Thinking about heading towards Eastern Europe

[IntrovertMatt]

Hey. I've been stuck in England for the past few months so I feel like I need to escape again now that I've got a few pennies saved up, anyone got a budget of how much it'll cost in places like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, ect.. I'll be either staying in the cheapest hostels, camping, hitchhiking and using buses, I'm hoping less than $30 a day will keep me going for a good while?

 

[beginnavagabond]

I've done some research on Ukraine and it is so cheap. I think $30 a day will be pretty good if you're just buying food and doing hostels and maybe a museum visit. Their currency is very weak so it's very easy to live in. I'm not sure about Belarus, you would need a visa for that which will be about 60 euros (used to be 130)

 

[Tony Pro]

I haven't spent much time in eastern Europe, but $30/day is plenty in the west (not allowing for the occasional splurge, however). I never spend more than 5 euro/day on food, and even in expensive cities, hostels are seldom more than 20 euro. Couple that with hitchhiking and the occasional night in a tent, and any bum can enjoy the wonders of Europe.
I didn't realize Americans can go to Ukraine visa-free; thanks for making me google it. Might change my summer plans based on this info...

 

[OutsideYourWorld]

Well for the Balkans you could live very well for 30 a day, and that's USD I can only assume ;D

For reference, Budapest hostels are like 5 euro on the low end (and not too bad), food is dirt cheap, especially if you cook your own stuff. I can't recall how much i'd spend on an average day of just surviving in Eastern Europe... But IF I was staying in a hostel then maybe 15 CADish?

IF you want to settle in some places/cities, check out workaway.info for room and board sort of deals. I did that a lot in Europe, Turkey, Georgia...

 

[Deleted member 20683]

be warned that nazis are running wild in some of those countries unfortunately....

 

[Tony Pro]

For reference, Budapest hostels are like 5 euro on the low end (and not too bad), food is dirt cheap, especially if you cook your own stuff. I can't recall how much i'd spend on an average day of just surviving in Eastern Europe... But IF I was staying in a hostel then maybe 15 CADish?

Maybe I'm crazy but I've never found Budapest to be that cheap. Those hostel prices are certainly hard to beat, but in terms of food, drink and transport, my daily expenses in Budapest (and Prague) were the same as in Western Euro cities.
Literally everyone else says it's cheap though, so I musta did something wrong.

 

[OutsideYourWorld]

I don't know where in Budapest you were, but i've been there a few times now and it's definitely cheap. Not the cheapest in Europe, for sure, but pretty darn cheap. Beers are like .50 cents each (500ml cans)... Grocery stores like Spar or Lidl are cheap... Even fast food isn't expensive (less than $2 for a langos which big guys can barely finish most of the time).

Transportation, well, I only ever hitched, walked, or did some black riding on the trams so I can't attest to the prices of that (Though it was like $20 CAD from Prague to Budapest the one time I did that).

 

[IntrovertMatt]

I don't know where in Budapest you were, but i've been there a few times now and it's definitely cheap. Not the cheapest in Europe, for sure, but pretty darn cheap. Beers are like .50 cents each (500ml cans)... Grocery stores like Spar or Lidl are cheap... Even fast food isn't expensive (less than $2 for a langos which big guys can barely finish most of the time).

Transportation, well, I only ever hitched, walked, or did some black riding on the trams so I can't attest to the prices of that (Though it was like $20 CAD from Prague to Budapest the one time I did that).

The hostels in Budapest are insanely cheap, I've been twice. The general atmosphere of people that live there are just so friendly. I love how everyone hangs around deak ferenc square at night time...every night.. they just drink and have fun. There's not many places I've been to like that.
I realised after the first time I went that getting a 3-4 day pass for the metro was a waste of money because I never got my ticket checked once, second time I went I was there for 7 days and just rode the metro for free, I could've been fined but I probably wouldn't have ended up paying that.
I've had a fine for hopping the metro in Berlin from 2015 and it still hasn't been paid, I think they've give up on sending me letters.

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

I saw a user on /r/shoestring on Reddit that mentioned staying in hostels in rural Ukraine for as little as two euro, which I found crazy. Also said you can get a cheap bottle of beer in a grocery store for less than $0.25. Not sure I believe it, but this may also have been right around the time of the war in Donetsk and inflation situation there may have improved by now.

 

[IntrovertMatt]

I saw a user on /r/shoestring on Reddit that mentioned staying in hostels in rural Ukraine for as little as two euro, which I found crazy. Also said you can get a cheap bottle of beer in a grocery store for less than $0.25. Not sure I believe it, but this may also have been right around the time of the war in Donetsk and inflation situation there may have improved by now.

Thanks for the info. It does sound too good to be true though but I'll check it out anyways.

 

[Drengor]

When I went through Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, beer was sometimes found for less than a dollar but easily for a dollar and plenty tasty. Food wasn't unbelievably cheap, but there's still stuff in the city dumpsters like everywhere else. Hitchhiking worked the whole way and kickdowns weren't bad.

In Budapest I just hung around down town, hooked up with backpackers from all over the world and just always snuck into the party hostels to sleep on my new friends floor or extra bed. Night life was wild there. After partying I just wild camped my way across the scenery. If you've got $30/day you'll be living the life.