How much does a two-week car trip cost?

My girlfriend and I have returned from our two-week trip. We visited 9 countries, covered 6,800 kilometers, saw plains, mountains, lakes, seas, caves, rivers, waterfalls, coliseums, ruins, a concentration camp and dozens of other places.

As you can guess, we drove these 6,800 kilometers by car. We spent about 50+ hours behind the wheel. We also spent three nights in a car, which was prepared for such events.

Along the way we also met our friend Edgars, who had decided to go from Rucava (small city in Latvia) to Rome by bicycle. When I meet him, I thought that traveling by car is not that difficult. It is definitely easier to fly to a destination and go on organized excursions than to plan your own route, places to visit and accommodation.

I wanted to write this type of article for several reasons:

To remember the different events, the route and what was seen;
To identify travel costs and possibly compare them to the cost of traveling by plane;
To share the route, visited places and costs of this type of trip with you.

We included two disc golf courses in our route, as this is my favorite hobby in last two years. We played disc golf at the Parco Lambro course in Milan, Italy, and at the Platak Disc Golf course in Croatia. In these countries, this sport is definitely not so popular as in USA or Latvia

Certainly the most interesting part for readers are the costs, which is usually either hidden or simply not counted after travel to save heartache for the money spent. So, our total spending was 2209 euros.

If we look at costs for each department, the costs were as follows:

• Fuel costs: 580 €
• Ferry costs: 80 €
• Food: 600 €
• Sightseeing tickets: 160 €
• Accommodation: 466 €
• Toll roads and parking: 137 €
• Currency exchange: 66 €
• Spent in cash: 120 €

Total spent: 2209 €

In conclusion, traveling by car is relatively expensive and a bit exhausting (I drove 500km on average) . The positive is that there is more flexibility – you can go where and when you want and see much more.

As I mentioned, we had prepared the car so that we could spend the night in it if necessary. We used this opportunity three times. We were very happy with all the places we found on the airbnb platform. We stayed in Rome at Hotel Chicago – a hotel of the 1990s style, because we could not “check in” through the booked apartments. We were not really to blame for this delay, so we got our money back for the reservation from Booking.com.

A very convenient thing nowadays is self check-in, when there are keys somewhere near the apartments and you can pick them up yourself. Arrival at such apartments cannot be missed, so it is a very convenient option if you do not know the time of arrival clearly.

Day	Stops	km	Where we spent night	What we saw
Day 1	Riga, Latvia -> Lodz, Poland		airbnb apartments in Lodz	Manufaktūra, pedestrian street
Day 2	Lodz, Poland -> Czechia -> Attersee, Austria		In car by the Atersee lake in Austria	Kreuzensyein CastleAttersee
Day 3	Attersee, Austria -> Lago di Braies, Italy		In car by the Lago Di Braies in Italy	AtterseeSalzburg Hallstatt Eisriesenwelt Lago di Braies
Day 4	Lago di Braies, Italy -> Lake Garda, Italy		airbnb apartments nearby lake Garda	Lago di BraiesCortina d’Ampezzo Venice Lake Garda
Day 5	Lake Garda, Italy -> Pisa, Italy		In car by the sea in Pisa, Italy	Lake GardaMilano Disk Golf Genoa Pisa
Day 6	Pisa, Italy -> Roma, Italy		Hotel Chicago Roma	PisaVolterra Ficulle (Satikām Edgaru) Orvieto (saulespuķu bildes) Bsilica of Saint Praxedes Roma Coleseum Foro di Augusto Foro di Cesare Foro Romano Palatino Roma Arco di Tito Roma Altar della Patria Circo Massimo
Day 7	Roma, Italy -> Ancona, Italy -> Split, Croatia		Ancona -> Split ferry	AnconaMaza pilsētiņa, kur kafiju padzērām, apēdām saldējumu
Day 8	Split, Croatia		airbnb apartments in Split, Croatia	Kasjuni pludmale Splitas vecpilsēta
Day 9	Split, Croatia -> Makarska, Croatia		airbnb apartments in Split, Croatia	SplitOmiš Makarska Podgora Satikts vietējais draugs Nikola
Day 10	Split, Croatia -> Senj, Croatia		airbnb apartments in Senj, Croatia	SplitSalona Plitvica Senj
Day 11	Senj, Croatia -> Platak Disk Golf, Croatia		Room in Platak	SenjPula Arena Platak Disk Golf
Day 12	Platak Disk Golf, Croatia -> Slovenia-> Italia -> Austria -> Bratislava, Slovakia		airbnb apartments in Bratislav, Slovakia	Platak Disk GolfSkocjan Caves Bratislava
Day 13	Bratislava, Slovakia -> Czechia -> Lodz, Poland		airbnb apartments in Lodz	BratislavaOswiecim (Aušvica) Lodz Satikta vietējā draudzene Kasia
Day 14	Lodz, Poland -> Riga, Latvia		Home sweet home	LodzLatvia

If you have come this far, here are some pictures from our trip:

We saw so much that after two weeks it is already difficult to remember all the places we were at. The most striking impressions have probably remained from the Auschwitz concentration camp. This place definitely makes you think about how good are the times that we live in, how comfortable we live, how safe we ​​live and how inhuman people can be to each other.

Of the nature, I liked the underground caves of Skočjan the best. There, through a huge underground cave, flows a river. The moisture has formed huge stalagmite formations, which are quite impressive. I love the mountains – they are so different and so powerful! When we reached the mountains, I was fascinated even by the smallest ones, but when we came to the “real ones”, with summits decorated with a snow cover, I was totally excited! The crystal clear water in the mountain lakes, when you can see what is happening even 10 meters under water, now it is beautiful!

If I have to choose one favorite country, it is definitely Croatia. I was there for the first time two years ago, but I couldn’t wait to get back there because nature there is so beautiful!