
After publishing the break-down of my expenses in the different categories, from itinerary costs to groceries, insurances to eating out, here’s the final, overview.
The ultimate budget of this whole crazy trip, all in all, every Euro, Dollar, Lira, Shekel, Peso, Yen, Rand, Real, Baht or Rupie I spent, as far as I managed to record it, was just under 65.000 €.
Create Your Own Visited Countries Map
Here is the break down:
- 45780 € in the different cities I stayed in, of which were:
- 20770 € for renting apartments and hotels
- 12735 € for eating out and going out
- 3330 € for supermarkets and groceries
- 3000 € for public transport
- 2510 € for culture, and
- 3435 € for other expenses
- 9995 € for flights, rental cars, ferries etc
- 5495 € for insurances
- 3720 € for other recurring expenses
Out of the 46.800 € budgeted to spend in daily life in each city, I did actually – and to my big surprise – spend only 45.780 € and hence less than I could have.
Expensive cities were balanced out by cheaper ones.
The total is therefore 64.990 € for 18 months on the road, or 121 € per day, all inclusive.
If you want you can check out this sheet with all the calculations and expenses: Let it go – total budget [PDF]
It’s a pretty big sum. It’s a down-payment for a nice apartment in Brussels.
Still, I have no regrets. I had the experience of a lifetime. I’d do it again.
I will do it again.
You can have it cheaper if you want. Less time traveling. Staying in cheaper places. Not spending so much on drinking and eating as I did.
But the point is: you can do it. For three months, or six, or whatever your employer agrees to.
… if you start saving for it now…
…if you stop buying all the useless stuff we drag home on a Saturday shopping spree…
…if you set yourself a goal and a date
…if you open up a savings account only for this, and never touch it…
…it’s totally possible.
Hey, Chris! You forgot to mention reais, brazilian currency… Hahahaha
But seriously, all this journey and this blog somehow inspire me to do something similar. Perhaps not 18 months, but I’ll, for sure, start saving to have such experience as you did. And maybe I can put Brussels on my cities list hahaha.
Updated!!! I thought something was missing… you totally should!!! Brussels awaits you!
Your choice. But in my humble opinion, you spent way too much.
I was an avid traveller (when the world was an interesting place : mid-seventies, late-eighties) . I spent 81 French Francs per day all included from a trip to Syria-Turkey-Italy in 1983 (obviously I didn´t spend any dime in insurance, WTF?) and 81 FF of 1983 (the only year I kept track of my expenses) translate to exactly 24,23 EUR of 2014. Six times less.
Again : YOUR choice. And I do respect it. But, the minimum salary per month in France is 1400 EUR and it’s a rich country and you spent many of your time in POOR countries and your average is almost 3800 EUROS per month ??????? Come on !
This sum is ridiculously high. So high that I almost see no interest in publishing it 🙂
And if I understand well, you dont even have an appartment ? I (again: MY choice) would have spent 6 times less than you did and I would dispose of more than 50.000 EUROS for a nice down-payment.
Hey, thanks for the comments. Interesting… however, you’d have to think about inflation occurred in over 30 years…
I just publish the figures as a reference – I could have saved a lot on the rental of apartments while traveling, indeed, but that was a conscious choice (and mostly I paid way less than my former monthly rent in Brussels). I also chose some quite expensive cities…
As for insurance: I am glad I had it. I had a minor bike accident that could have ended badly, as a car was just behind me. Again, a choice to be made.
Where else di you travel to?
This is great! Its always really helpful to see what actually is gonna be your biggest underlying costs and yeah over the years things are getting more expensive.
I’ve been doing the work/travel thing as much as I can while I can still get the working holiday visas, which helps keep replenishing that fund to spend (7 of the last 10 years and have seen the dramatic increase in some countries!)
I would love to actually do this to see what is spent overall, i find workaway and helpx have been great at cutting the biggest expenses of accommodation and food, with couchsurfing for short trips. Planning always goes a long way, which can be difficult on the longer term trips. But I did manage to do Eastern Europe trip, accom, visas, transport, everything for 2.5 months for 700€. My next trip is central asia, caucasus, Iran, approximately about 3,500€ for about 5 months – details of times still underway (not including food/on the ground stuff)…and thats mostly thanks to Turkmenistan and its requirement to have to book an expensive tour to get a visa to the country!
But think this is great and I think money is always better spent travelling and new experiences!
Hey Kylie, thanks for the comment… Sounds exciting! Do you have a webpage or facebook page?
There are so many different ways to get around… My goal was less to travel, but to ‘live’, ene shortly, in a city… and I didn’t want to asl someone for courchsurving for that long, or switch all the time..
Let me know how your travels go!
cheers
Christ