We were in Spain for a month, didn’t want to annoy you with a post about the costs for every city we visited, so we decided to combine them into one post. We not only spent the most time here but Spain is considerably more expensive than South America, so being able to stick to a budget was very important. 

Where we DID save money? Lodging. Spain marked the first time we used Booking.com and AirBnb. By combining a couple of different sites and booking far enough in advance, we were able to save a lot of money. Granted, we had to make some sacrifices. In Barcelona, for example, we stayed outside the main area, that required a couple of connections. And we didn’t have air conditioning. In Madrid, we took a flyer on a 2 star hotel/hostel and it was a little small for 7 days but it was right in the middle of everything, clean, and had AC. Overall, there wasn’t a single place we stayed that we regretted. 
I think we also did a good job with activities considering how much there is to do and see in Spain. The key to saving money in this area is research. There are deals to be had. For example, in Madrid you can go to the Prado for free the last two hours of every day. You can go to Reina Sofía for free Monday-Thursday from 7:00-9:00 PM. We usually got 1 audio guide and shared or had one person report to the other. These are small expenses and seem inconsequential, but in the end they add up. 

Food and Drinks - We are learning that this is / will be the area that is hardest to keep low. That was especially the case in Spain. The culture doesn’t lend itself to going back to your apartment at 6:00 PM and having a ham sandwich. It doesn’t truly get dark until 10 PM and that’s about when people are going out for dinner. It was hard to not take part in that way of life every day/night but obviously that would break the bank. Some of our suggestions for eating and drinking in Spain: 

• Research the best/cheapest places: We learned the hard way a couple of times that just wandering and choosing a place is not going to turn out well. We would wander and then eventually just become frustrated, choose a place, it would be overpriced and not that good. However, when we did research we usually found the hidden gems that are cheaper with much better food. 

• Groceries are cheap: If we were staying anywhere longer than a day then we would go to a grocery store when we arrived because if we didn’t, we would end up not going and eating out. We found that groceries were very affordable. With that said, we were eating primarily chorizo and salami sandwiches, cereal and boxed wine. But one trip to the grocery store would usually cost less than $20 and feed us for at least a couple of dinners and lunches. 

• Tapas are great! But they probably won’t save you a bunch of money unless you eat like a squirrel. Granada was the only place that we had tapas that ended up being large enough to serve as a meal. Drinks also have to be purchased in order to get those free tapas, so it ends up equaling out. 

Summary -  Very happy. With the exception of the upcoming month (Ireland, UK, and Amsterdam) this should have been our most expensive stretch of the trip and we managed to keep it very close to the budget of around $110/day. It wasn’t always easy but I can’t think of anything that we missed out on because we were trying to save money.