How much we spent: 2 weeks in France 🇫🇷

Calvin Chan
Jul 6, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Thumbnail of our short video on How much we spent for 2 weeks in France — ⬆️ Click this to see what our 2 weeks looked like

🇫🇷 France | 📅 13 days in Feb 2024 | ❄️ Winter

This is how much we (2 people) spent during 2 weeks in France, from February to March 2024 (Winter). We hit up Paris, Chamonix, Annecy, Nice and the surrounding French Riviera in 13 days.

For reference, we're nature-loving, value-seeking 20-something year olds from Australia who think with their stomachs. Hopefully this helps you plan and budget your trip to France! Three money saving tips for France below!

💲How much we spent

Total spend*: 4,181 AUD | 2,750 USD | 2,517 EUR

Daily spend: 322 AUD | 212 USD | 194 EUR

* The above prices are without international travel costs and shopping costs (i.e. arriving in country and souvenirs)

🛏️ Accomodation: 116 AUD /day 1,514 AUD | 996 USD | 912 EUR

As expected, accomodation took up the bulk of our expenses in France. We ended up saving on one night's accomodation by taking an overnight bus from Paris to Chamonix, much needed, but it still took up >35% of our expenses. Paris accomodation in particular was pricey - 87 AUD /night per bunk bed!? Our favourite stay was Chamonix Lodge in Chamonix. It was one of the more affordable options in town for a private room, had free breakfast every day and a FREE sauna!! Oh, and a cute cat 😁.

Screenshot rom our Budget tracker, of our Accomodation spend in France

🍽️ Food: 75 AUD /day 977 AUD | 656 USD | 600 EUR

It was both our first times in France, and we'd heard so much about French food, so we really splurged. Being budget-conscious travellers, we tried our best to keep it affordable and we think we struck up the right balance of eating out and cooking our own meals. Our favourite spots were La Maison D'Isabelle in Paris for THE BEST croissant and baguette we've ever had, Au P'tit Grec for amazingly valued crepes in Paris and Le Zinc à Raoul in Annecy for an amazing Lamb shank and Raclette for Kimmi's birthday.

Screenshot rom our Budget tracker, of our Food spend in France

🚶🏻‍♂️ Activities: 35 AUD /day 454 AUD | 299 USD | 273 EUR

For activities, we mainly stuck to the typical touristy sight-seeing and museums that all France first-timers go to. We did the most in Paris, and the Louvre is 100% worth it - not overhyped at all. It blew away our expectations, and we're not usually museum people. Nice turned out to be surprisingly cheap for activities, we mainly visited nearby small towns along the French Riviera, and Chamonix and Annecy were well worth the activities we did there.

Screenshot rom our Budget tracker, of our Activities spend in France

🚌 Local transport: 78 AUD /day 1010 AUD | 664 USD | 608 EUR

Local transport is what hurt us the most on our trip to France. This was due to two factors: (1) The flights from Annecy to Nice were much more expensive than we anticipated and (2) We got on the wrong train from Antibes back to Nice, which cost us 58 AUD each! Expensive mistake 😭! The train to Antibes from Nice was <5 AUD each, but because we hopped on a train that wasn't covered by our regional Côte d'Azur card, we had to pay up the total cost of going from Paris to Nice (the train we hopped on). So beware what train you hop on at train stations in France, just because the destination is the same, doesn't mean you can take the train - we had hopped on a trans-France regional train, when we should've hopped on the local Côte d'Azur train. We'd recommend just using Flix buses to get between towns, cheap and reliable.

Screenshot rom our Budget tracker, of our Local Transport spend in France

🧺 Misc: 17 AUD /day 226 AUD | 149 USD | 136 EUR

This category encompasses anything and everything outside of the other categories, and shopping below. Typically this includes laundry, pharmaceuticals, buying replacement for things, and in this case - sim cards. We bought the Orange Europe sim card which lasted us 30 days across most Europrean countries.

Screenshot rom our Budget tracker, of our Misc spend in France

🛍️ Shopping: 0 AUD /day 0 AUD | 0 USD | 0 EUR

We did no shopping during our 13-day trip in France. I know, sacrilegious, but this was country 1 out of 27 for our year+ trip around the world. We weren't taking any chances of adding more bulk and weight to our one-bag adventure. Souvenirs and clothes shopping will have to wait.

🧠 Tips on saving money in France 🇫🇷

Use the public transport! Taxis are really expensive in France, and in big cities like Paris and Nice, the public transport is great! Fast, affordable and covers all the big sights.
Visit France during the offseason! During peak seasons of May/June and Sep/Oct, prices of accomodation can be 2x or more. We went during Feb-Mar and though it was a little chilly, France was still beautiful. Clear weather and no crowds, though it was a little chilly.
Know which inter-city trains you can and cannot take! As mentioned in the "Local transport" section above, we took the wrong train going back to Nice from Antibes, and that cost us an extra 116 AUD! Know which trains are regional vs. local and which trains your ticket allows you to go on. Just because a train has your destination on it, doesn't mean you can take it.