Traveling frugally with kids in Europe

One of the lessons we have learned about traveling frugally with kids here in Europe is to never stay in hotels. In the US, hotels and motels usually charge by the room. In Europe, the price is almost always per person. So with a family the size of ours, hotels are prohibitively expensive. We usually rent apartments by the day or the week or we stay in hostels, which still charge per person but charge a whole lot less than hotels.

David's conference was at this very fancy hotel. It's where James Bond says he is staying in "Casino Royale" (though the scenes in the hotel were

actually filmed in the Czech Republic, not Montenegro). The sponsoring organization offered to let us stay with David if we paid the extra charges, but they were--no surprise!--exorbitant. So, the kids and I stayed in a hostel just a few minute's walk away from the hotel. We visited David there but slept in the hostel.

Emma Lucy was able to do her online schoolwork in Dad's hotel room

(since our hostel had no internet service!), and thee rest of us enjoyed hanging out there, too.

The walk to and from the hostel also gave us a close-up view of some of Montenegro's beautiful plants and scenery.