UK Ireland trip expense report- 1.15 lakhs for 23 days

How much can a 3 week trip to UK cost? How can we visit one of the most expensive country on budget? A typical package tour to UK, sold by travel companies cost between 1.5 Lakh INR to 2 Lakh INR for around 7-8 days and you will still need about 50000 INR more for various expenses not covered under the package. This extrapolates to approx 3-4 lakh rupees minimum for a 3 week detailed tour of UK and Ireland. In comparison, how much do you think my 21 days trip would have cost me? This post shares my trip expense and how I could travel cheap and save on the UK trip. Of course packed tours offer better luxury and convenience in terms of stay, travel arrangements etc- I had to compromise on some of these aspects- so  comparison is not apple to apple- use your discretion.

Key highlights of my trip- Places visited over 3 weeks in UK and Ireland
Before talking about expenses I will give a quick snapshot of places visited and high level agenda/highlights of my tour. This will help setting the context/perspectives right. Below map shows cities in UK and Ireland I visited during the trip.

• 21 days of site seeing+ 2 days in flight, 23 Total- 4 days London, 1 Day Soundend on Sea, 5 days Dublin, 3 nights Belfast, 3 nights Scotland (Edinburgh), 5 days ex-Newport (South Wales), 2 nights in airport/in-flight.
• Visited London,Stonehenge, Southend on Sea, Dublin, Cliff of Moher, Wicklow Mountains, Belfast, Giant Causeway, Edinburgh city, Cardiff, Barry, Swansea, Bristol, Bath
• As you can see from above map, I couldn't visit the midlands (Manchester, Liverpool area due to lack of time) and couldn't explore Scottish highlands (had plan but due to bad weather forecast didn't book a tour. Maybe during next trip, whenever that happens.
• 10 nights spent with friends/relatives- no stay expense, reduced food expense, remaining nights in budget hostels- approx 11-13 GBP per night.
• Mode of travel: Public transport, day tours, domestic flights, walking

High level day wise itinerary below

Day	Base city	Activity	Remarks
0	London	Arrive in London, Train to hostel	Hyde park n places near hostel
1	London	London Local	Hackney City farm, London Bridge, London Eye, Cathedrals, high streets, meeting friends etc
2	London	Day trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury
3	London	London Local	London Tower Bridge, Albert & Victoria Museum, Battlesea park, Albert Memorial etc
4	Southend	London & Southend On Sea	Buckingham Palace change of guard, Train to Southend Central, Southend pier walk
5	Southend	Southend on Sea, Flight to Dublin	Southend on Sea local walks, evening flight to Dublin
6	Dublin	Dublin city Centre	Sphere, Castle, meeting friends
7	Dublin	Day visit to Kilkenny	Castle, Churches etc
8	Dublin	Cliff of Moher day tour
9	Dublin	Wicklow mountains Day tour	and evening short visit to Howth
10	Belfast	Bus to Belfast Belfast Local	Belfast City centre, Victoria Mall
11	Belfast	Day trip to Giant’s Causeway
12	Belfast	Belfast Local	Titanic Belfast, Belfast Castle, Cave trail, Botanical Garden
13	Edinburgh	Flight to Edinburgh, Edinburgh city centre	Rest in hostel due to heavy rain
14	Edinburgh	Edinburgh local	Albert Peak, Carton Hill etc
15	Edinburgh	Edinburgh local	Museum of Mound, Art Gallery, Dean Village etc
16	Newport	Flight to Cardiff, Cardiff city Centre, bay
17	Newport	Swansea and Rhosilli	Nature walks, beach, museum
18	Newport	Bristol and Bath	City attractions
19	Newport	Beacon hill AONB	Scenic drive with friend
20	Newport	Cardiff and Barry	Nature walks
21	Newport	Newport local/rest day, Bus to London
22	London	Return flight to India	Qatar

Major Expenses/Expense break-up of my UK/Ireland trip:

#	Expense	Amount (INR)	Remarks
1	Flight-India-UK return	35450	Qatar
2	Domestic Flights	7467	Ryanair SEN-DUB Flybe Belfast-EDI, EDI-Cardiff
3	UK Visa and related	10800	Document translation & Notary cost bit extra
4	Stay	11280	Cheap hostels, 11 nights
5	Food Expenses	11361
6	Site-seeing tours & day trips	18811	Cliff of Moher, Wicklow, Giant's Causeway, Stonehenge etc
7	Local travel	17078	Intercity, airport transfer and local commute
8	Others	2850	Sim card, misc
	Total	115097	1.15 Lakhs INR

Note: Converted at 1 GBP=88.6 INR, 1 Euro @ INR 73

Top reasons I am able to tour UK & Ireland on extreme budget:
1. Cheap flight ticket: Normal return ticket to UK from India costs around 45-50k INR even if planned few months in advance. My ticket cost was INR 35450, booked during a Qatar Airways sale.
2. Extensive walking: I've walked an average 15-16 kms every single day during the trip- if the destination is 2-2.5 miles away I won't even think about bus or cab, usually just walk. This has helped me save precious money, though I spent a little more time walking to the destination.

3. Hostel Stay: Hostels are lot cheaper (10-15 GBP per night as against 20-30 GBP+ for hotel rooms). Hostels also offer kitchen where we can cook our own food for much less.
4. Stay with friends and relatives: About 5 nights in Dublin and 5 nights in Newport I stayed with friends. They were kind to give some packed food and serve me nice meals- this effectively saved me around 15000-20000 INR I would have otherwise spent on hostel stay and food.
5. Self-Cooking/Budget food. Managed my meals for around 3 Pounds per meal- read detailed post here. This saved a lot on food bill.
6. Avoided expensive attractions- Didn't go inside Edinburgh Castle, Kohinoor diamond, Roman Spa in Bath and other attractions that had entry tickets which I didn't feel worth or had cheaper alternatives. [Related: Free to visit attractions in Edinburgh] Most attractions had tickets of 15-19 GBP or INR 1500-1700, so had to think twice if it is worth. Did spend on day tours where necessary. Could have easily spend another 100-200 Pounds if I had visited various paid attractions tourists usually visit. I focused a lot on nature trails, walks, landscape, gardens, hiking, waterfront and other free to visit places.
7. Flexibility: Wanted to visit Birmingham but train tickets were expensive at about 80 GBP so decided not to visit. Booked domestic flights depending on what was cheap, when it is cheap. Didn't pre-book any tours, except few hostel stays as it would have hampered my flexibility (booked tours last minute depending on weather). Idea that you should book everything early to save more is not always true, particularly in off-season or when you have flexibility.
8. Cheaper Euro- Ireland works on Euro. Each Euro now costs 77 INR, but I had some Euros from my 2015 trip, acquired at around 72-73 INR. This helped me save about 5 INR per Euro in current value. This meant during Ireland trip I effectively saved about 1000 INR on some 190 Euros I spent. Of course I lost interest money if I had converted it back to INR and deposited the money in INR- then I would have had to buy Euro again at current rates.
9. Self planning:  Planned all of travel on my own, with input from friends. Did book some day tours where needed otherwise traveled using public transport as much as possible. No hop on hop off, no package tours. Many friends like Bhushavali, Swati and Sam and many other friends provided valuable tips.
10. Taking chance with weather: Weather forecast was 'Rainy' for most of the days. But in reality, I got a bit of rain, mostly cloudy and fair amount of sunshine. Had I sat at home fearing rain, it would be my loss. Did a mistake of not booking Scottish Highlands day tour in Edinburgh as weather forecast predicted heavy rains-big mistake as it was very sunny next day. Anyways Edinburgh had lots of free to visit stuffs to keep me busy during my stay there.
11. Cabin bag only: Not having a check-in bag meant I didn't have to pay extra for low cost airlines during domestic flights. Also in Dublin if I had to wait for checked bag I would have missed last bus to my destination and had to spend 50 Euro on taxi. With one backpack, I could easily walk to my hostel from bus/train station etc. [Related: What I packed for 34 days US-Canada-South America trip - similar packing for this trip as well]
12. No shopping.
13. Cheap Coffee/Tea
A typical coffee/tea in any cafe in UK costs around 2.5 Pounds onwards. Two tea/coffee per day would have cost me 2.5*2*22=110 GBP or around INR 10000. Instead I managed with ready mix- Girnar masala tea mix (retails around 14 INR per pack) and Nescafe mix- pack of 6 for GBP 1. Had to find a source of hot water and my tea/coffee would be ready for one sixth of a pound. This meant I spent only around INR 15 per cup*2 cups per day*22 days= 660 Rs on tea/coffee instead of INR 10000

14. No insurance. For US trip I had taken basic travel insurance for about INR 1600 as this trip included several countries and risk factor was high. For UK trip I didn't buy any. Insurance is often bought on fear of incurring bigger expense- at times I take my chances,own the risk and save some money. It might backfire at times, but has usually worked for me as my health is reasonably good and I exercise enough caution during trips.
15. Carried pickle from India-I took 10 Rs pickle packets, tea ready-mix and coconut water powder from India, which helped save some money.

I did do some mistakes which if I had avoided could have saved me an additional 50 odd pounds- more on a separate post.

I got lucky with a few things:

• Got 21 GBP National Express ticket from Newport all the way till London Gatwick. Normal fare is 47 GBP. Train from Victoria to Gatwick itself cost 8 GBP so this one stop low fare worked great for me.
• Weather was decent- didn't result in having to do nothing for entire days.
• Two of friends invited me to stay with them- this helped save about 20000 INR I had budgeted for food and stay.
• BIVS Visa: Indian and Chinese nationals are eligible for British-Irish Visa Scheme which allows visiting both UK and Ireland under single visa. This spared the cost and trouble of having to get another visa for Ireland.

Thus my expenses averaged to INR 5500 per day approx. Of course I could have easily spent another lakh rupees (or 5000 per day) more and done the following
- Save some time and effort by taking taxi
- Visit some of the ticketed places
- Stay at a slightly more comfortable place
- Enjoy better food

But I chose to compromise a bit and save where possible.

If you're not on super tight budget and prefer some comfort then aim to spend another 5000 INR more per day than what I spent. But if you are flexible and determined to travel on extreme budget, it is possible, even in very expensive countries.

Disclaimer: Idea is NOT to ask everyone to travel on shoestring budget, eat less, walk a lot and don't spend anything during the trip. Idea is to explain the cheaper alternatives available so that you can pick whatever aspect that suits you. Like you might wish to spend more on food or luxury stay but save on other aspects or any mix and match as your travel preferences dictate and budget permits.

Similar: US and Canada trip expense report *