My partner and I, are both early retirees and we travel affordably in Europe.

We use two travel hacks: 1) we buy the Aegean pass (it can be done with other airlines also). This is bulk buying a number of flights at a lower rate. The flight dates can be selected at a later date.

2) house sitting. This is what saves us the most money as we rarely have to book hotels or airbnbs. We are good with pets so it works perfectly well for us. We choose the destinations according to where house sitting is most in demand and luckily most big European cities are included.

On most months, our expenses do not exceed £1,000 and we live pretty comfortably.