This summer we will be driving from Stockholm, Sweden, to Provence, France and back again – through a lot of different countries along the roads of Europe. Around 7500 km both ways – if not doing any extensive detours.

Some might think we’re crazy since we’ve booked overnight stays for 21 nights at different kind of accommodations. The cost of all those European accommodations including ferry tickets for 2 water ways accumulates to around 20.000 SEK (approx €2245 / $2935).

We’ve also counted that only the car fuel cost will be at least 7500 SEK (€842 or $1101), depending on what’s the gas price in different countries we pass through. We will check where it cost less before filling up fuel, that’s for sure. There will also be some road toll fees to be added, even though we’ll try to avoid those.

Some would claim that we could travel so much cheaper than this booked trip and yes, we could, but it wouldn’t be what we wanted right now. We neither aim for the cheap budget, nor the luxury on this trip. We aim for a mix that we have put together because we liked what we saw. For us it sounded a bit expensive at first, because we very often try to travel the budget way – to be able to travel more.

But then we realized that it is not really that expensive if you look closer to it. Just think about it: if you should make trips to all those destinations we get to see during our Europe road trip: what would the cost be? Flight costs to every destination instead of our one time fuel costs could very well exceed our fuel costs – or maybe even the accommodation costs – many times.

We get to see so many travel destinations on this road trip – as well as all the scenery between all those destinations. This is exploring in a total other meaning. (You can find our earlier posts with more details about this Europe trip’s route in the end of this post).

We have done a longer trip once before, that time 4620 km roadtrip from Sweden to Spain. This years Europe road trip will be both longer and different from that one in many ways – both giving us truly unforgettable memories and many interesting as well as educating experiences.

You’ll never know what life has in it’s hidden places for you, so we thought that we better grip this opportunity now, while it’s doable – or rather make us this opportunity, because it does involve sacrifices in our lives to afford to do this trip. We have to live very frugal for a long time to be able to get there.

We are not rich and you don’t have to be a millionaire to travel, it’s all about prioritizing and time. Time to save and plan well.

Many travelers don’t just get trips out of the blue without effort, served on a silver plate. We have to work hard many times to be able to do some of the trips we do. It’s a matter of how eager you are to do that particular trip, how bad you want it – and persistence to reach your goal.

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Trips

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012