What did you spend?

I suppose the answer will depend on which countries people went to, how long they spent there, etc. Sorry, I'm also saving and am interested in this answer. 😊 Reply to this

I probably spent about 30k on me and the missus travelling. That is enough.

If you know what the main things are you will be spending the bulk of your money on, that will help. Such as if you plan to hire a car for a month, or flights, or arranged trips. Also if you plan to stay in dorm rooms with others, or you want private rooms all the time, this really can add up considering its generally a daily expense.
And of course if you plan to work while travelling as we planned to when getting to aussie land.

I wont bore you with the everything of my trip, but you can almost always cut costs - booking everything before you leave, waiting to buy things (e.g. backpack) until you see it cheap. Dont buy things before you go unless you REALLY need it - if it turns you could do with something after you leave, odds on you can buy it where you are and often for cheaper (i'm talking extra pair of shorts, not travel insurance) - but if you have the money, and you've dedicated it to travelling, you dont need arrange everything and stick to some strick plan. I've found it best when I'm not sticking to fixed dates/plans - thats when I've had the most enjoyable time.
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It was in UK pounds. But thinking about it now, we easily travelled around europe for a couple of months, and then for probably another atleast 10 months without working.
I havent been very good with tracking the old money, but i bet 10k each is more than enough. Though, depends what you want to do and how you want to travel of course.

I've made it RTW and back to Aussie land, and with time to get a job without scraping the barrel.
No doubt there'll be some people on here who have really cut it fine with money....someone?

Like I said, do work out the main/fixed costs e.g. the long flights, car/campervan hire, organised travels, insurance for what you want to do if you can. Reply to this

I'm glad to hear we're there or there abouts. We just have to do the saving and waiting bit now. Only 482 days to go. :P Reply to this

Hi

This is really helpful. Keep 'em coming. 😱

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We decided instead of having a big wad of cash we would have a daily budget, this was $30 USD in Asia (3 months), $70USD in Australia & New Zealand (4 months), $50USD in South America (<2 months) & $100 USD in the United States and Canada (3 months). In addition we booked our main continental flights before we left and hotels at certain times of the year, such as New Years in Sydney.

It totally depends on what you want to do and where you want to go. We wanted to take the time off from our jobs to travel only and not be stuck needing to work to get to the next place. We also didn't want to sleep in dorms, so private rooms only. I also like the odd bit of luxury so ocassionally we ended up in a nice spa or luxury hotel for a couple of nights at certain times throughout our year away. At the outset we agreed to make the most of every opportunity so when it came to things that cost more, if we felt the experience was worth it we paid the money. I.e., we wanted the video and professional pictures of our skydive which doubles the cost. Fitting other things in to our trip like Moto GP or Formula 1 race, and concerts also cost us more.

All in all we spent around 20k sterling each, and it was worth every penny!!! Enjoy your planning, that is nearly as good as the trip itself......... 😊

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I had two budgets. One was based off the expected daily costs for each country and my duration in each place. The other was for one time bigger expenses...sorta my "adventure" fund. This covered things like my 5-day live-aboard dive trip on the GBR (which was over 1 month of daily expenses), bungee jumping, ice climbing, etc. I found that this made it easier to truly estimate my costs and keep track of things.

If I had just gone into it thinking "$30 per day"...then all of a sudden I'd drop hundreds of $$ on some 2hr activity and not know how I just hosed up my budget. But with this approach, I knew I had a certain amount of $$ to spend on this stuff w/o affecting my lodging, food, bus, etc fund.

While actually on the road, I tracked every expense (yes, every bottle of water, every internet shop, every bus in Kathmandu, etc) I had in my journal and closely monitored my remaining budget. I met some people who just kept pulling money from the ATM and every few months would look at their balance to be surprised with how little they had left.

If you want to see how big of a geek I am, have a look at one of my trip summary blogs and all the things I kept track of.

Gone Global - The Bests And The Mosts

In it, you'll see this breakdown of my expenses.



Now that you've seen my neurosis, you might not be surprised to know I have it all in Excel and can give you cost breakdowns of all sorts of things - specifically the average cost per country. If you're interested, send me a PM and I can give you more details. If you're not interested...just laugh at me and continue on with your browsing 😉 Reply to this

Hi Marc

What a great response to my question. I mean, a PIE CHART, I love it! I have now started reading your blog, which I expect I will love. Can I ask, how much do you think you spent all in?

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Hi all

Been reading with interest, I'm going on a sort of RTW in Jan for 3 months ish and trying to come to terms with a budget. Doing Singapore, Oz, New Zealand and Fiji from the UK so any advice on these places would be great. My workings are coming to £35 a day after transport/flights etc. so this would be for hostels, food and activities. I'm hoping this is reasonable???

Marc, great idea on having an adventure budget seperate to daily spending. I didn't really think about doing that, especially as I want to try and get some diving in, also things like Whitsundays, Fraser Island etc.

I'm a geek too, have my cash workings, lists of destinations, what to take etc in Excel, can't get out of the habit, spend all day at work in Excel too which does worry me a bit......!

Ruth Reply to this

I like the way people are being honest in this thread about how much they spent or are spending. There is sometimes this kind of competiton amongst people travelling for who can pay the least for something, I can't be bothered playing.
So, as we're all being honest about it, we budgeted for about 18,000 pounds for a year, but that seems like a distant memory now, something I might have dreamt, haha. I'm just glad I don't have a letterbox, because the statements flying though it every month would make grim reading, and I just can't be bothered thinking about that at the moment, I'm having way too much fun. Reply to this