how much money do you take on a trip and what do you spend it for?

You are right, chocolate is very different in different countries, I buy it wherever I go too. I live in Italy so I can buy Italian, Swizz, Belgian and German chocolate in almost every shop in Italy but still when my friend went to Australia I asked to bring me some chocolate to try it. It would be such a pity for me if I went to a country like Belgium and didn't brink back a bunch of chocolates.

I bought chocolates from Belgium which was at a time when the Euro was just introduced the wrapper had a Euro etching and was in gold and the chocolates that I bought were huge almost 5" in diameter!

Well, that's right. I have a friend who went to Tunis few months back and she bought many bags and scarfs as that was really cheap there. She spend $200 on clothes and similar things because she know that here she'd probably pay much more for the same thing. Leather bags are much cheaper there than here.

I agree, as my sister says...if you can't afford a trip it is better to stay at home. I know some people wouldn't agree with me, my friend no.1. in this case especially but...I would hate visiting a place and not being able to see what I want to see or visit. I have another friend who travels with a few Euro in her pocket...she came o visit me here in Italy with 10Euro in her pocket...that's like $15..and for that you can't get a proper meal at the restaurant. I never went to visit her because although I'd have a place to stay I'd feel grateful to her because she hosted me so I would take her out to dinner to thank her...but you can't pay for 2 dinners with $15. She never entered any museums or anything where she needed to cash out some money, and never even bought anything to eat...not even an ice cream to thank me with it...here you can buy 1L ice cream for $5 and they are delicious. So in these cases I really must say I preferred she stayed at home, she actually came to see the town and live on my money. I was a student back then so I didn't have much money then, she would wait for me to come back from university and than asked me what were we going to buy for lunch. I really don't leave the house if I don't think my trip will be something I could remember as a great time I had somewhere and where I afforded myself at least something.

For me it is a rare thing too because I don't have enough money to do it more often and I really don't see the point of running trough the town without experiencing it just because I can't afford to spend another $50 more than I pay my room and my way to get there.

For me trips are synonyms for something different. I am not saying that I would take thousands of dollars with me, but still I would like to afford something in the town I am visiting, something that will remind me of the town when I come back.

I don't pack my own food because if I travel by plain that's just impossible, but still I like to buy myself bread and ham and make the sandwich on my own instead of eating at the restaurants every meal. That doesn't mean that I won't try local food because I would always eat 1 meal at the restaurant each day or other day. It is not like I like to waste my money, but still I like to afford at least something.

Thanks for sharing.