Finally.

Touching down in what would turn out to be one of my new favorite places didn’t feel like I’d been delayed 19 long pandemic-infused months for this vacation to Europe. The abrupt jolt of the airplane’s wheels making contact with runway asphalt was like hitting the reboot button for my soul. Rat race competition, schedules, commuter traffic, all evaporated away in the puff of burnt rubber emitted from the plane’s wheels upon touchdown and I was born anew. The excitement of what might await me in this small country on the coast of the Iberian Peninsula was a potent dose of something I hadn’t quite realized had been missing in my life. But there it was. A shot of the traveler’s elixir.

We enjoyed time together as a family soaking in Portuguese culture in both touristy and non-touristy ways. Sitting in cramped restaurants eating dinner at eleven o’clock at night, while listening to sorrowing fado music with my kids in awe; and still awake and behaving. Or the beauty of getting lost in the labyrinth-like twisting streets of Lisbon’s Alfama district. Staying in a 250-year-old building and looking out each morning at the blue Tagus that countless sailors must have also gazed out on before departing to foreign lands during the age of discovery. Or even discovering my newfound love of grilled Sardines simply cooked over a flame with olive oil and salt. Even better, was watching my kids as they took in a different way of life. They took the chance to stop at any park we came across with a playground and got along fine with all the other kids speaking different languages. At one point there were like four different languages being spoken on one particular playground and I could see all of the parents quite happy about watching their kids adapt to this scenario. Very cool experience.

But, getting to Portugal was somewhat of a paperwork nightmare, only made worse by my what if I missed something and can’t board the plane type of worrying nature.

Man, it’s tough to travel right now. All passenger locator cards must be filled out electronically beforehand, you know those paper slips you pencil whip in the plane prior to arrival. The clunky apps the airlines want you to download and use and upload passport photos, immunization cards, current photos, flight numbers… The gathering of immunization records. The covid tests that must be done within so many hours of boarding. And being a family of four, it’s four times the difficulty in gathering everything in an orderly fashion to be shown to a wild card airline worker, who is more than likely disgruntled, and holds your fate in their powerful hands.

Yes, in all my travels, even before the pandemic, I’ve never underestimated the power of the airline worker at the ticket/baggage check-in counter. In 2019, I had a worker deny my family boarding a flight to Hong Kong because my wife’s last name on her passport was her maiden one and didn’t match the ticket name. Even though we had my wife’s passport and face right there before the worker’s eyes, they still would not simply change the name on the ticket and let her board. Yeah, they offered to let me buy a new ticket, for only $6,000 dollars! I had to buy new tickets on another airline with no refund because of this error and unrelenting worker.

Then two times, I was nearly denied a flight because I didn’t have onward air travel tickets, once from LA to Singapore and another from Spain to Peru. In the Singapore incident, I was very naive and bought on-the-spot tickets to assuage the worker. Guess what? When I get to Singapore not one person asked for any airline tickets out of the country. Getting a refund was a three-month affair and it took me visiting their office in Singapore to allow them to agree to it.

The next time I was denied boarding due to not having an onward ticket in Spain when checking into a flight to Lima. I was able to make some “alterations” to a ticket quote on my phone to snap photos and email myself onward travel tickets to fool the worker.

For a budget traveler, this can be a kiss of death. And guess what? Yup, nobody in Peru asked me for onward tickets. Such a scam. Most times we land and take a train or bus to another country. Or buy airline tickets later on. Why do we need onward travel tickets? Not once in my life have I ever been asked for onward tickets by a customs officer in the dozens of countries I’ve been to, only airline check-in counter workers printing out my tickets have demanded this.

Well, the same power-hungry airport worker thing happened to me this time around, but with a Passenger Locator Form for Portugal. I’d filled one out for each of us for the UK (our connecting airport) and only one for the family for Portugal, like the online page asked for. But no, this worker wanted each of us to have our own forms. So she kicked us out of line and we had to frantically scramble to fill out each page as the line grew to get to the counter. I think my traumatization from past encounters with these folk and paperwork only fueled my irritation. But we did as she asked and were issued tickets. And guess what? Not one customs person from Portugal asked to see my passenger locator form.

Okay, just had to let out some steam. The clunky “paperwork” and testing were by far the most stressful and worst part of the trip and now it’s out of the way.

Costs

Let’s get to the juicy part. The cost of this wonderful trip.

Before we go too far down the spending road, I just want to remind people travel does not have to be this expensive. I’ve traveled quite a bit in Europe averaging $50 a day per person back in my twenties; mostly by staying in hostels and making sandwiches for lunch, cooking dinner at home, and buying 1 euro bottles of wine. Of course, we splurged back then on things once and a while, but travel can be done easily on a small budget.

Now that I’m in my late 30’s and have two kids, I purposely spend a bit more doing the tourist things I missed out on during my backpack days, which includes all the restaurants I used to walk past. Also, in the back of my head, I know that when I FIRE I will likely be on a much tighter budget and this gives me peace of mind for spending more.

The total cost of the trip from when we left to when we returned (*keep in mind our flights and accommodations were already paid for). This is what we spent while in Portugal for 12 days for a family of 4: $2292.

• Restaurants– Total $616/Daily Avg. $51 We ate out quite a bit. This includes two restaurants which make up half of this cost. Both were fancy and high-end gastronomy restaurants, well worth the cost despite the tiny portions. The prices were so cheap in Portugal compared to the Bay Area, we couldn’t help ourselves to eating out when hunger arose to take advantage of the prices. Cuisine consisted mostly of sea food, which I won’t complain about. Lots of cod, octopus, shellfish, sardines, and crab. To be honest I didn’t know much about Portuguese cuisine prior to the trip. I can say now the food is amazing. It’s simply cooked with olive oil and salt and very fresh. Was happy to find 1 euro NA beers at most places, which went well with the sardine and olive tapas. Regular domestic beers were about 1.50 euros. My wife drank sangrias that averaged 5 euros. Entrees averaged 5-10 euros at mom and pop places.

• Groceries– Total $229/Daily Avg. $19 Mostly breakfast items for the Airbnb’s and some lunch stuff. We did make sandwiches for a couple of days and ate in parks or near something with a great view. Also includes some laundry detergent and shampoo.

• Cooking Class–$214 This was a fun experience we did in Lisbon and met some cool fellow American travelers as well. I’ve always found it rare to meet Americans abroad. We learned to cook a traditional meal from appetizer to dessert. They also offered all you can drink wine, which I didn’t take a part of, but seemed to be worth the price from the others partaking. Did it through Cooking Lisbon. The chefs were nice and let my daughters do their own “special” Halloween cooking baking.

• Douro River Cruise–$296 One of the more touristy things we did. But it was super fun and worth it. We went up the Douro River for a 7 hour cruise from Porto. Included breakfast and lunch and wine for each meal. Nice to just chill out on and slowly watch the scenery and vineyards up the lazy river. Took us to a small town known for growing the grapes for the famous port wines in the north of Portugal. Train ride back was included. The countryside of Portugal is just stunning.

• Soccer Game-Total $201 Being a huge sports fan, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch one of the most famous teams in Portugal play. Nothing like cheering on the home team for a night game. My daughters had a blast, especially my oldest who’s starting to understand the sport a bit more. Game started at 9:15 PM, one of the many late things we got used to doing out there. I was shocked by the lack of alcohol consumption at the game. I mean, yeah before the start and during half time maybe a 10 percent of the people near us went and got one beer. But during the game nobody was getting up and coming back double fisted or even single fisted. I didn’t see one drunk person in the stands. Also nobody on their phones during the game. But their was plenty of chain smoking cigarettes. Almost the opposite to what American sporting events are like.

• Covid Tests– $174 We got tested to go to the soccer game, about 25 euros each for my wife and I. Then all four of us had to get tested 48 hours prior to our flight back to the States for about 20 euros each. I was nervous about how getting a test in Portugal would be like. Searching the internet before the trip was stressful. But like most things travel, once I got there, I saw “covid tests” signs all over the place in English, especially at those green cross pharmacies that are on just about every busy street. Just had to walk in and they spoke English. All of it was legit and professional with stamped and signed letters and PDF’s emailed to us.

• Museums/Palaces– Total $137 Included the ancient Sao Jorge Castle in the center of Lisbon, the Sintra palaces, and some cool mariner museums in Porto. As someone who enjoys history, I was shocked by my ignorance of Portugal’s history. I had no idea the Romans were so entrenched in Lisbon’s past. Not to mention the Celts, Phoenicians, Moors, and Visigoths who’ve all occupied the city at one point or another. And the age of Lisbon with what’s been preserved of the old districts is also mind blowing. Reminded me a bit of Tangiers with the maze like narrow streets. Porto also has a cool history surrounded by ship building and the port wine and fruits of the Douro Valley. If I had to live in one city or the other it would be Porto.

• Trains/Public Transport/Misc.– Total $425/Daily Avg. $35 Big chunk of this cost stems from the train ride to Porto from Lisbon, and a taxi ride to the airport at 3am in Porto. If I take out those costs, the daily average drops way down to 12 euros a day for a family of 4. It’s 2 euros to hop on a bus per adult. We used the bus and metro system to get around everywhere in the city. It was very clean and felt safe even traveling around a few times around midnight through the city with our kids.

Air Lines and Accomodations

Flights

I used a voucher to get to Lisbon from a previous flight to Europe that was canceled due to the pandemic. Originally through American Airlines, but a discontinued service to Lisbon put me on their partner British Airways. The flight back was through Portugal’s TAP Airlines. I was impressed with both trips. The way over was on a Boeing 787 and it was shiny and new. Way back was on an Airbus, not sure the plane model, but it was equally new, if not a bit smaller. Both planes had top notch movies and entertainment pads. Both had phone chargers.

Total Cost Round Trip: $3,270

Flight to Lisbon-$1,200 I checked my exact flight over on google flights and this same one way flight on British Airways for 4 tickets was over $5,000 bucks! Thank goodness I booked this in December 2020 using pandemic prices. The funny thing is a few weeks before my trip I get a call from American Airlines telling me they no longer serve Lisbon and they wanted to give me a full refund. Which wasn’t the case last year when I wanted one and they refused by saying they could only give me a voucher. Anyway, they were persistent asking me like ten times over a phone call if I just wanted my money back, before finally acquiescing and putting me on a British Airways flight at no cost of my own.

Flight Lisbon to SFO- $2,070 I purchased this in the summer. I never checked to see if prices had gone up since.

Accomodations

We used Airbnb. As I’ve written previously, Airbnb made me a customer for life after they gave me full refunds for last minute cancellations due to travel being shut down last March. I love Airbnb’s and VRBO’s for a variety of reasons, but the main two reasons are: 1. we can cook with a fully stocked kitchen, and 2. we can stay away from tourist areas and where locals live. We save money both ways from cooking at home and the prices at stores and restaurants in real neighborhoods are way cheaper than near hotels.

On this trip, we purposely stayed closer to the “action” to reduce walking time with our young kids.

Total Cost Accommodation: $1,533 for 12 nights or about $127 a day

Grand Total For Our Vacation To Europe:

$7,095

I was much more strategic about the cost of this vacation, mainly being how and when the money was spent, compared to last year’s RV trip to Montana. I diverted money into a “vacation” bucket early on so that my checking account didn’t get too low, like what happened last year.

Things that helped out were spacing out our spending for this vacation over the year. In fact, I paid for the flight to Lisbon back in December 2019, inadvertently of course, as the flight was for another trip that wasn’t meant to be.

We booked our flights and accommodations in the summer. And I likely would have bought them even earlier if it weren’t for the fluid pandemic situations. So in this case, I only spent $2,292 in Portugal while on the actual vacation. Spreading out the cost of the trip, so I only have to worry about eating costs and activity costs in the month vacation is taking place was key to making this a painless process and jumping straight back into saving 50% of after-tax income the week we returned.

In keeping our daily living expenses very low, it was easy to take an expensive European vacation, and not feel the hit by merely switching what usually goes into Vanguard into our savings account. Europe, by its nature, is much more expensive than most places to vacation in the world. Especially if you eat out a lot like we did this trip.

Next vacation we’ll probably scale down a bit and head south. Somewhere where the food is cheap and can be eaten on the street for a buck…if that still exists anymore. I do miss smelling something cooked on the street, having my nose find it, and then eating said food on the spot.

For comparison here are the numbers for some previous annual vacations:

• 2017 Hawaii trip to Kauai $3,500- 6 days
• 2018 Pacific Coast Mexico-$3,800- 8 days
• 2019 SE Asia- $7,000- 10 days (multiple countries/flights)

Funny how spot on this Portugal trip was compared to the cost of my last Asia trip. SE Asia could have been way cheaper had it not been for the multiple flights trying to cram in a bunch of places into two weeks.

Overall great trip and worth every penny spent. Travel, for me, is one of those things that I can spend a great deal of money on and not think twice–yet I can have severe buyers regret spending twenty bucks at the hardware store for something I need to keep my house in working order. Yeah, I’m weird like that.

Obviously, it’s hard not to see how much we actually spent on this trip and not think about what if I’d just vacationed somewhere local or cheaper, or better yet, pumped that money into the markets instead. I mean in the grand scheme, that’s a huge chunk of money. I could have bought a car with that. That’s more than some make in a year in some countries. But I’ve always tried to make the best choices when presented with them and those choices, in conjunction with my lottery win place of birth, have led me to today; where I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to be able to afford a luxurious vacation that costs as much as this one did.

So, would I have been better off having plopped this extra $7,000 in VTSAX to happily compound? Nope.

What about you? Any things (vices) you can spend on with no remorse and would do so in a heart beat over investing? Have you been to Portugal? Thoughts on this country?

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