How We Slow Travel Madrid On A Budget (Spain)

We’ve been in Madrid, Spain for a couple of weeks now, and we are surprised by how much we like this city.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be.

Madrid has excellent food, nice people, a safe environment, abundant local amenities, and of course, tons of art, architecture, culture, and history.

But what has surprised us the most is that, monthly rent aside, Madrid is quite affordable for a European city if you are slow travelers like us.

Like surprisingly affordable, if you use your slow-travel time flexibility to properly game the system.

Now we understand that this may sound ridiculous, so let’s run through the ways we maintain our budget while still having a fantastic time in Madrid.

Accommodation

Accommodation costs are the elephant in the room, especially if you are living on a $2,500 USD monthly budget like us.

Getting affordable accommodations in Madrid isn’t easy, and is the biggest hurdle to keeping one’s monthly spending in check.

But there are options out there!

You just have to start searching for Airbnbs months in advance and expect to be living in outlying neighborhoods with the locals.

THE GOAL: Try to score a 28-night Airbnb reservation for ~$1250 USD or less.

You’ll need a kitchen to save money on food-related expenses. And AC if you plan to visit during the summer (high season). But visiting Madrid is best during the shoulder or off-seasons for both rent and weather reasons.

Yes, you may very well be looking at a studio apartment. But if it is reasonably well-appointed and laid out, a studio can be quite comfortable for a couple.

Look for places ~40 minutes away from Plaza Mayor (by subway) as a starting point. The closer you get to the tourist center of the city, the more outrageous prices get.

And make sure grocery and supply shopping options are within walking distance. This is actually pretty easy to make happen in Madrid.

But most of all, your apartment will need good access to the Metro system to truly enjoy your time in Madrid.

The Madrid Metro is exceptional, and with proper planning, you can get unlimited use of the metro system and see all sorts of free (or cheap) attractions for minimal transportation costs.

Which brings us to…

Transportation

Cheap transportation all over Madrid city (and Madrid province) can be had by using the clean, efficient, easy-to-navigate Madrid Metro system.

If you apply in advance, you can get a Madrid Personal Public Transport Card and load it with a 30-day “Abono” plan. With this plan, you have unlimited use of the entire metro system, within the area zones you pay for. This includes the subway, intercity buses, intracity buses, Cercanías commuter trains, and trams.

Getting one of these cards, and charging it with a 30-day Abono plan is key for seeing Madrid on a budget.

Sounds great, but how cheap is it to get a card with an Abono plan?

Pretty cheap.

For example, the Zone A Abono plan normally costs €55 ($60.01 USD), and you have unlimited travel within that zone.

But for those who want to explore EVERYTHING the metro system has to offer, a €132 Zone E2 Abono plan ($143.98 USD – which covers transport across Zones A, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, E1, and E2) will get you unlimited transportation to towns, greatly improving your range for day trips.

For us, the best part is that the government of Madrid is currently offering a 60% discount on Abono plans until the end of 2024.

So we were able to score our E2 Abono plans for only €53!

30-days of unlimited, province-wide, transportation for only €53.

Amazing.

Needless to say, the budget entertainment potential of unlimited public transportation across the entire province (and beyond) should be obvious.

So how do you get a Personal Public Transport Card and an Abono plan?

Simple.

A couple of weeks in advance of your arrival in Madrid, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS to get a Personal Public Transport Card. The process is pretty easy since all forms and digital profile pictures are submitted online.

NOTE: The Personal Public Transport Card IS NOT the card tourists typically get when they come to Madrid.

If you don’t have a Spain address and phone number for the card to be shipped to (both are required), you can have it sent to the City Life Madrid office in Madrid (see instructions link above) and use their phone number.

You then just visit the City Life Madrid office and pick up your card when it is ready.

As an alternative, if you have a willing Airbnb host, you can have it sent to their address so it is waiting for you when you get to your apartment.

Once you have your card in hand, you can purchase the 30-day Abono plan of your choice at any of the Metro Madrid ATMs found at every metro station.

Alternatively, you can use the official Tarjeta Transporte app and purchase a 30-day Abono plan using your smartphone.

Since were living in Galicia, Spain two months before we arrived in Madrid, we took a slightly different approach.

When we applied for our cards, we used the address and phone number of our Workaway hosts in Galicia. Our cards arrived by mail in only 4 days! We then used the Tarjeta Transporte app to load Abono plans to our cards the day we arrived in Madrid.

Super easy.

Eating (And Drinking) On A Budget

Eating out all the time at restaurants will quickly destroy your budget, so the obvious way around this is to cook meals at home.

But doing that all the time is not much fun when there is so much delicious food in Madrid to eat!

So what do you do to keep costs under control, yet still enjoy the flavors of Madrid?

1. Embrace the Menu del Dia

We’ve written about these Spanish culinary masterpieces before, and the rules still apply in Madrid.

Wander the streets around your neighborhood and look for restaurants and cafes that offer these at lunchtime. For between €12 – €15, you can get a multicourse feast, including wine, bread, and dessert, that could very well stick with you the entire day.

If it does, then you save yourself the cost of dinner!

We realize doing this every day isn’t exactly economical, but a couple of times a week hasn’t busted our budget.

2. Eat Where the Locals Eat

In other words, explore the restaurant and cafe options in your local neighborhood. These are always cheaper than in the touristy downtown zones.

You should be able to find little hole-in-the-wall places that serve normal-sized offerings (like hamburgers, doner kebabs, and bocadillos) for between €3 – €8.

And check to see if you have a local market near your area. Local markets are great places to find food stalls.

In our case, we are only a short Metro ride to Mercado Maravillas, a local produce and meat market.

It has lots of food stalls with all sorts of great Latin American food offerings of high quality. Sadly they aren’t at Latin American prices, but for around €5 ($5.45 USD) you can score yourself a big arepa, empanada, or patacon. And for ~€2.50 ($2.73 USD) can score you a taco with all sorts of meat and topping options.

3. Drink Where the Locals Drink

In the neighborhood you live in, there will almost certainly be local bars and cafes where you can get a drink and relax.

You should be able to get a glass of local wine or beer for €2.50 ($2.73 USD) or less without a problem. And they often come with tapas to eat.

Granted, this isn’t as cheap as the €1 ($1.09 USD) wine/tapas combos we got in Galicia, but for the big city, it is still pretty economical.

And if you are a coffee drinker, don’t despair! You should be able to snag an expresso or Cafe Americano for under €2 ($2.18 USD) most of the time.

All of this advice assumes, of course, that you stay out of the touristy zones.

4. Shop at Supermarkets and Eat/Drink at Home

If you are like us, even following all of the advice above, you still probably can’t afford to eat out every day in Madrid. So eating at home is the obvious solution to controlling your food budget.

And frankly, it isn’t much of a sacrifice.

Chances are, there will be two or three supermarkets within easy walking distance from any Airbnb in Madrid. In our case, we have Dia, Lidl, and La Dispensa supermarket chains within a few blocks.

Grocery prices in Madrid supermarkets are quite reasonable in our experience, being arguably cheaper than much of Latin America. The diversity of Spanish food options is high in even smaller supermarkets, so we have no trouble finding all sorts of new, modestly-priced, things to try.

And if you have a local meat and produce market (see #2 above) nearby, it can provide even more options. Although the prices don’t seem to be much different than supermarkets, the quality is often higher.

Last, supermarkets can be a great place to scratch your wine, beer, or spirits itch.

You can find bottles of excellent wine in the €2 – €3 range. Cans of my favorite local beers go for €0.50 ($0.55 USD). And bottles of spiced liquor can be had for around €5 ($5.45 USD).

Of course, you can spend way more on any of these things. But the cost of entry for trying new varieties of food and drink is very low.

Makes movie night in the apartment even more enjoyable!

Attractions

This may be surprising to many, but it is really easy to enjoy most of the famous attractions in Madrid for cheap, or even free.

We didn’t know this when we arrived, but most of the pay-to-enter museums and gardens in Madrid have times when the public can enter for free.

You have to visit the websites of those attractions to get that information though.

For example, the Real Jardín Botánico is free to enter on Tuesdays, from 10 am – 1 pm. We wanted to beat the heat of the day when we visited, so this worked out perfectly!

And even if you decide to pay, admission can be surprisingly cheap for some truly excellent museums. For example, we thoroughly loved the National Archaeological Museum on a weekday, and was only €3 per person.

There are even free entry times for the most famous (and heavily trafficked) museums in Madrid, like Museo Nacional del Prado. The challenge is that there may be a throng of tourists all trying to do the same thing!

In our case, were more than happy to pay the €15 ($16.36 USD) Prado entrance fee to avoid the mob.

There are all sorts of free things to see and do in Madrid, pretty much everywhere in the city. Want to explore Plaza Mayor? Walk the Gran Via? Explore the massive El Retiro Park? Take a riverwalk? Check out a local shopping mall? Wander around a local market? Ride the commuter trains (using your Madrid Metro Abono plan) around the province just for fun?

You get the idea.

And when you purchase Madrid Metro Abono plans, all sorts of day trips open up where transportation costs aren’t a factor.

Want to visit Toledo? Guadalajara? Alcalá de Henares? Aranjuez? The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial?

All free to get there with our Madrid Metro Abono plans.

So considering the volume of sights to see in Madrid, the cost to see everything has been quite low on average.

Closing Thoughts

Needless to say, you can spend money on more kinds of things while you are in Madrid.

But we think this post covers all of the major bases.

Bottom line – if you can keep your accommodation costs under control, the rest all seems to fall into place by just using a little common sense. I doubt that this would be the case for places like Boston or New York City, back in the USA.

Hopefully, people will find our experiences useful. Perhaps it will inspire more people to consider visiting Madrid for a month, who otherwise would have given it a hard pass.

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

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