Portugal 2018 Money

People are always curious to know what a trip like this costs. This year it came in at about $3770, which is a little high. A mitigating factor I tell my wonderful wife is that I send like $400 a week normally so the 2 week trip only costs like $3000 extra! Most of the figures below are in dollars, as that is what I paid in BUT Lgos house and bike are in Euro. The $ and Euro are close enough in value that it really is not worth the hassle to convert.

Flight: $433 TAP air Boston to Lisboa direct BUT I had to pay an extra $100 to reserve a isle seat! I’ll try some other ways to book a TAP flight in the future and see if I can get the seat selection thrown in for less.

Cash: $1300 This includes 450e for the 12 nights in the Lagos guest house and 180e for the bike rental. I just use my regular bank debt card to withdraw the max 200 Euro as often as needed. Each withdrawal costs about $13. I don’t know how to get around this. I will have to try going into a Lisbon bank with $1000 in cash and see what kind of a conversion I can get. If it is under $60, that is a better system.

Credit Card $1800. You should put everything you can on the credit card as it has the best money conversion rate. It is almost impossible to put tips on the credit card. A special regular host may let you do it but I rarely could. This item also includes $430 for the new phone that you can read about elsewhere!

Airbnb: $137 I paid $65 for my apartment the first night in Lisbon and $72 for my last night in Lisbon