The six lines that make a weekend budget
1 · Fuel (or charging) — the only line you can calculate exactly
The formula is honest and boring: distance × consumption ÷ 100 × price per litre. A 470 km weekend in a compact at 6.2 L/100 km and €1.65/L costs about €48. That surprises people: fuel is usually only 10–15% of the real total. The planner uses your actual consumption and local price, and speaks kWh natively for EVs (public charging around €0.48/kWh makes an equivalent EV weekend roughly the same money, around €40).
2 · Food & coffee — the line everyone underestimates
Per person, per day, eating the way people actually eat on a good drive (roadside coffee, proper lunch, real dinner):
| Budget mood | Per person / day |
|---|---|
| Shoestring — bakeries, picnics, one hot meal | €28 |
| Comfort — nice lunch, proper dinner | €48 |
| Indulgent — the good restaurant, twice | €85 |
3 · Stays — nights × rooms, not nights × people
Guesthouse or cabin ~€70/room, boutique hotel ~€130, design hotel or manor ~€280. Two people share a room; a crew of four needs two. A day trip zeroes this line entirely, which is why day raids feel so cheap.
4 · Experiences & extras — the memory line
Entries, rentals, ice cream, the rowboat hour, the market raid. €8–45 per person per day depending on mood. Cutting this line to zero is the classic false economy; it's the line the photos come from.
5 · Tolls & parking — small, steady, easy to forget
The planner budgets a flat €8 per day for the typical mix of town parking, the odd small toll and a viewpoint car park. It's deliberately a single honest number rather than a fake-precise table: real toll costs swing with the country and the road you choose. Big-ticket exceptions to check yourself before you commit: motorway vignettes (Austria, Switzerland, Czechia, Slovenia…), alpine tunnels, and car ferries — any of those can add €10–40 in one line, and no average predicts them.
6 · The reality buffer — 10%, always
The forgotten sunscreen, the detour that found a vineyard, the second coffee stop. Weekends improvise; budgets should expect it. The planner adds 10% of everything above and calls it what it is.
Three levers that actually move the number
- Days beat everything. A day trip deletes the stay line and half the food line; an alpine day raid can undercut a lazy staycation weekend.
- Picnic one lunch. A farm-shop picnic saves €15+ per head and is usually the better meal anyway.
- Region is a price setting. Countryside and forest weekends usually run cheaper than coast and mountain ones — room rates and parking do most of that, so it's the stay you book, not the plan, that moves this lever.
What this model is — and isn't
These are honest regional averages for Europe, not quotes. Your seaside town in August will run hotter; your off-season lakes loop will run cooler. Treat the total as a solid envelope: it should land within about 15% of what people actually spend, which is all a weekend budget ever needs to do.