{"id":116,"date":"2008-11-11T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/wordpress\/uncategorized\/10-days-in-spain-budget-and-packing\/"},"modified":"2020-10-12T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T17:31:09","slug":"10-days-in-spain-budget-and-packing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/travel\/10-days-in-spain-budget-and-packing\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget and packing for 10 days in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"photo alignright\"><a href=\"\/images\/uploaded\/packinglist-1024.jpg\"><img src=\"\/images\/uploaded\/packinglist-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"What I packed for 10 days in Spain\" class=\"size-medium\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>To the right is a picture of what I packed for 10 days in Spain, and actually there are quite a few things there that I didn&#8217;t end up using. Some I would bring again since they were precautionary, but others I would scrap.<\/p>\n<p>In case you can&#8217;t see the picture, here is my packing list and what I brought for my trip to Spain:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Clothes &#8211; 2 pairs shoes (sneakers and &#8220;nicer&#8221; sketchers), 3 t-shirts, 1 pair jeans, 2 pairs shorts, 1 button up short sleeve shir, 1 plain heavy-ish long sleeve shirt, 1 zip up sweatshirt, 5 pair underwear, 5 socks, windbreaker, swimming trunks<\/li>\n<li>Toiletries &#8211; razor, contacts, toothbrush, etc, Dr Bronners soap (for bathing, washing clothes, shampooing), emergency toilet paper roll<\/li>\n<li>Books &#8211; Spanish\/Morocco guides, Spanish, Arabic phrase books, 2 reading books<\/li>\n<li>Supplies &#8211; quick dry camping towel, lock, compass (I also made a quick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pureoptical.co.uk\/blog\/what-are-the-benefits-of-daily-versus-monthly-contact-lenses\/\">monthly vs daily contact lenses<\/a> to see which one was better while travelling) <\/li>\n<li>Electronics &#8211; IPOD, <a href=\"https:\/\/amcrest.com\/ip-cameras\/wifi-cameras.html\">wireless wifi camera<\/a>, mini flashlight, appropriate chargers<\/li>\n<li>Documents &#8211; passport, stashed copies of important info<\/li>\n<li>Other &#8211; sunglasses, snack bars for during transit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Update:<\/b> I went to Southeast Asia a year later, and packing list for three weeks in Thailand was quite similar. The only difference was less clothes and no shoes. Instead of sneakers I wore flip flops and brought my Vibram Five Finger shoes as emergency &#8220;shoes&#8221;. This cut down my load significantly. Imagine if I had stuck with the plan to take a solo RV trip; everything from snacks to water to mattresses would have to be stocked. But, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.campingworld.com\/inside-rv\/bedroom\/mattresses\">RV mattresses at Camping World<\/a> that I had checked back then are lightweight and reasonable, making the trip easier. Nevertheless, I am the happy-go-lucky person who wants to travel light and at times messy. That&#8217;s one of the benefits of going somewhere warm. Also I would recommend cutting down on denim and heavy materials as well.<\/p>\n<p>Back to my Spain trip, I actually only wore 2 or 3 different shirts the whole time, so I could have not brought one or two that I never wore. Also, I brought two pairs of shoes, one &#8220;nice&#8221; pair of Sketchers in case I was out for dinner, and a pair of running sneakers.  Only wore the sneakers, so I could have scrapped the other pair.  I only read one of the books that I brought, so the others (not the guides) were overkill.  The Lonely Planet guides were essential for me though.  I also didn&#8217;t use the quick drying towel or the lock that I brought.  Those two things I would probably pack again though since they take up such little room. The other stuff I could have gone without, though on a different trip they may have been useful. I also overpacked a little bit because I had plans to go into Morocco, though I only ended up doing a day trip to Tangier. <\/p>\n<p>I probably could have also condensed and multipurposed on the clothes. As for budget, my plane fare was around $1000 to fly from San Diego to Barcelona, and then Malaga to San Diego. Not great but also not bad.  Expenses while in Spain totaled about $1200 for the 10 days, and this is after the exchange rate.  This includes <b>everything<\/b> including hotel, food, drink, transportation (both local and between cities), obligatory gifts sponsored by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joinflyp.com\/\">Flyp<\/a>, and incidentals.  I wasn&#8217;t trying to go on the cheap, but I also didn&#8217;t want to go 5 star, so I am happy.  While I was there the exchange rate was hovering between 68 to 72 cents to 1 Euro, so I spent approximately 850 Euros.  This means I was well under 100 Euros per day, which makes me happy.  And if I take out the transportation it drops to about 80 Euros per day.  I am proud to say that I never took a cab and I really utilized the public transportation (both buses and trains).  I realize this total is a lot if you are a budget traveler, but also considering that it&#8217;s Europe, how the economy is doing, and the fact that I covered almost half the country (Barcelona -> Cordoba -> Granada -> Tarifa -> Tangier, Morocco -> Gibraltar -> Malaga), I feel that I was right around where I hoped to be, as the same trip could have cost a <b>LOT<\/b> more.<\/p>\n<p>If I break it down further, I spent an average of 40 euros (~$58 USD) per day on hotel, and this is actually skewed high because of the cost in Barcelona.  Which then means I was spending about another 40 euros per day on food, drink, and local transportation.  This actually breaks down quite nicely, since some days I was having only one cheap meal with a beer or two, and others I was spending a bit more to enjoy myself.  Then add in coffee and probably a grand total of $150 on random gifts to bring home for the family, and there you have it.  A great 10 days in Spain on an average budget which could be increased for more luxury or decreased to fix a shoestring budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"photo excerpt alignleft\"><img src=\"\/images\/uploaded\/packinglist-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"What I packed for 10 days in Spain\" class=\"size-excerpt\" \/><\/div>\n<p>To the right is a picture of what I packed for 10 days in Spain, and actually there are quite a few things there that I didn&#8217;t end up using. Some I would bring again since they were precautionary, but others I would scrap.<\/p>\n<p>In case you can&#8217;t see the picture, here is my packing list and what I brought for my trip to Spain:<\/p>\n<p>Clothes &#8211; 2 pairs shoes (sneakers and &#8220;nicer&#8221; sketchers), 3 t-shirts, 1 pair jeans, 2 pairs shorts, 1 button up short sleeve shir, 1 plain heavy-ish long sleeve shirt, 1 zip up sweatshirt, 5 pair underwear, 5 socks, windbreaker, swimming trunks<br \/>\nToiletries &#8211; razor, contacts, toothbrush, etc, Dr Bronners soap (for bathing, washing clothes, shampooing), emergency toilet paper roll<br \/>\nBooks &#8211; Spanish\/Morocco guides, Spanish, Arabic phrase books, 2 reading books<br \/>\nSupplies &#8211; quick dry camping towel, [&#8230;] <a href=\"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/travel\/10-days-in-spain-budget-and-packing\/\" style=\"font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><br \/>[<span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:.9em;\">links and styling have been removed in the excerpt, read more to see complete content<\/span>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142,10],"tags":[81,111,55,235],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealistcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}