Green Girl Abroad: Stockholm Part 2: A note about being a poor college student and new international traveler

It pays off to plan ahead as much as possible. Valerie and I got Stockholm passes for $115 that granted us public transportation and access to the main attractions. This was totally worth it, especially considering how many mistakes we made trying to get from Point A to Point B. We would have paid for a lot of wrong busses and probably walked a lot more! Public transportation in Stockholm is fantastic and everyone uses it. Also, the busses run on biogas! Even better. Using the busses and tunnelbana was a very good lesson in navigation. I don’t have the most reliable internal compass but mapping our routes is excellent practice in directionality. Another plus to this Stockholm Pass was being able to see all the museums we wanted, planning whatever looked interesting in common areas. Not all the museums we went to were very interesting, even ones we most wanted to see, but some of the places we had not planned on visiting initially ended up being the best.

We stayed at the Acco Hostel for about $60 a night for the both of us. We stayed in a double bunk bed room that was pretty small. The first night we shared it with a Ukrainian man named Alex who was probably 65 years old and in Stockholm for an origin of life conference. He was hard to understand but friendly. A little too friendly, actually. The second night we were joined by a Swedish guy named Simon whose apartment was being renovated for water damage and would be living in the hostel for 3 months. Ouch.

The hostel had lockers and a luggage room; it was pretty safe and had many rules. There was a kitchen where we made meals and stored food. The common bathrooms weren’t bad but sometimes it was not the cleanest. I would recommend earplugs for light sleepers; snoring roommates in close quarters can really put a damper on your sleep possibilities. Also, the employees at the hostel would basically unlock your door, knock and immediately enter in the mornings to check who is in the room. A little rude, but they were trying to keep tabs on who was sleeping in their hostel so I’d let it slide. We researched a lot of different places trying to find a safe, clean place that didn’t cost a lot. I’d say that went well overall.

In terms of meals we only really bought one at a bar the whole trip. Otherwise, we bought groceries for sandwiches, snacks, and of course we had ramen noodles. Useful trick: crack an egg in your ramen, suddenly it’s a whole new level of delicious. Add veggies, even better. I bought a thermos for 5 euros in Finland; worth every penny! Valerie and I had many meals on benches in parks, courtyards, overlooking the water and we thought this was one of the best parts of the trip. I think our total for food spending on the trip was about $35-40 each for 4 days.

As I mentioned in the last post, we cut the price of our ferry trips to and from Stockholm by over 50% simply by calling for a student discount. We wanted the early bird discount too, but for some reason we couldn't get it. As for our Stockholm Passes, we got a 15% rainbow discount on those by booking through a gay tolerance website. Not hating pays off, people! Plan ahead and seek discounts where you can.

When I was drawing up my budget for my whole four-month European adventure my Dad laughed, not at all convinced my plan would stick. I’m proud to say I’m currently under budget, eating well and plans for traveling after Finland are looking within my projected numbers, too. Did I mention most of my Christmas shopping is done? My budget success so far is not, however, for lack of trying. Traveling is not cheap but if you set aside time to plan, think realistically about the cost of necessities and are willing to sacrifice some luxuries for chronic awkwardness and sack lunches… you might just be able to scrape together some change for a beer at the end of the day. And maybe a haircut in Stockholm you didn’t really need. But when it’s all said and done, you can’t put a price on the experiences you have exploring a foreign place, the people you meet, or what you learn along the way.