Following on from my mini long weekend in Copenhagen, I decided to share my budget mini guide/glance of the charming capital of Denmark.
Everyone told me Copenhagen can be expensive and they weren’t wrong – with so much to do there and so many seafood restauraunts alongside the river in Nyhavn, it can be tricky to choose cheaper options! However, I found that my researching ahead with blogs – and buying myself a Copenhagen Card – I managed to spend my three days in Copenhagen on the cheap.
Here’s my mini guide.
WHERE TO STAY | SLEEP IN HEAVEN
After my crippling lonliness when travelling alone in Berlin, I decided to make the obvious choice of booking into a hostel this time around. It didn’t take me long to choose a hostel – most of them are friendly and laid back – and I settled on Sleep In Heaven due to rave reviews on Hostel World. Situated in the hipster neighbourhood of Nørrebro (which kind of reminded me of Brooklyn, even though I’ve never been!), this cute and charming hostel was an ideal homebase for my time during Copenhagen. They had a lovely hangout room, friendly staff and hosted free walking tours – and was only a short walk away from either the subway or bus stops. My only downsides were that the beds and floors were super squeaky (but this isn’t a huge issue as it’s not exactly a five star hotel!) and that I personally didn’t find it easy to approach other travellers there. I know this isn’t an issue for some and they did hand out board games one night but in the evenings it might have been nice to host a couple of in hostel activities (like I experienced at Mezcal Hotel in Mexico, bingo and quiz nights etc). However, I can’t deny that staying at this hostel made me feel like a proper traveller who had finally got used to flitting from place to place and I’d recommend this hostel as somewhere to stay!
Also, I know it’s not a budget option (I find that if you’re travelling or slummin’ it a lot, spending more for somewhere that offers a bit more luxury for one night is always a nice idea), but I have to mention Manon les Suites. It was way out of my limited budget, but had I wanted to splash out for somewhere more plush, this would have been my option: I mean it has a pool, a rooftop terrance and uber trendy rooms.
WHAT TO DO | GET A COPENHAGEN CARD
For travel – and more attractions I could shake my stick at – a Copenhagen Card had all the answers. I ordered mine online in advance and easily picked it up at the airport upon arrival (once I found where to pick it up from anyway as I kept getting lost in the airport!). The lady scanned it there and then and it was ready to use instantly. The card covered both subway/train and bus travel and all I had to do was show it to the drivers when getting on. To use it at attractions, it just got scanned upon arrival = that’s it! I did so much with my card – it honestly covered pretty much every single thing I wanted to do – and what I loved was that the website actually listed all attrations beforehand and you could favourite the ones you wanted to visit to refer back to! This seems so obvious but so many travel cards don’t actually have something like this – recommendations of where to go or a comprehensive list of what’s included. I loved it and the app – complete with maps to each attration – was my absolute savour whilst I was in Copenhagen. It works out so cheap and is a must do. My favourite attractions included a boat tour, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! and entry into the charming Tivoli gardens.
WHERE TO EAT | LOCAL
I didn’t actually spend a lot of time researching places to eat, although I called out on Facebook for for a few vegan recommendations. I was told eating out was one of the most expensive parts of visiting Copenhagen, but luckily in Nørrebro, there were tons of cheap eateries and convinience shops. So, in all honesty, I stuck to grabbing snacks or pastas from convinence shops most days. I’m not the biggest fan of eating out alone and didn’t carry my book around with me, so this seemed like the obvious choice. I did, however, try the vegan burger at Cocks & Cows one day, as I got discount there with my Copenhagen Card.
These are just the three essentials however – a decent place to lay your head at night, where to eat and a couple of ideas of things to do. I did pack in quite a lot for my three days there however and I will be doing a more comprehensive blog post all about this soon.
In the meantime, have you ever visited Copenhagen? Would you stay at Sleep In Heaven or get yourself a Copenhagen card? Let me know!
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