See Paris Without Going Broke. How to Travel Cheaply in Europe?

A brief guide for Ukrainian travelers.

With European low-cost airlines arriving in the Ukrainian market, the well-known phrase now sounds more like “See Paris and don't go broke.” But few people know that you can fly to almost any country in Europe for 400-500 hryvnias, and find quite comfortable accommodation there for 250.

Rule 0. How to Search for Tickets

My favorite site for searching flight tickets — Skyscanner. These are the search settings I choose:

1. Departure city: “Kyiv”
2. Arrival city: “Anywhere”
   

The cheapest days to fly are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so it's best to choose outbound and return flights on these days.

I always look only at one-way tickets. It's important to select this option so the price is displayed correctly. Why — I'll explain later.

Rule 1. The Main Thing — Get Out of Ukraine

Flights between European countries are almost always relatively cheap, for practically any destination. So first we check where it's cheapest to fly from Kyiv on the required date. The “Anywhere” option in the arrival city field will help with this. 

If you have specific plans for where to go — next, monitor how much a flight to your chosen city costs, from the cities we can fly to cheaply from Kyiv. You can check for the same day (but I recommend leaving at least 3 hours for a connection) or for a day or two later and make a stop.

If there are no clear plans, but you want to see more and something more interesting, you can use the already familiar “Anywhere” feature and search for the cheapest tickets from the city you arrive in, in any direction, shifting the departure date 1-2 days forward. This can be repeated an unlimited number of times. For example, after spending 2 days in Bratislava, you can fly to Brussels for 380 hryvnias.

This is how I built a route for May 2020: Kyiv — Krakow — Amman — Lucca — Venice — Barcelona — Malaga — Bratislava — Vienna — Bratislava — Kyiv.

All the flights will cost 5930 hryvnias.

Rule 2. How NOT to Fly to Expensive Airports

There are cities whose flights are expensive in themselves from any city. For example, one such city — Amsterdam. I don't know why this is, but it's very hard to find cheap tickets there.

If you want to go somewhere but it's expensive, your best helper — Flixbus.

Their buses run all across Europe and, if you've ended up in some city where flying out in any direction is expensive, you can travel to a neighboring city or country at very reasonable prices and on very comfortable buses. I traveled around France for 150 hryvnias. For example, you can get from Brussels to Amsterdam for 289 hryvnias.

Rule 3. How Not to Lose Money

Besides the flight, there are a few nuances on how not to spend extra money while there:

1. It's better to take cash with you from Ukraine in euros: exchanging dollars for euros there is not profitable;
2. The trip from the airport to the city can sometimes cost more than the plane ticket. When traveling as a group, in such cases it is more profitable to rent a car.
3. Accommodation is most profitable to book in two ways: separate rooms or apartments on airbnb. Through the mobile app Booking.com. It is through the mobile app that the most profitable deals appear.  
4. Food. During the day, while walking around the city, you can have a decent lunch at the “Lidl” supermarket for 1.5-2 euros without spending money and time on cafes, and in the evening find somewhere to try the local cuisine.
   

Rule 4. How to Fly Home

Flying home turns out to be more expensive than flying to Europe, but there are some cities from which it is cheapest to do so. First, when choosing tickets home you can look not only at Kyiv but also at Lviv — there are often very good offers there, and you can stay there for a day.

The cheapest flights to Ukraine are from Bratislava, Budapest, Vilnius, Katowice, Krakow and other Polish cities. So when planning a route, it's better to choose an inexpensive flight to one of these cities and fly home from there. 

If you have any questions, find me here or here.