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My bags are packed (sort of), papers organized(ish), and spirit ready (definitely) to head off on a nine-day adventure.

But where am I flying after Berlin? It’s a mystery!

Follow along

Why be so mysterious (and self-indulgent), you ask? Why not? We have so much fun with mystery photos in our newsletter and on our Facebook page, why give it all away now?

Naturally, I’ll also keep an eye out for any Cheapo-friendly activities, cool budget hotels, and delicious cheap eats. Plus, I’ll be asking for your feedback along the way.

Dreaming of wurst. Photo: JaBB

Win your own trip

If you haven’t yet registered for our summer trip giveaway, register now for a chance to win two round-trip tickets from airberlin. They’ll fly our winner (and a guest) from JFK to any destination in Germany to which airberlin flies!

Plus, A&O Hostels is throwing in five nights in a private room at any of their German locations.

We’ll be drawing the lucky winner on July 17, 2012. Enter now to win!

Next stop: Berlin

As for me, I guess I should finish packing and brush up on my Deutsch. I’m already dreaming of a bicycle tour of Prenzlauer Berg and wurst mit senf und bier at Prater. Stay tuned!

Note: This is part of a travelogue series sponsored by airberlin covering destinations to which the airline flies from the United States. For more information, including new US-Europe routes and summer sale fares, visit airberlin.com.

The post Off to Berlin… and beyond! appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

This year, everyone here at EuroCheapo HQ has made a pact to aspire to both personal and office-wide resolutions. The former is listed below and at each individual Cheapo’s discretion, while the latter is also listed below and the result of both heated debate and thumb-wrestling.

Here we go, yo!

Office-wide Resolutions

1.) Only use WiFi at any hotel if it is free

2.) Spend as little as possible on airline baggage fees (and know what the fees are in advance, natch.)

3.) Be smarter about racking up points on credit and debit cards that can be used toward future travel.

4.) Take overnight trains more often.

5.) Remember how to properly use our iPhones abroad. And we reserve the right to just leave the things at home and get over our bad tech selves.

6.) Use public transportation to get in from the airport, no matter how tired we feel or if we overindulged on the free in-flight sauce.

Personal New Year’s Resolutions

Kari’s Resolutions

1.) Sip fruit soup in Budapest.

2.) Buy a welcome mat in Marrakesh.

3.) Find my grandmother’s roots on Mount Blanc.

4.) Step aboard a Viking ship in Bygdoy, Oslo.

5.) Listen to locals debate history along Serbian borders.

Pete’s Resolutions

1.) Take my 1-year-old daughter on an overseas trip and try to keep my flight anxiety to a minimum.

2.) Stay at least one night on a botel.

3.) I resolve to embrace the bidet.

4.) Karaoke at a youth hostel.

5.) Get involved in the paddle boarding conversation.

Suzanne’s Resolutions

1.) Read a book written or set in the destinations I visit.

2.) Attend a reenactment (and get someone to break character).

3.) Set up a travel fund.

4.) Take a class (cooking, dance, fill-in-the-blank…) in a place known for that specialty, even if for only a day.

5.) Give something back: volunteer for a day, bring supplies to a poor country, share conversation with locals…

Meredith’s Resolutions

1.) Keep a journal of my travels.

2.) Take the bus more.

3.) Go into a restaurant, forgo the menu and ask the chef to make me “whatever.”

4.) Find a baby-friendly budget hotel in Paris.

5.) Stop faking my knowledge of foreign languages.

What New Year’s travel resolutions do you have for 2011, Cheapos? Tell us in the comments below!

And to help make your resolutions a reality, consider some of these fab tips for Europe to get started.

The post The Cheapos’ 2011 New Year’s Travel Resolutions appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Hosted at the Cantor Film Center in Greenwich Village, the two-day event featured panels, presentations, and readings featuring travel bloggers hailing from the US and abroad, some coming to town from as far away as New Zealand. The schedule was jam packed from mid-morning through late afternoon, allowing the more than 300 guests to learn from one another, compare notes, and discuss the intricacies of the travel blog industry with their peers.

In other words, it was the perfect weekend to throw a big party!

To celebrate the occasion, we collaborated with our friends from BootsnAll.com and invited all conference attendees to join us in the East Village on Saturday night for an evening of “anything goes.” What follows is a photo recap of an enjoyable, loud night in New York City.

(Note: We’re missing the names and Web sites of many partygoers pictured in the photos. Please help us out by emailing us the names, Twitter handles, and Web sites of those not named. You can also post the information in the comments section below. When sending a name, please include the corresponding photo number. Many thanks!)

1. First start with an interesting conference full of fun attendees: Here’s the crowd lining up to get in to TBEX 2010 on Saturday morning.

2. Then wait about eight hours and usher everyone to a lounge in the East Village. We had chosen The Professor’s Loft.

3. Next, add personable hosts for the evening: Tom Meyers and Sean Keener.

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The post Photo Essay: The EuroCheapo and BootsnAll TBEX Party appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Spotted–A few Budget Travel divas, Worldhum‘s Canadian correspondent extraordinaire, lots of dedicated Sosauce staffers (we co-hosted the party with them), a host of EuroCheapo correspondents, freelance journalists, bloggers, some Travel Blog Exchange peeps, our favorite New York Times’ columnist, and more.

Stay tuned if you missed this one. We’ll be hosting another party once the weather turns warm.

Warming factors-

And, speaking of feelin’ the heat, it’s the last day of February. No leap year. Just one more cold ‘un before we turn into the Ides of March. So we thought we’d take this opportunity to point out a few recent travel stories that are making us warm and fuzzy all over:

-BootsnAll posted about the 12 most amazing pools in the world. Care for a dip?

–Eva Holland’s reached her boiling point over the Slumdog hype.

-Michelle Higgins anchored in a bunch of cruise discounts in a Times’ piece a few weeks ago. Cheapo overboard!

-Our own Alex Robertson Textor offers up a few great posts on his recent trip to San Fran. We especially love the mention of “Sunset” mag.

-Finally, a dear friend of EuroCheapo is living and working on a farm in Italy. You can follow his narration here. (Catch the classic mention of “cheapo” standards. I mean, working on a farm in order to live abroad? Very Good Cheapo!)

The post Friday February Farewell: Post-party edition appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Maude is a three year old dachshund (i.e., “weiner dog”) and hails from rural Virginia. Her previous employment included chasing field vermin, attempting to heard sheep, and playing poker with other dachshunds at the Harmony Hounds Rescue.

Maude’s official title is “Head of Security and Executive Director of Cat Chasing,” although we expect her responsibilities to expand (especially once she gets over her fear of helicopters.)

Please join us in welcoming Maude to the EuroCheapo squad! Happy weekend, Cheapos!

The post Friday office update: Our new hire – Maude appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

In Paris, I’ll be visiting as many hotels as I can fit into five days, and I’m hoping that I won’t experience any conflicts with Fashion Week, which kicks off at the end of the week. (When there’s a big event in town, it’s harder to inspect hotel rooms. However, I don’t know how much crossover there is in the two camps

I’m also looking forward to watching/celebrating Obama’s inauguration in Paris. Thanks to Meredith for putting together today’s excellent post on where to watch the inauguration in Europe!

St. Petersburg will not be work, although I’m sure I won’t be able to avoid jotting down budget travel notes. (It’s a hard habit to break!) I plan to spend the week visiting the Hermitage, a few palaces, attending a ballet, and basically strolling about town.

Regarding Moscow: Thanks to all the Cheapos who suggested ways to visit Moscow a la cheapo. In the end, spending two nights in the city was too expensive for my inexperienced self, so I’ve dropped it from the itinerary. I’m still toying with the possibility of taking the train down for a day, and then returning to St. Petersburg, however. Stay tuned.

Moscow was dropped, but Riga was gained. I mentioned Tallinn in an earlier post as a possibility, but it didn’t work for my friend Carl who will be traveling with me. We found a €100 one-way flight on airBaltic from St. Petersburg to Riga on Friday, January 30th. We’ll spend the weekend exploring the town, and then I’ll stay on for a few days of hotel hunting.

Again, thanks for all the advice and well-wishes. I hope you’ll join me on this trip by checking in with the blog. I look forward to comments, questions, and tips from you.

And now–onto Paris!

The post Cheapos at Work: Off to Paris, St. Petersburg, and… appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

And while we have a number of the ol’ standbys on our list (did somebody say “less caffeine, more jogging, and only red wine instead of Weihenstephans?”), we’ve also put together some travel resolutions. Drum roll, please:

Ten resolutions for budget-friendly traveling in 2009

1. I resolve to travel more.

2. I resolve to understand my bank’s ATM and credit card fees before I go. And while I’m at it, I might even call my bank ahead of time to let them know it’s me who’s traveling, rather than my stolen identity.

3. I resolve to purchase my intra-European flights on low-cost carriers as early as possible to get wild and crazy deals.

4. I resolve to stop obsessing over the daily fluctuations of exchange rates.

5 a. I resolve to understand how much I’ll get charged before using my Blackberry abroad.

5 b. I resolve to just leave my Blackberry off while I travel.

6. I resolve to rely on my memory as much as my camera.

7. I resolve to break out of my own travel mode and welcome new destinations. (Extra credit points go to fellow Cheapo-in-Chief Tom Meyers, who blasts off for St. Petersberg, Russia, in 2 weeks…)

8. I resolve to be better about frequent flyer points and awards programs, regardless if I plan to travel a long or short distance.

9. I resolve to never take a taxi to or from an airport, no matter how tired I feel.

10. I resolve to always be in the process of planning my next trip, even if it means just reading up on the destination or looking at photos.

What are your New Year’s travel resolutions? Please add them in the comment field below!

The post 10 Budget Travel Resolutions For 2009 appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

And what a year it has been, Cheapos! We’ve published over 300 blog posts since January, upon which you’ve provided nearly 400 comments, all of which has helped make our blog (hopefully) a useful and friendly budget travel resource for Cheapos worldwide.

But we can’t officially say goodbye to 2008 without doing an obligatory end of year wrap up of a few of our favorite posts. So join us as we tap into our inner Ryan Seacrest and present to you some of our “2008 Blog Greatest Hits!”

1. Most Popular Post:
Perhaps we shouldn’t be hugely surprised, but our most popular post in 2008 was “Top tips for a budget-friendly European vacation.” Written back in early spring, the tips are still just as relevant today – have a look.

2. Most Commented Post:
We always enjoy reading comments from our readers, but the post that generated the greatest amount of chatter was “Where to watch U.S. election results in Europe,” which had 38 comments. When we first wrote the post we included venues at 6 different cities, but with all the comments and feedback we received from you it expanded to recommendations in 17 cities across Europe (and a few outside Europe, too.)

3. Most Frequently Commenting Cheapos:
Two Cheapos, in particular, consistently submitted helpful tips and feedback to our blog posts this year and deserve special mention. They are “poetloverrebelspy” from the Less Than A Shoestring budget travel blog, and Marilyn Terrell from the National Geographic “Intelligent Travel” blog. Thanks to both of you for all of your comments in 2008 and please keep them coming in ’09!

4. Most Constructive Budget Travel Debate Within Blog Comments:
Just the word “Ryanair” elicits all sorts of emotions within budget travelers everywhere. However, we particularly enjoyed seeing the helpful banter back and forth among several Cheapos in the comments section of our post “NYC to London for $13? Ryanair prepares for U.S. takeoff.” Any post that produces side wagers within our comments gets our vote!

5. Best Travel Photo Caption Contest:
We were delighted to read through the various entries to our “Barcelona Dog” caption contest this past May. Some of which, admittedly, even we didn’t entirely understand…

6. Best use of subtle Photoshopping within blog photos:
Our office was in full-blown wacky Halloween mode this past October 31st, which culminated with our “EuroCheapo’s Spookiest Hotel Ghost Photos” post. Ok, spoiler alert: we used a little bit of Photoshop wizardry to enhance a couple of the photos, but have a look and see if you can tell which ones.

And lastly, we’d like to say a very special thank you to Darren over at the Travel Rants blog in the UK, who hosted a consumer blog award contest that resulted in EuroCheapo being named “Best Corporate Blog.” We appreciated even being included within Darren’s nominations and we look forward to even more blogging, helpful reader comments, and Photoshop creativity that’s to come in 2009!

Happy (almost) New Year, Cheapos!

The post EuroCheapo’s 2008 Blog Greatest Hits appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Please excuse the self-congratulatory and very personal manner of today’s post. Next week, we’ll be back to budget travel advice. However, tomorrow, June 14, is EuroCheapo’s seventh birthday.

The site launched on June 14, 2001 from my apartment in Berlin, where I spent the year living and traveling on the cheap. The first half of the year was largely spent visiting hotels for our first five city guides (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, and Florence). In Berlin, I spent most days typing out those first reviews in a cubicle in Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek near Potsdammerplatz. On June 14th, the site went live with EuroCheapo Paris. (Read more about the “back story” in a piece posted last year on Budget Travel’s website.)

As always on our birthday, we need to thank the editors, writers (hotel reviewers, city guide writers, and bloggers), interns, programmers, PR reps, and everyone else who has helped the site grow and flourish. We’d also like to thank our readers, many of whom write to us when they like something, don’t like something, or have an idea about how to make the site better.

But this year, we’d like to thank one more person instrumental in launching EuroCheapo: our grandmother. (I say “our,” by the way, as I now run EuroCheapo with my brother Pete, who is in charge of marketing and business development, and Meredith, his wife, who is our senior editor.)

Fifty years ago yesterday, on June 12, 1958, Eileen and Harold Detlefsen published the first edition of the “RFD News,” a free bi-weekly newspaper mailed to 6,000 rural families in northern Ohio. The paper was a family business, and our mother and aunts grew up writing their own columns (“Teen Talk,” “Julie’s Jokes,” etc.) and pitching in everywhere else. Our grandmother hunted down and wrote the stories, took and developed the photos, and did layout. Our grandfather sold the advertisements and did a final edit. Every two weeks, they drove the paper’s “flats” to a nearby offset printer, which, at the time, was cutting-edge technology.

Until they sold the paper 16 years later, the group put out Ohio’s finest family-produced publication. Today, the RFD News has a circulation of 70,000 and covers 20 counties.

I wasn’t lucky enough to get to hang out in the old RFD office downtown, as they sold it the year I hit the scene, but gram kept the newspaper spirit alive. She gave me my first electric typewriter when I was nine, and helped with layout on the newspaper I published for four years during elementary school (the “Funster,” circulation: 22). A few years later, she was one of the first people in Bellevue, Ohio with an email address, beating me by two years.

Today, she continues to be actively involved in EuroCheapo, writing her “Travel Gram” column. She also marvels at the legacy of that newspaper in the family. Of her six grandchildren, there is one journalism professor, one editor, one start-up entrepreneur, one graphic designer, and two who are crazy enough to run a budget travel website.

So thank you, gram. Fifty years ago, you and grandpa made a great decision when you took the family in a different direction and decided to do your own thing. We wouldn’t be producing EuroCheapo if you hadn’t.

(And yes, gram, please email me any typos you find in this piece…)

The post EuroCheapo’s Birthday: Seven candles and 50 more appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

The organizers of the event sent off a press release on Monday screaming that the event has sold out. We’ll see what the Berlin Messe looks like when it’s packed to its brutalist walls!

And then, as Pete noted on Friday, we’ll head to Brussels to see what the city looks like from a budget traveler’s perspective. As Pete and Meredith tackle the hotel scene there, I’ll head off to Bruges for the week to see what budget hotel options exist in that medieval playground.

Along the way, we’ll be blogging. We’ll cover the travel conference, the hotel hunt, and the state of bargain travel in Belgium. With the US dollar slipping daily against the euro (today it’s at $1.52), this will be a timely test to see how far we can stretch our euros. And I imagine that the three of us will get a bit competitive about who can stretch their budget the farthest… while still traveling with a bit of style, naturally.

During the next two weeks, we invite you to join us on the trip. And please send us your thoughts along the way about ways to save or things to do. We’ll be looking for your help!

Coming tomorrow: Hallo, Berlin!

The post Cheapos at Work: Off to Berlin appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.