The major expenses on the road are Accommodations, Transportation, Sights and Food. Among the four, the only thing that you can control the most is your food expenses. If we had eaten out most of the time in restaurants, i doubt we would be able to make it this long in Europe. Although, we were travelling on a budget we do occasionally treat ourselves to a good meal at a restaurant once in a blue moon. These occasions were rare, thus we really enjoy it when we get to eat out. One of our most memorable meal we had was in Arles, where we had an authentic Provence 3 course set dinner at 15 euro per person, the food was fantastic and it was a really great experience dining in a restaurant that is patronised by locals instead of tourists.
Most of the days we ate on the budget, but we make sure we had enough nutrition though as we were moving alot almost everyday. We cooked whenever we get the opportunity. We made daily trip to the supermarket to get our meals; eg bread, ham, cheese, fruits. One thing that we were really glad to have brought along on our trip were pre-mix sauce for Chinese cooking. With the sauce we were able to cook Chinese meal that were as good as back home. Chinese food are really expensive in Europe, therefore bread will be your main meals constitute.
Our usual Meals:
Breakfast - If our accommodations comes with free breakfast, that will be great. Else we will have either cereals/milk or bread/chocolate spread in our room.
Lunch - We always pre-packed our lunch and have it in the park like the local. Most of the days we will have ham baguette, with either a banana or nectarine and ocasionally a pack of Doritos chips.
Dinner - If we can cook we usually have either pasta, or maybe a simple chinese stir fry dish with rice. Else, it will always be either turkish kebab or MacDonald promotional burger.
Looking back, I would say we didn't really enjoy the food's part of the trip, but what mattered most was that we were able to remain strong and healthy through out the trip. And this is probably the first time in my life that I had so much Mac!
