A broke 20-year-old college student in Atlanta is determined to meet their online best friend in the Netherlands for just 3-4 days - regardless of long layovers, budget airlines, or weekday red-eyes. The thread on r/Shoestring reveals the extreme measures young travelers take when money is the only barrier to connection.
"I'm a broke 20 year old trying to meet my online best friend of years (5 years). He's an exchange student in Netherlands," the post begins. "I don't care about sightseeing or tourist stuff, or even what city I fly into. I just want the absolute cheapest way to get there and back."
When the Trip Matters More Than Comfort
This is budget travel stripped to its essence - no pretense about "experiences," no interest in accumulating passport stamps or Instagram content. Just the raw determination to get from Point A to Point B to see someone who matters.
The traveler's specifications: dates are flexible, flight times don't matter, long layovers are fine, random weekdays are acceptable, any budget airline works. The only constraint is money - or rather, the lack of it.
The Rock-Bottom Europe Route
For Atlanta to Netherlands trips, several budget strategies emerged from the community:
Norwegian Air and PLAY: These budget carriers occasionally offer Atlanta-Europe fares under $300 roundtrip during off-peak periods. The catch: basic economy means no checked bags, no seat selection, minimal legroom, and often inconvenient flight times.
The Hidden City Strategy: Sometimes booking a flight to a destination beyond Netherlands (like Poland or Baltic states) with a layover in Amsterdam or Brussels costs less than booking directly to Netherlands. The traveler would simply not board the second leg. This violates airline terms of service and only works with carry-on luggage, but desperate times call for creative solutions.
Multi-Leg Routing: Flying Atlanta to a major European hub like London, Paris, or Dublin on a budget carrier, then taking a separate €20-40 Ryanair or EasyJet flight to Netherlands. More complicated, but sometimes dramatically cheaper.
The Tuesday-Wednesday-Saturday Rule: Flights departing these days are typically cheapest. Red-eyes and early morning departures also run cheaper than convenient times.
The Accommodation Question
"For lodging, I'm open to anything cheap like hostels or budget hotels. I may stay with my friend part of the time but I'm planning for worst case."
For 3-4 days, worst-case accommodation in Netherlands runs €20-35 per night in hostel dorm beds. Amsterdam skews expensive, but cities like Rotterdam, Utrecht, or The Hague offer cheaper options - and if the goal is seeing a friend rather than tourism, the specific city barely matters.
The Bigger Picture: Travel as Essential, Not Luxury
What makes this story compelling isn't the budget travel tactics - it's the motivation. This isn't gap year wanderlust or influencer content creation. It's a 20-year-old who's maintained an online friendship for five years and has a brief window while their friend is in Europe as an exchange student.
"I just want to see him ASAP since he can't come to my country," they wrote. The urgency is real, the budget is non-existent, and the determination is absolute.
Making the Impossible Possible
The shoestring travel community offered tactical advice: set up Google Flights alerts for Atlanta-Amsterdam/Brussels/Rotterdam, be ready to book immediately when prices drop, consider flying into London or Paris and taking ground transportation, check Norwegian, PLAY, and any flash sales from major carriers, and be flexible enough to depart on 24-hours notice if a deal appears.
For food, the advice was blunt: bring snacks from home, eat supermarket food in Netherlands, skip restaurants entirely. For 3-4 days, you can survive on bread, cheese, and willpower.
The Real Cost
Realistically, the absolute minimum for Atlanta-Netherlands roundtrip is probably $250-400 if the traveler is patient and lucky. Add €60-120 for hostel beds if not staying with the friend, €50-80 for food if extremely budget-conscious, and €30-50 for local transportation and incidentals. Total: $450-650.
For a broke college student, that's still a mountain. But it's climbable - especially if the alternative is waiting years until finances improve, by which point the friend may have moved on or the window closed.
The best travel isn't about the destination - it's about what you learn along the way. What this 20-year-old is learning is that when the reason to travel is strong enough, you find a way to make the impossible work.
