Siesta in Style: Unmasking Affordable Luxury in Madrid Spain

Siesta in Style: Unmasking Affordable Luxury in Madrid Spain

We just spent an entire month in Madrid Spain  Madrid is a city filled with history passion   and Endless Possibilities but it does come at a  cost how much did it cost to spend a month here  

Did we make it on budget is Madrid an affordable  destination what tips can you learn to plan your   trip here if you’re new here we’re Michael and  Chris but every traveler is different so if you’re   going to compare your situation to ours here’s  something to keep in mind the travel industry  

Describes a Continuum of travel at one extreme is  Budget Travel where you’re on a shoestring but at   The Other Extreme is luxury travel where you spare  no expense but we fall somewhere in the middle at   what they call affordable luxury we might Splurge  here and there but we will do so very deliberately  

Hello everybody let’s talk about Madrid while we  don’t usually like to underestimate a potential   new destination Madrid took us by surprise it  really is a wonderful City and we had the most   amazing time now Madrid’s not on the tourist radar  in the same way that say Barcelona is but we think  

That’s not going to last very long people are  starting to find out about Madrid so if you’re   going to visit you probably need to visit right  now for sure Madrid offers so much to do and we  

Did so much of it so we’ll tell you what all that  cost and we’ll break it down into categories make sure you stay to the end of the video though  because we’ll total it all up for you we’ll give  

You some takeaways and we’ll tell you where we’re  going [Music] next let’s talk about the cost of   airfare now we do not include the cost of airfare  in with the total cost for the city because it   tends to vary so much also because we tend to  include multiple destinations within that one  

Ticket in this case we flew from Washington DC to  Madrid then trained through Spain and exited from   a different city and this brings us to our first  tip if you’re going to fly to Spain and you have  

The time make it a multi-city adventure the train  system in Spain is amazing and it goes to nearly   all regions of the country so take advantage of  that as Chris mentioned we flew from Washington   DC into Madrid and we did a roundtrip ticket  on United in premium economy and we spent

$3,530 now business class was astronomically  expensive and of course economy was cheaper   but economy can kind of be brutal on trips this  long so we splurged this time and we did premium   plus with United which we really loved and we  really enjoyed it now airfare has been really  

Expensive for the last few years especially  after COVID but we’re seeing research that it   should be stabilizing so we’ve got our fingers  crossed for that as you look at airfare you need   to do what makes sense of course for your taste  and your budget but in this case we did premium  

Economy and we really enjoyed it [Music] let’s  talk about accommodation now we stayed in this   amazing Airbnb in the center of Madrid now we  did a video where we tour the place so if you  

Haven’t seen it yet do give it a look because  we give you a walk through you can find pretty   much anything you want in terms of Airbnbs in  Madrid and we focus on very particular criteria  

Wherever we go we want a great location we want  air conditioning we want a washer and dryer we   want an elevator if we need one and we want  a king-size bed if we can find one we found   all of that in Madrid and we’re really happy  with our selection very much enjoyed our  

Experience we spent $3,680 for the month  for our Airbnb which is pretty typical for us   because we generally apply the same criteria  everywhere that comes down to $127 a day now   you can go much more expensive or you can go  much cheaper depending on what your budget  

And your needs are so as you look at Madrid  you’re going to find plenty of options for accommodation [Music] food is a big part of  the adventure when visiting Spain you can   do everything from street food to Michelin star  restaurants and there are many different ways to  

Manage your budget as well for example for lunch  always ask for the “menu del dia” this is an appetizer   a main course and a drink all at a set lower price  and for dinner you might decide to just limit  

Yourself to tapas tapas are these popular small  plates that can be shared and we did a lot of tapas and “del dias” while we were there but we also did some  additional dining at these fullscale restaurants   and we had some great great experiences not  only Spanish food but also International Food  

We had some great Asian Mexican Greek and  Italian and others and we really enjoyed our   experience there for the month we spent $1,622 on  dining uh which averages out to $56 a day [Music] because of all of the great dining options  in Madrid we limited grocery shopping to just  

Having breakfast at home and during the  course of the month we may have had a   bottle of wine or two and some cheese yeah  and so we only spent $158 for the month on   groceries and that included other things  like paper towels and laundry detergent  

And coffee so at $5 a day which was our  average we think that was a great great deal [Music] Madrid excels at its public  transportation and we took the subway   several times and the subway goes to most areas  of the city and it’s relatively clean and very  

Safe now because Madrid is so compact we were  able to walk pretty much everywhere of course   we had to get our luggage from the airport to the  Airbnb and then to the train station when we left  

So we spent some money on ground transfers and  just a little bit on others so at for the month   we only spent $187 which was about $6 a day [Music]  experiences are a big part of why we travel  

So we tend to spend a little money here we will  visit and pay for entry enter nearly every single   Museum if we have to and we frequently do several  tours and day trips as well do look back at our  

Previous videos on Madrid because we shared a  lot of these Adventures now one tip is you can   save a little money if you go to a museum on a  free day often times Sundays or someday during  

The week so check the Museum website and see  if you can get in free we spent $589 for the   month in experiences which is about $20 a day we  had a great time and we wouldn’t do it any other way

Spain is often talked about as one of the  more affordable European destinations but   we set a budget for ourselves that would fit a  major European city at a mid-range affordable   luxury budget and that budget was $225 covering  all of the major categories excluding airfare and  

Of course we were in Madrid for 29 days so at  $225 a day excluding airfare our budget was $6 $525 we spent $623 or $215 a day and we were  4% under budget for the experience we had the  

Affordable luxury experience we were looking for  we were happy we were under budget slightly we   had a great experience and if we had a do-over we  wouldn’t do it any other way [Music] so what’s   the final analysis we love Madrid we had a  very rich experience there and would go back  

There again and again we see Spain and Madrid  in particular as still a very affordable place   to visit and we have plans to visit additional  Spanish cities in the near future so stay tuned   Madrid exceeded all our expectations it was  wonderful if you’ve been or if you plan to  

Go put it in the comments let us hear from you  we’d love to hear from you we loved Madrid we   look forward to going again and we wish all  of you a happy happy experience when you get  

To Madrid sadly we are leaving Madrid which has  been our home for the last month but we’re doing   something exciting for us we’re taking our first  Spain train from Madrid to Barcelona we’re really   excited to get to Barcelona we have been  there a couple of times but never spent a lot  

Of time there so we’ve had an amazing time in  Madrid we’ve loved it but we’re really looking   forward to our time in Barcelona catch up on  all of our Madrid Adventures by watching these videos

How much would it cost for retirement slow travel for a month in Madrid Spain on an affordable luxury budget? We provide a travel cost breakdown vlog on all major categories including flights to spain, dining, groceries, transportation, experiences / entertainment, and give you the total cost along with valuable tips for planning your own trip.

Numbeo Cost of Living
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Madrid

Insided Airbnb
http://insideairbnb.com/madrid/

Luxury Madrid Airbnb
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/42088914?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=0067b23a-eb58-47dc-a07b-1f45c91129a4&source_impression_id=p3_1701702543_qeyLm2MMWM5mfSkY

📚 RECOMMENDED READING:
Lonely Planet Madrid Travel Guide
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ABOUT US: We are a couple who retired early in order to travel and enjoy life. We spend half our time in Washington DC and the other half in extended slow travel all over the world. Our philosophy is to “travel wide” but also to “travel deep” which means really getting to learn the stories unique to the destinations that we visit. Join us for the journey.

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Keywords: #dchiddengems #slowtravel #travelvlog #gaytravel #spain #madrid
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🎦 Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:55 Madrid Expectations
01:40 Airfare
03:14 Airbnb
04:24 Dining and Restaurants
05:30 Groceries
06:05 Transportation
06:41 Entertainment / Experiences
07:28 Total Costs
08:22 Final Analysis
09:00 Where We Are Going Next