Travel Diaries: #GlitterInEurope | Transportation
Planning a trip as huge as the one I'm going on this summer took a lot of time and research as well as constant communication with S, my travel buddy and gracious host in Brussels, Belgium. In the final and second post of a two-part segment on the planning process of my trip, I thought I would share some of the details on the work that S and I went through to research, decide, book, pay and confirm our transportation to each of the cities that we will be visiting.
TIP: For many of the websites I visited, the currency was in Euros (duh!). Always have the Converter app open (if you have an iPhone like I do) or simply google the exchange rates to get an idea of what you'll actually be spending. Also, it is always best to pay in the local currency, in my case, Euros, since your bank will give you a better rate than the business (ex: Ryanair would have charged me 1 EUR = 1.52 CAD had I chosen to pay in CAD currency, when the real exchange rate was 1 EUR = 1.42 CAD according to Google and the Converter app).
S and I searched around for different options for transportation to each city from Brussels, and considered multiple modes and companies, comparing prices, convenience and availability. For each city, we looked at all of our options, and often chose the cheapest/most convenient one.
Brussels, Belgium
My friend S has been generous enough to rent a car for a weekend during my visit so that we can drive around Brussels and a couple of the surrounding cities (Brugge, Ghent, Ypres, etc.) so I have no details on this part. She has also informed me that my transportation on the train from the airport to her place and vice versa has also been taken care of at (apparently) 8 EUR each way.
Paris, France
Thalys high speed train was the quickest (90-minute trip), cheapest (who can beat 29 EUR per person, each way), and most convenient mode of transportation (free wifi) from Brussels (the train station is a 15-minute walk from S' apartment in Brussels) and we paid 58 EUR each person, for round-trip tickets. We hope to see as many of the sights as possible by foot, and only take the metro when we absolutely have to since S has informed me that it can all add up and get quite expensive.
Dublin, Ireland
We were obviously going to have to fly to Dublin, and Ryanair offered pretty cheap airfare from Brussels at less than 70 EUR each person, for round-trip tickets. This total also included our seat selection for both flights (it cost 4 EUR per flight and person), to and from Dublin.
The main caveat of booking flights on Ryanair, for me, was that it had to be done in French and in Euros (French not being a big deal as I am fluent in the language). At the time, when I tried to search for flights from Brussels to Dublin on the English US version of the website for the dates we were interested in, they seemed not to be available. However, when I tried on the Belgian version of the website, and chose French over Dutch (I cannot understand or speak a lick of the latter), the flights were available, and cheaper by at least 10 EUR, compared to my research on Google Flights. Although, the US site is annoyingly working for me, now, and I was able to find flights just fine...
The main caveat of booking flights on Ryanair, for me, was that it had to be done in French and in Euros (French not being a big deal as I am fluent in the language). At the time, when I tried to search for flights from Brussels to Dublin on the English US version of the website for the dates we were interested in, they seemed not to be available. However, when I tried on the Belgian version of the website, and chose French over Dutch (I cannot understand or speak a lick of the latter), the flights were available, and cheaper by at least 10 EUR, compared to my research on Google Flights. Although, the US site is annoyingly working for me, now, and I was able to find flights just fine...
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Thalys was going to cost more than our trip to Paris, and so we decided on the bus for that one. We have yet to purchase tickets as we are awaiting confirmation of accommodations which will determine how many days we will be visiting. We have been visiting www.b-europe.com to look for bus tickets. As soon as more details are confirmed for this trip, I will post an update.
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