Let's Talk Money

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Some of the most frequent comments I get when I tell people about my upcoming trip are:

"Wow, it must be nice to be able to afford to go on vacation for five months."

"I wish I had that kind of money!"

"You must be rich."

Now, I am most definitely not rich; I am in fact unemployed and living off of savings. But the truth is, anyone can afford to travel as long as they are willing to budget travel.

What is budget travel, exactly?

I should clear up that I'm not going on a five-month-long "vacation," or guided tour, or cruise. I am making serious sacrifices in the realm of comfort and self-indulgence so that I can live out a long-cherished dream. For most people this is all very do-able, and unless you're out of work like me, getting the time off is more likely to be a problem than finding the cash.

For starters: it is more economical to take one long trip as opposed to multiple shorter ones. You are saving on a lot of airfare. And a nice side effect is that you are significantly reducing your carbon footprint by taking one or two flights instead of 16.

"So how do you estimate your expenses?" you ask.

My advice: set aside the amount you have with which to travel (you can do it for as little as a couple thousand bucks). Decide where and for how long you wish to travel. Do the math:

(Total Budget - Airfare) / Days on the Road = Daily Budget

Now, using your daily budget, start adding up all of your expenses on a day-to-day basis. Make sure to consider the following:

• Transportation: You'll need to budget in transit costs from one city to another. This is where you can save a lot of money (if you have the time) by taking buses and boats and pick-ups rather than flights and first-class train compartments. In addition, you'll interact more with the locals and probably have some excellent stories come out of it. But that's not all: you also need to factor in costs for getting around said cities. When you can't possibly do it all on foot, you can take taxis or rickshaws or camels or piggy-back rides, or rent a bike; but it will cost you at least something. While I have hitchhiked in the past, I wouldn't recommend it (especially not for solo women).

• Administrative: I'm talking visa fees (anywhere from free to over $100 depending on where you go), visa extensions, airport taxes, and other sundry expenses that come up anytime you get involved with a foreign government. I'm going to go ahead and include bribes and corrupt-official fees in this section as well. It's inevitable in many places that that border guard is going to ask for a "tourist fee," or that you'll get caught jaywalking in front of an ambulance (ok, maybe you weren't, but that's what the policeman saw) and you'll want to pay your way out of any hassles.

• Lodging: This one's fairly straightforward, right? Well, you have to find the hotel room to fit your budget. That could be anything from a nice room with television, AC, and your own bathroom to a flea-ridden, foul-smelling, windowless box with paper for walls and a brothel upstairs. Hopefully you can find a happy medium, but the idea is that you're traveling.

• Food: Again, this has to fit within your daily budget. If you're fortunate, you can have a decent restaurant meal once or twice a day, but some budgets will only allow you to buy bags of rice at the local supermarket and cook them on your own in your flea-ridden, foul-smelling, windowless box. In most of the latter, you'll be able to find equally impoverished (or sometimes just really cheap) travelers to share expenses and cook meals together.

• Activities: You simply must budget for this. Unless you're going to shrines and churches, you'll probably have to pay an entry fee at virtually every major tourist site. And who wants to travel all the way to Cambodia and then refuse to fork over the (I'll admit, expensive) fee to enter Angkor Wat? This should also cover you for things like bungee-jumping, rafting, elephant-riding, or basket-weaving classes.

• Beer (and/or Coffee): Most of us have a weakness for at least one of the two, so if you can't live without it, plan for it.

• Replacement Stuff: You are going to run out AA batteries for your camera. You will wear that razor down until it's a nub. You'll need a new pair of pants at some point, I promise you. Budget a modest amount to replace essentials as you go.

• Communications: This covers you for phone calls and internet cafes. Unless you're one of the truly hardy ones (or you just don't have any friends) who can go for months without contact from home, set aside some money for this.

• Souvenirs: Ok, I'm putting this in here against my better judgment. Personally I don't plan on having any space to carry around souvenirs (have you seen my backpack?). But you may find yourself in a situation where you just have to have that child-labor-produced hand-woven rug. In this instance, you'll need to budget not just for souvenirs, but for shipping them home.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But let's take a look at a typical day (and forgive me if this sounds too much like a MasterCard commercial:

Hostel room (4$) + 2 street stall meals ($2.50) + 1 restaurant meal ($4) + 1 beer ($0.50) + bus ride ($3) + Internet access ($1) + entry to local museums ($5) + new razor blade ($0.20) + bribe to local offical ($5) = $25.20

Now, you're not going to have to bribe locals every day, and you won't run out of razor blades every day, either (unless you look like that guy I once saw at the spa in Baden-Baden); but chances are you will find something else to spend that excess cash on (a tour to a local waterfall, or a cooking lesson).

I like to round up. Let's call it $30 a day. If that's too much for your budget figure out where you can cut costs. The easiest spots are in food, lodging, communications, and alcohol consumption. You want to still be able to do the things you're going there to do/see, so try not to cut out on that stuff.

$30 x 140 days = $4200 + $1500 (airfare) = $5300.

Now seriously ask yourself: "How much money do I go through in five months when I'm back home?"

Rent + Utilities + Car Payment + Insurance + Groceries + Netflix Subscription + Cat Flea Medication + Bar Tab at Antone's + Yoga Classes to Unwind From All the Stress of My Job and Grocery Store Lines and Bad Movies and Traffic and Flea-Ridden Cat and Alcohol Problem = ??????

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Photos

Hitchhiking
I don't recommend it. Especially not for trains.

Try Exotic New Foods
Most places, they don't even cost a lot!

Beer Budget
Who goes to Oktoberfest and doesn't drink???