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For the benefit of anyone planning a similar trip we have tabulated our costs for your general reference. When we left we did not have set duration but a set amount of money so we kept fairly detailed notes of what we spent.
All costs we have presented are for two people.
For the “core” costs for the trip – lodging, meals, drinks, local transport, admissions and activities less than $100, intercity transport, miscellaneous, and visa fees – we averaged $112 per day.
Even in these basic expense categories we could have shaved our costs a quarter or in some cases a third. We could have gone dorm beds when we weren’t camping. Our meals were basic but not the cheapest to be had. We spent a good deal on drinks. We could have avoided pricier admissions and day tours. We could have stayed away from more expensive countries – Australia and New Zealand, euro-zone countries, Israel, the Indian Ocean island states, and Chile and Argentina in South America.
On the flip side you could spend quite a bit more. Our lodging choices (except for a couple short splurges) were not posh by any measure. Meals were plain. We used local public transport and stayed away from domestic air flight except on the longest overland hauls.
On top of these core costs we took twenty-six international flights in the course of visiting 48 countries which ran our total up to $135 per day.
On top of these “core” costs we spent half again as much on purely elective items like car rental and “special activities” (activities that cost more than $100 for the two of us), bringing our total up to close to $200 per day.
Some of those special activities were pricey indeed – several thousand dollars for a four day dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef, and twice that for an 8 day boat based Galapagos tour. But this was our bucket tour; these are the things we were here for.
Average daily car rental costs averaged 2-1/2 times more than public intercity transport but we saw and did many things that would have been impossible by public transport.
All of these averages hide a huge variation from less than $80 a day in Armenia to a whopping $750 a day in the Galapagos Islands.
Many at home think that a trip of this length has to be mind boggling expensive and we spent a huge sum but in fact even though we were not squeezing every dollar until it squealed our core travel costs (not including specials) were less per day than our “regular” lives at home – mortgage, utilities, cars, insurance, fuel, clothing, food, etc. – cost. Of course it is also a matter of priorities – we love to travel so that is where we put our money. Our mortgage is half of what our friends are paying. We drive our cars until they are ready for the junkyard. All so we can travel.
We categorized our costs as follows (more details below):
Lodging – On our trip we put up in all kinds of accommodations – sleeping on a pad under the stars, in tents, gers (yurts), and refugios, in the back of a camper van, on trains, boats, and in airport transit lounges, and a few days splurge in coastal resorts. Most of the time we put up in hostels and that is what the cost info reflects. We almost always went what we would best call high budget to low mid-range. We did indulge in two ways:
All told we paid on average 25% more for these privileges than we would have if we were scrabbling for every buck. You can certainly get by for less or more – depends on you minimum standards. You can get cheaper lodging away from city centers and the “sights” but we found that even with cheap public transport you can easily eat up the difference in fares and time.
If you are in a place four or more nights check out apartments on booking.com or airbnb. In some places apartments are the same or little more than a double at a hostel especially if the cleaning fee is minimal.
Some countries are just plain expensive. The best way to save money is to avoid them.
Meals – As with lodging we went cheap but not too cheap. Based on four meals a day (2 persons x 2 meals a day) our average meal cost was $5.75 although that covers a wide range from $3.25 to almost $15.00 depending on country.
In a lot of Asia, Africa, and South America you can get a meal for one-and-a-half to three dollars if you take whatever is in the pot so there are potential savings here. We did a lot of that but more often we went to places frequented by locals with a few more choices available.
Drinks – Scott’s beer (and diet coke) consumption can sometimes be prodigious so we kept a separate tally of alcoholic drinks.
Local (Intracity) Transport / Parking / Fares / Tolls – In some countries we rented a car, in others we relied on public transport. In some countries we did both, especially where intracity driving is nerve racking and parking scarce and/or expensive.
When we rented a vehicle this category includes parking fees, a vignette or road tolls, etc.
When using public transport this includes mass transit (rail and bus), cabs, airport transfers, and some day hire of car and driver. Public intercity and international ground travel has its own category below.
Admissions and Activities less than 100 USD – This is park, museum, and site admissions, guides, day tours, entertainment, and activities less than 100 USD for the two of us. We chose 100 dollars as a convenient if arbitrary cutoff point. More expensive activities have their own category below. We separated cheaper from pricier options to better understand where our money was going and it may also be a useful budgeting distinction for you.
There is no correlation between low cost destinations and low cost admissions. In some countries (China and Egypt come to mind) we often spent as much for a day at a park or sight as we did for a night’s room. Travel guides also seem to be woefully behind on quoting current admission rates.
Hanging out of course is free and many places have sites that are open to the public gratis, so for the budget minded you could carve a big chunk out of this line item. But for us this was a bucket tour after all so there was no way we were going to go Cambodia without plunking down the money to go to Angkor.
Miscellaneous and Incidentals – All other routine expenses. Tips, toiletries, personal care, pharmacy, laundry, postage, phone and internet access and a hundred other things that didn’t fall into other categories. In retrospect we wish we had tallied tips separately. In some countries it is unheard of, in others the expectation and harassment for tips (Ethiopia comes to mind) can be ruthless.
Car Rental and Insurance – On average, car rental plus fuel cost 2-1/2 times as much as relying on public intercity travel.
On the other hand in Europe we got a long term car lease that, even including insurance, was very nearly cost competitive with public transport.
Some of the places we went were essentially impossible to tour by public transport unless we limited ourselves to major cities.
Some compensations for the extra expense are huge time savings and the associated lodging and meal costs for extra days to complete our program.
It also gave us immense flexibility to go to many places we would not otherwise have been able to visit by public transport.
Even in countries with cheap public transport it is often possible to find other travelers willing to share costs on a rental. Getting together a group of four or more can take some of the bite out of the budget.
Fuel – If we rented a car this is where we logged the expense.
Public Intercity Transport – This is the cost of bus, train, or occasionally boat or plane to get from one city or destination to another within a given country. International airfare was logged seperately.
If available we usually paid the often minor additional charge for reserved and/or more spacious seating.
China’s train system is superb and overnight sleepers save the cost of a room. South America has a huge number of competing bus lines that offer great service at very low price.
In some countries there are no coach type buses (Madagascar and Ethiopia immediately come to mind) so they use eleven or fifteen passenger vans that inevitably carry half again or twice that number of people. Long hauls in these vehicles can be gruesome. Car and driver hire (team up with others) or plane are the alternatives.
Buying tickets for internal flights is often cheaper in country. Flights purchased in Ethiopia and Myanmar are one-half the price of those bought on the web or overseas. Many countries in South America are the same. Air travel in countries with government airline monopolies like Madagascar can be absurdly expensive
Admissions and Activities more than 100 USD – This is mostly made of day tours in pricier countries and some genuine budget busting splurges like a whale shark tour in Australia, a balloon ride in Cappadocia, or skydiving in Namibia.
If the country by country cost summaries you will find each of these itemized individually.
Package Tours – Most of our trip was self-organized but we used overland tour operators in Mongolia and a lot of Africa. We corralled these costs in their own category since we could not distinguish the relative costs of lodging, transport, etc. For items not included in tour costs and for countries where we spent some time while not on an organized tour we have some cost info.
Visa and Reciprocity Fees – Self explanatory
Scott and Marta Dent 