Where to stay

Naples is full of affordable hotels if you know where to look. I spent one week in the Hotel San Giorgio, a three-star hotel by the train station that charged about €30 a night.

I was skeptical, too. Many reviewers online said the train station neighborhood, by Piazza Garibaldi, was too seedy and far from the action. The neighborhood, however, while not the most charming, is adjacent to the historical center and I never felt unsafe. Within 10 minutes I was at my favorite pizza restaurant and could indulge in a bottle of wine with dinner. It was clean, convenient, and comfortably close – and did I mention cheap?

Tip: Do a quick search on EuroCheapo for cheap hotels in Naples. Rates and availability fluctuate with the season, so check your dates and make sure that you’re not planning to come during high season.

How to roam

Naples is a great base to visit the surrounding area, which has enough destinations to occupy you for at least a week. The Circumvesuviana train, a regional line, will get you out to the Roman ruins at Pompeii or Herculaneum for around €6 round trip. To take the train all the way to Sorrento, the home of Limoncello, you’ll pay only €8 round trip.

Ferries out to the islands, like Capri and Ischia, can be trickier. The Naples Office of Tourism provides you with a schedule with no prices (ranging between €10 and €20 a ride), but be aware that there are two ports, one for expensive hydrofoil ferries (Beverello) and one for less expensive boats (Porta di Massa).

Even among the cheaper boats there are two different prices. There is no science to it, so get to the port at least 30 minutes in advance to figure out which boat you want, and know that the cheaper one does not take significantly longer to get anywhere and is a great way to enjoy the coastlines from the deck of the ship.

Eating in Naples

I can’t imagine coming to Naples and eating anything other than pizza. The native Margherita pizza, with tomatoes and mozzarella, sets you back between €3 and €5. No typo there. Just look for pizzerias that display “Verra Pizza Napoletana” to be sure you’re getting a real, traditional pizza – there are rules and the Italians aren’t kidding around.

Similarly, gelato and pastries are extremely inexpensive and you can eat copiously without heading repeatedly to the ATM.

Like Paris, coffee is always cheaper at the bar, where many Italians gather for a quick espresso and biscotti. If powerful tiny shots are your thing, you’ll fit in at the Napoli café counter and you probably won’t pay more than a euro for your coffee.

Attractions

In Naples itself, there aren’t many must-see attractions. There is no tower, cathedral, or museum that I was itching to enter. Instead, wandering around the city, you quickly realize that most monuments and buildings are free to enter. The Castel dell’Ovo offers great views of the city from up above, and it’s free to wander.

Atop the city, the Castel St. Elmo offers some of the most breathtaking views of the city, the ports, and Mount Vesuvius lurking in the distance. A man sitting at the entrance will direct you to a ticket booth, but the ticket is unnecessary. You can simply take the elevator on your left up to the top of the Castel and stroll the ramparts without entering the tiny museum that requires the ticket.

Museums and excavation sites at Pompeii and Herculaneum do cost money and unfortunately very few discounts are available, but with a €3 pizza for dinner, the entrance fees don’t seem so daunting.

Your budget tips for Naples?

Do you have any tips for visiting Naples on the cheap? Share with us in our comments section.

The post Naples Budget Tips: How to keep it cheap in Napoli appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

France has no low-cost airlines of note, but there are several budget airlines that serve Paris. Here is an airport-by-airport examination of which low-cost airlines serve which destinations from the three airports of Paris.

This list of destinations reachable by budget airlines from Paris is notable for its geographic range. For many tourists, these links facilitate travel between Paris and other corners of Europe at a price point far lower than anticipated.

1. Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle, the big daddy (Grande Dame?) of airports in France, sees traffic from several budget airlines (Air Baltic, Blue1, Bmibaby, easyJet, Flybe, Iceland Express, Jet2, Niki, and Vueling) to over four dozen destinations across Europe and northern Africa.

* Air Baltic flies to Riga and Tallinn.

* Blue1 flies to Helsinki.

* Bmibaby flies to East Midlands.

* EasyJet flies to Agadir, Ajaccio, Barcelona, Bastia, Belfast, Biarritz, Brest, Bristol, Casablanca, Catania, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Helsinki, Ibiza, Krakow, Lisbon, Liverpool, Ljubljana, London Luton, Madrid, Mallorca, Malaga, Marrakech, Milan Malpensa, Newcastle, Nice, Porto, Prague, Split, Tangier, Toulouse, Venice, and Zagreb.

* Flybe flies to Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Jersey, and Manchester.

* Iceland Express connects Charles de Gaulle to Reykjavík.

* Jet2 flies to Leeds Bradford.

* Niki flies to Vienna.

* Vueling connects Charles de Gaulle to Alicante, Granada, Lleida, Madrid, and Santiago de Compostela.

2. Orly

Five budget airlines (Air Berlin, easyJet, Norwegian, Transavia, and Vueling) connect Orly to around 50 destinations.

* Air Berlin flies to Berlin and Dusseldorf.

* EasyJet flies to Athens, Berlin, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Faro, Geneva, Milan Linate, Mykonos, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Palermo, Pisa, Rome Ciampino, Toulouse, and Venice.

* Norwegian connects Paris-Orly to Aalborg, Bergen, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stavanger.

* Transavia France flies to Agadir, Antalya, Arrecife, Catania, Djerba, Féz, Funchal, Heraklion, Hurgada, Izmir, Krakow, Las Palmas, Luxor, Marrakech, Monastir, Oujda, Palermo, Porto, Reykjavík, Rhodes, Seville, Tenerife South, and Tozeur.

* Veuling connects Paris-Orly to Barcelona, Ibiza, Malaga, Rome Fiumicino, Seville, and Valencia.

3. Beauvais

To and from the all-budget airport of Beauvais, three airlines (Blue Air, Ryanair, and Wizzair) connect to over 40 destinations.

* Blue Air flies to Bacau and Bucharest.

* Ryanair flies to Alicante, Barcelona, Bari, Bologna, Bratislava, Cagliari, Dublin, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, Glasgow Prestwick, Kaunas, Madrid, Malaga, Marseille, Milan Bergamo, Oslo Rygge, Pau, Pisa, Porto, Reus, Rome Ciampino, Shannon, Stockholm Skavsta, Trapani, Treviso, Valencia, and Zaragoza.

* Wizzair connects Beauvais to Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Gdansk, Katowice, Poznan, Prague, Sofia, Timosoara, Warsaw, and Wroclaw.

More information

For more information about airports in Paris, including ground transportation into Paris’ city center, please see the profiles of Charles de Gaulle, Orly, and Beauvais Tille in our flights section.

The post Finding budget flights to and from Paris appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Pauline is a one-stop shop for budget travel insight and advice, offering tips for “spending less and seeing more” on Frommers.com and in her “Pauline Frommer” guidebook series. In addition to her travel writing and editing, Pauline hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, makes frequent appearances on national TV, and is a regular speaker at travel events, sometimes alongside her father, Arthur Frommer.

1. Tell us about your travels. How often do you travel? Where are you heading to next?

Well, I just spent the last week going over my travel receipts for my taxes and discovered that in 2009, I was on the road for part or all of every month except September. I guess that’s pretty standard for me. My next trip is to Guatemala!

2. That’s a pretty busy schedule! Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your guidebook series, and your radio show?

Yes, I’m always busy, but in a good way. I think it was Justice Sandra Day O’Conner who said that the key to happiness is finding work worth doing. Though I would never claim to have had as much of an impact as she has (for better and for worse, I might add), I do have work that I love, and that I hope helps would-be travelers.

I’m the founder and managing editor of the Pauline Frommer guidebooks. We now have 14 in the series, from “Pauline Frommer’s Paris” to “Pauline Frommer’s Costa Rica” to “Pauline Frommer’s Italy“. (You can see the complete list at www.frommers.com/pauline.) Most are now in their second editions; I wrote four of the guides and edited the other 10.

The Pauline Frommer guides have the tagline: Spend Less, See More. And that’s what they’re all about: doing budget travel but in a smart way. They’re for travelers who want to save loads of money when they travel, but do so without sacrificing comfort. So while we do list hostels, we’re more likely to give people ideas about alternative accommodations such as farm stays, private B&B’s (where you stay in a local’s apartment and pay for a private room what you’d usually pay at a hostel), condo rentals, etc. We have the largest focus and have done the most research on alternative accommodations than any of the mainstream travel publications. Of course, we also talk extensively about affordable eating options, transportation, sightseeing, etc.

3. We dig the focus on alternative accommodations. What else sets your guidebooks apart from the others out there?

We also differ from the other series in a section we feature called “The Other.” This will be either a chapter or a section of a chapter on experiences one can have when traveling that allow the visitor to experience the country as the locals do.

So we’ll tell you about a great roving party that takes place in NYC (sometimes on the subways; people bring boom boxes onto a train after midnight and everyone dances). In Hawaii, we’ll alert you to opportunities to help scientists with the yearly whale count or with the sea turtles that nest there (this usually will take just a day from your vacation). In Las Vegas, we tell you how you can audit a class for dealers for an hour or two (it’s fascinating to watch them learn how to take gamblers) or attend a magicians “karaoke” night at a local bar, where they try out their tricks on one another. We’ll also tell you about chefs in Paris who hold small cooking classes in their homes; and the cafes in the City of Light, where you can attend a philosophical evening, as locals gather to discuss life’s great questions (in English), while quaffing wine.

These are just a few examples, but it’s a section of these guidebooks that have really struck a chord among our users.

4. What’s the best budget travel advice you’ve ever received?

I’m not sure if I “received” this, but I guess the advice I’d give from my long years of traveling is to never be shy about saving money. Often getting a discount simply means asking for one, or seeing if changing your travel plans slightly will garner you a discount.

Saving money is all about doing your research (so you know what the possibilities are for savings), being pushy (in a polite way!) and being flexible.

Bonus round! What are you most willing to splurge on when exploring a new city?

I guess my go-to splurge is on admission charges. I once had a writer I was editing tell me he hadn’t gone to a very well-known historic house because he was so disgusted by the entrance charge. I immediately replaced him (we needed that write up!). But I also didn’t like his attitude, which I thought was penny-wise and pound foolish. While I’d never splurge on a hotel, I think seeing great works of art or architecture are definitely worth paying a bit extra for.

Final question: What’s the best meal you’ve had for under €15 and where was it?

Can one count many, many scoops of gelato as a meal? If so, I’d recommend La Palma in Rome. If not, I’d have to say the wonderful liver and onion tacos I had recently in Mexico City, which cost about $2 total for the complete meal. Sorry that’s not in Europe, but that’s what’s on my mind right now.

Oh, and I also had an AMAZING pizza at DiMatteo in Naples. For the pie, we paid about $8, if I’m remembering correctly, but that fed my whole family (2 adults, 2 kids).

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Pauline! We’ll be taking a special look at “The Other” sections when we check out your upcoming editions. We wish we had known about the wine-and-philosophy chat during our last trip to Paris. Alas, there’s always next year… Happy travels!

The post 4 Cheapo Questions for Pauline Frommer appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.