How much does a "Round the World Trip" cost in 2011?

Let's try to outline a 12 month typical first-timer trip;

USA (home) - Fiji - New Zealand - Australia - South East Asia - Europe - USA (home)

With time spent;

2 weeks Fiji
1 month New Zealand
6 weeks Australia
6 months South East Asia (longest stop here as cheapest!)
3 months Europe

Assumptions: budget accommodation, hostel dorms, beach huts etc, transport, site seeing, cheapest option, cooking in the hostels where expensive - eg Europe.

This is all obviously a generalisation, more travel, more cost, more sightseeing, more cost - so I'm trying to make this a useful estimate for a total trip.

Costs:

Flights - a RTW - $1500 USD (estimate)
Insurance - $500 USD (estimate)
Medical - $100? vaccinations

Living costs per day; covering bed, food, typical site-seeing, transportation.

Bed, food, sites, transport - I've put question marks on my guesses!

Fiji - $30, $15?, $10?, $5? (small island) - Total: $60

NZ - $20, $20?, $20?, $20? : Total: $80
based on Wellington Hostel prices, $38 Christchurch -> Timaru bus ticket every few days a similar trip.

Australia - $30, $20?, $20?, $30 : Total: $100
based on Melbourne hostel prices, $50 Brisbane to Byron bay (3hr bus) so $30 per day maybe high....

South East Asia - $10, $10, $10, $10 : Total: $40
based on Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia - typical cheap costs - as with anywhere else you can spend more!

Europe - $25, $15, $20, $30 : Total: $90
large variation from Edinburgh $15, Barcelona $30, transport costs are high in Europe... is $30 a good estimate? going to Eastern Europe will save some money...

Grand Totals!

Fiji 15 days: $900
NZ 30 days: $2400
Australia 45 days: $4500
S.E. Asia 180 days: $7200
Europe 90 days: $8100

Flights etc: $2100

Total: $25,200

Well - I can't fault the arithmetic - seems high to me - is this a reasonable estimate? - where have I overestimated costs?

Keep in mind - when backpacking - you can drink your way to much much higher costs! Reply to this

I don't think you're overestimating too much... I think people are shocked when they hear how much we spent on our Year RTW... they'd probably be even more shocked to hear about how much it's costing us now.

I'm going to assume these costs are for one person? travelling as a couple does save quite a bit, especially on accomodation.

That RTW ticket seems a bit cheap to me... What's that extra $2100 for flights? Is that for flights taken that aren't included within the RTW ticket, maybe then that'll cover it.

$100 for vaccinations is completly unrealistic if you're coming from the UK, which is where we got ours from. From memory I don't even think $100 (£62) would get you the rabies one on its own. We also had to pay for the Jap encephalitis one which was pretty expensive and also the yellow fever one. They may even recommend Hep B, which again you have to pay for, thankfully we didn't as we're already immunised for work purposes. Of course it's entirely up to you whether you get vaccinated or not, I'm sure many people don't and have a hassle free trip, but then there's probably loads who wished they had!

I can only comment on areas we've been this year:

You might be able to shave some of the SE Asian budget, We're spending about £30 a day (~$50) here in Vietnam for all of us. We're a family of four and although they're only little, sometimes they eat more than us, and we have to buy ridiculous priced snacks they recognise and nappies (diapers). They're both free on transport but we actually buy long distance bus tickets for our oldest because I really don't want a two year old on my lap for 12 hours. Maybe count us as three people. We're also not staying in the cheapest of the cheap places (although the ceiling fan has just fallen down). You could if you wanted spend a LOT less. I know Vietnam is amongst the cheaper of the SE Asian countries so maybe it's just going to offset some of the other countries, I might be glad it's so cheap here once we reach say thailand!

😊



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I read this post yesterday, and thinking about it has kept me amused(or occupied at least) for a good part of yesterday and this morning.

I was imagining myself travelling in various countries and what I would be spending and on what.

I think how much the trip would cost for me(or anyone else for that matter) would depend on how much they move around and what their preferred activitites are and how often they would need to do those activities. Also, which priorities they have. ie some like nice accomodation, but dont care where they eat, or visa versa. Some always need to travel first class and others will ride the cattle cart of the train.

So, I think figuring out the what the trip would cost for me if I take an overnight train or bus every 6 days on average. Sometimes when I travel overnight after 2 days and other times I stay someplace for a couple of weeks.

Europe per month with 30 days in a month:
Accomodation - 600 Euros. There are just about always hostel beds available for 20 Euros or less.
Food(not in restaurants) - 150 Euros
Drinks in bars and cafes - 300 Euros
Museums etc would be around 2 per week - 100
Insurance(if I needed to buy travel medical insurance for Europe, which I dont because of E1110 - 150 Euros
Transport on average - 350 Euros (200 to 500 depending on available bargains)

So 1650 Euros or 2,324.86 USD

SE Asia for a month
Accomodation - 180 Euros
Transport - 75 Euros
Food, water, drinks - 210 Euros
Museums, taxis etc - 50 Euros
Insurance - 150 Euros
1 visa per month - 50 Euros

So 715 Euros or 1,008.57 USD

Vaccinations for the trip would likely be around 100 Euros.

Flights - a RTW - $1500 USD (estimate)

If the round the world ticket is this much, then the monthly flying average would be
177.212 EUR or 250 US per month

I have never been to Fiji, NZ or Australia. I presume, they would need a similiar budget to Europe.

So, my round the world trip would cost
Max 11562 Euros or 16,315.17 USD
Min 5890 Euros or 8,304.69 USD



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