Greenbacks and the Girl who loves to spend them

In order to take any trip, day trip or year long world tour, you always need money. Understanding where you get it and how you spend it is important if you don't want to end up sleeping in the back of a chicken truck in Ecuador. If you do want to sleep in the back of a chicken truck then feel free to ignore this post.

For this particular trip, I'm attempting to maintain a budget (gasp!). Western Europe is expensive enough in the off season so I'm interested to see how well the off season budgets I've looked at compare. All prices are quoted in local currency. Some have been converted to dollar pricing based on average June/July 2011 rates.

The nity grity:

• I'm not including gear in this budget because I'd already cobbled together most of it for other trips.
• This is a tentative budget which will be updated as I move along this month and I most assuredly determine that my version of cheap and Europe's are continents (ha! continents) apart. This budget has been updated to reflect the actual costs I encountered in Europe.

 Plane flight to and from Europe: $1191 (leaving from PBI to KEF and returning via TXL to PBI)

• I used kayak.com for the initial search and ended up booking with Delta/AirFrance via Expedia because they had the cheapest price.

Registration and Placement fee for Volunteers for Peace in Iceland: $330

and

Project Fee €150 (about $220)

• These two include housing and food for two weeks plus access to the hot springs and discounts on other things in Iceland.  Average $40/day

Hostels by City and Country

• Reykjavik, Iceland Kr 2500 x2 nights
• Akureyri, Iceland Kr 3500 x3 nights
• Barcelona, Spain: €21 x1  
• Berlin, Germany: average €16 per night

Tours and such:

• South Coast Iceland kr 18000
• Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon kr 10000
• Lake Myvatn from Akureyri 11500 kr
• Alternative Berlin  €20 (tip based)

Transport:

• Round trip to Akureyri on Air Iceland $138
• Surprisingly cheaper then the bus
• One way Reykjavik to Barcelona Spain $337
• One way Barcelona to Berlin $221
• Metro in Spain and Germany: $175
• Buses
• Barcelona-Madrid one way $42
• Madrid-Granada round trip $43
• Madrid- Barcelona one way $42

I wish I'd known about the Berlin Linien Bus. I would have probably halved my cost. . . but then I would have lost a day or two in transit. Next time I'll make sure I have more time allotted in for transit.

Food:

•  Food was hit or miss in terms of reasonable prices. An espresso in madrid and barcelona ran €1 to €1,5. Cheap diners and quick grocery meals (sandwiches, salads etc) ran from €2 to €5 a meal. I didn't cook in a lot in Akureyri or Berlin, unfortunately.
• Resturant meals ran from €5 to €12. 
• Total spent: €193 (about $275 at the June/July exchange rate)
• Add in Alcohol: €111 ($77) for a month

And there you have it! I'm sure I missed some things that I spent money on, but this is a pretty comprehensive list.