HOW MUCH DOES A TRIP TO BELGIUM COST? 5-DAY BUDGET

Since the pandemic, flight prices have been sky-high, especially in the high season like summer. But you may find some bargains if you book well in advance, if you book to travel during the week, etc. The best thing to do is to compare a lot and book as soon as possible, to avoid the price going up too much. The closest airports are Brussels and Charleroi airport, and you can find good prices with Easy Jet or Ryanair, but remember that these airlines DON'T allow pets.

In our case, we travelled from Porto to Brussels airport with Brussels Airlines. Service dogs travel free of charge, but the flights cost us €200 each.

✈️ We paid €400 for the flights to Belgium.

As we always tell you, travel insurance is ESSENTIAL, especially when travelling with a dog because if something happens to it, going to a vet outside the country and in an emergency can be very expensive and can make your trip more difficult.

In this case, if you're european, you can use the European Health Insurance Card, but you have to take into account that there are things that this card doesn't cover. On a trip you may have an infinite number of unforeseen events that may not be directly related to health, such as lost luggage, cancellation of the trip, expenses arising from hospitalisation for accompanying persons, and many other examples.

We work with IATI Seguroswe work with iati insurance, because they offer the best coverage not only for us, but also for our pets with the modality IATI Escapadas. Plus, you get a 5% discount just for being a reader of travelling with a dog.

We paid €36 for the travel insurance. €18 per person, Snow included in the insurance.

In our case, we did not rent a car, but we did hire private transport to get from the airport to the hotel. The problem is that in 90% of cases pets are not allowed, so a good alternative is to rent a car to get around the destination.

We also used public transport on several days, so we'll break it down here so you have real prices. For trains, there is a 50% discount on the ticket price at the weekend, so if you are planning to go to Bruges or Ghent, it is best to go at the weekend. But there will be more people, so think about what works best for you.

🚗 We paid €94 for airport transfer and €40 for public transport.

Now comes the key moment: accommodation. Belgium is a very expensive country, so hotels were no exception. The pandemic has also made everything very expensive and travel is becoming more and more something for the privileged. In the post about where to sleep in Brussels, we only included hotels, but there are flats, Airbnb, but we don't trust them at all for several reasons that some people have experienced, so we will NEVER recommend you things we haven't tried before.

We stayed at Hotel The Augustin, a 4-star hotel of a French chain. It was very centrally located, which is essential in Brussels, as there are neighbourhoods that are best avoided. We were lucky that we booked well in advance, and they included the breakfast offer, so it was a good value for the money. The pet supplement is €25/night, but service dogs do not pay extra.

🏨 We paid €800 for accommodation for 4 nights. €400/person including Snow.

Whenever we travel we always try to eat as cheaply as possible to compensate for other expenses, such as hotel, flights, etc. We are not very fussy about food, so we don't mind cutting back a bit on this as long as the food is good.

But Belgium is an expensive country, so a simple hamburger and fries is already €25. There were days when we ate a bit cheaper, but other days more expensive, so the average was about €80/day eating in restaurants. You can eat supermarket food and save a LOT of money. When we created dog friendly content, we ate in restaurants so we could record the places and recommend them on our Instagram.

🥣 We paid €350 for food and drinks.

For this section, we always have a fixed budget because we contract everything before we travel on Civitatis. Belgium is a country with a lot to do, so if you want to see museums, go to places like the Atomium, etc. you're going to spend a lot of money. Here is a summary of what we spent:

• Free Tour in Brussels: €15/person.
• Atomium visit: €17/person.
• Trip to Antwerp and Gent: €43/person.
• Free Tour in Bruges: €15/person

🚤 We paid €180 for leisure and activities. €90/person.

After this breakdown, let's have a look at how much a trip to the Belgium really costs, budget for 5 days:

Total budget of our trip to Belgium 💰 €1860 in total 💰

930 € por persona.

Please note that this budget can be significantly improved depending on the hotel you choose, the dates you travel, etc. Also bear in mind that when travelling with a dog, the airlines you can use are quite limited and the requirements vary depending on the airline. Therefore, if you don't want to complicate things too much, we have a travel organisation service where we make the arrangements to fly with your pet, we choose the hotel according to your budget, etc.