sure seemed that way on social media. But, no one mentions how much money you spend from September to December, and how budgeting can be really difficult to accomplish. Personally, I wanted to say yes to everything, which meant experiencing every weekend trip I could, going out to amazing dinners and immersing myself in the culture by various tours and museums to familiarize myself with the history of the country I was studying in. I am here to tell you all of that is possible, and you can do it on a budget!
First step: In the summer, plan out what trips you would like to take and book them as soon as possible. The earlier you book your tickets, the cheaper it will be. I used Sky Scanner and Omio to help search for the cheapest flights to and from cities. Also (if you have it in you), I took the worst possible times for the flights in order to ensure I was not only spending the least amount of money, but also hitting extreme exhaustion before arriving at my home base in Barcelona. Another piece of advice is do not be afraid to take trains! Although Barcelona was hard to travel from via train, I knew many other students who utilized their destination and took cheap trains from country to country.
Along with planning the flights to each weekend destination, my friends and I had also searched for where we would be staying during these trips and booked it as soon as possible. We took advantage of having friends living in other countries and stayed with them when we could. When we weren’t able to do this, we used HostelWorld to find really cool hostels to stay in where we could even get private rooms, so it felt like a hotel. Getting this over with in the summer helped with an understanding how much we would be spending on the huge trips.
Now, when arriving in Barcelona it can be very overwhelming. The first thing I did when I arrived was figure out how to use the Metro. This saved my life abroad. It took a few times to get the hang of it. I bought a pass for four months, and this saved so much money on transportation because it ran until 2 am on weekends and 12am on weeknights. I 100 percept recommend getting a metro card within the first 24 hours of being in Barcelona.
My second piece of advice is to look for different bars and restaurants with student deals and happy hours. My friends and I went to Coco Vail a ton because they had 50 cent wings every Monday, and it was nice to get a bit of American food in our stomachs when feeling homesick. Also, George Payne had amazing deals depending on the night, so following their social media helped a lot to find out when this was happening. There are tons of other places to go that have deals like this, and the internet is your friend when searching for those!
Lastly, I highly recommend looking for student discounts for museums or walking tours. There are a ton of options and good deals if you're looking to explore the city you are staying in or visiting. For my program, we were provided with a weekly list of free tours and day trips we could sign up for, and we were able to travel throughout Barcelona and other areas of Spain. They even provided us with chances to take art classes or cooking classes. So, contacting your school to see if they have those sorts of opportunities is also very helpful.
Going abroad can be overwhelming and stressful, and anyone that says that they weren’t immediately struck with a feeling of confusion or nervousness is lying. However, the tips I provided are to help ease one of the huge stressors of abroad: the spending. I hope that these tips will help you in your future travels, and let us know if you have any of your own to add!
Photos by Emily Cohn