I was born and raised in Tyumen. But I've always wondered: it's the same with us, but how is it there, in another city, another country, on another continent?
As a teenager, I decided that I would travel around the world. My parents did not support my desire, but they did not forbid it either. At the age of 20 I went abroad for the first time, and at 21 I went around the world.
Around the world in my understanding is when the start and finish are at one point, with the intersection of all meridians.
At first I was driven simply by natural curiosity. Then travel became a part of life. The more I move around the world, the more I want to understand why I can, but my neighbor does not? How to teach a neighbor to drop obstacles and know the happiness of travel?
V free time I conduct master classes for those who want to know our planet. I like to inspire people. But I would travel even if my experience was of no interest to anyone and if there was no Internet to share impressions.
How much does a round the world trip cost?
I spent 180,000 rubles on the first circumnavigation of the world. This amount included:
- air travel - 72,000 rubles;
- housing - 17,500 rubles;
- visas - 6,700 rubles;
- food - about 50,000 rubles;
- communication, entertainment and other small expenses - the rest.
Another important nuance. I never take cash on a trip. Only currency bank cards. Because if I lose cash, I will be left without a livelihood. If I lose my card, I will transfer funds to the second one and calmly continue the journey.
How to prepare for your first solo trip?
I advise you not to use ready-made checklists from the Internet, but to create your own. It is necessary to calculate the travel budget and prepare a fallback for each force majeure.
For example, I usually have an alternative to an overnight stay in case the hotel where I planned to stay is full. At the same time, you need to be ready to sleep at the airport or on the beach if everything goes completely wrong. By the way, there is even a rating of the most comfortable airports for sleeping and instructions on how to do it right.
A modern traveler does not have to be able to navigate using a compass (if my iPhone is taken away from me, I will be stupid for a long time in an unfamiliar place), but must be unpretentious and open to the world. The second is the most important.
Take a minimum of things with you, and then reduce this minimum by another half.
- Behavior rules. Decent establishments always have regulations: you can’t bring guests, make noise after eleven, leave things in the washing machine, and so on. The more rules in the hostel, the cleaner and more comfortable it will be.
- Stay limit. In good hostels, you can not stay longer than a week or even a couple of days. If there are no restrictions, there is a high probability that guest workers or prostitutes have settled there.
I am looking for housing through Hotellook or Ostrovok. At the same time, I always check the boxes “free breakfast” and “free Wi-Fi”. You save a lot when these services are included in the price of your stay.
Does couchsurfing work?
And how! I love Couchsurfing.com. I even made a video on how to use this service.
The most hospitable people from the countries where I visited, by the way, here, in Russia.
How to communicate with the local population?
At the start of the first circumnavigation of the world, I knew English at the level of cat, home, sorry. But while traveling, he pulled up his tongue well. If you do not understand what is happening around, then you risk your life and the brain is activated - you learn new words and phrases instantly.
- “Hello!”, “Thank you”, “Excuse me” is a simple courtesy that is greatly appreciated by the locals.
- "Stop, that's enough!" - useful in the market or, for example, in a massage parlor.
- "How much is?" - if you ask in the local language, you can pass for a foreigner who is well versed in local realities and who should not overcharge.
- "Where?" - helps out in many situations, you can find out where some landmark or toilet is located.
- "I need help" - if you give an SOS signal in a language people understand, they will come to your rescue faster. Well, with this phrase in an unfamiliar country, you can generally start any conversation.
How to eat while traveling?
Never eat in tourist places. It is worth moving 200 meters from the Louvre, as in a cafe there are completely different prices. When traveling abroad, I always use Groupon - it helps to save on food.
If you have just arrived and are terribly hungry, do not rush to immediately get acquainted with the local cuisine. As the saying goes, if you don't know the ford, don't poke your head into the water. Go to McDonald's or another well-known franchise establishment. Later locals they will tell you where the most delicious dishes are served, which restaurant they have been going to with the whole family for seven years now.
What else can you save on?
- Moving around the city. I try to book accommodation near the center and use public transport. In the whole circumnavigation of the world, I only rode a taxi once. In the future I plan to try running excursions and bike rental.
- Connection. I always get a SIM card with unlimited internet if I plan to stay in the country for more than four or five days. And do not miss the opportunity to use free Wi-Fi.
- Excursions. I never use the services of a guide: I'm interested in feeling the spirit of the place, and not listening to someone's chatter. If you need to know the history of a particular attraction, I open Wikipedia.
- Souvenirs. Do you need it at all? But if necessary, try to pay in local currency (a little cash can be withdrawn from an ATM).
Will there be a second round of the world?
Yes, in January 2017. It is scheduled for five months. Approximate route: Russia - UAE - Nepal - Maldives - Thailand - Malaysia - Singapore - Indonesia - Australia - USA - Colombia - Iceland - Spain - Russia.
With the current dollar exchange rate, the budget is 200,000 rubles. But this time it will be more difficult. I plan to make money while traveling and participate in two Ironman competitions. Lifehacker inspired me to participate in it. :)
By the way, if readers still have some questions about round-the-world (and not only) travel, I’m ready to chat in the comments.
is a journey through all time zones, through all the meridians, crossing the equator 2 times.
How much does a round-the-world trip cost: Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, USA. Airfare and visas.
Which way to travel to choose?
- The easiest way is to buy a ticket through a travel agency for a cruise ship Price from 1.000.000 rub. the simplest cabin, floats 3-4 months.
- The second way is by trains, buses, ships, i.e. don't fly at all. The cost of the circumnavigation is from 2 million rubles. Duration is about 1 year.
- Air travel is the fastest and cheapest way.
You can buy a round-the-world plane ticket (5-15 connections) - the most expensive option. Cost from 250.000r. Economy class.
You can buy individual tickets for selected countries. Price from 170.000r.
Fly on low-cost airlines (low cost airlines) only with hand luggage- the cheapest option. The price of tickets only from 100.000 rubles. with all fees. Low-cost airlines fly across Russia: Pobeda, FlyDubai, AzurAir, Pegasus.
Visa to USA. It is better to start applying for a visa at least 7-12 months in advance due to the current situation in Russia, when it is problematic to make an appointment for an interview at the consulate in Moscow. Alternatively, you can apply for a visa in Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan or European countries (then the interview is in English).
Fill out the form on the site, attach electronic photo, pay the visa fee and make an appointment for an interview, pass an interview and receive a passport within 5-60 days (in the case of an administrative check). Read more in.
Visa to Australia. Difficult to get a visa. Documents must be submitted at least 1 month before the trip. Fill out the application form on the embassy website (russia.embassy.gov.au), pay the visa fee, print the application form, collect Required documents and by any means to deliver to the embassy. At the end, receive a visa confirmation by email.
You can apply for a free transit visa online if you are in Australia before 72 hours (3 days). Getting it is much easier than a regular visa. Confirmation will be sent to your email.
Tickets and itinerary
Let's calculate the cost of a round-the-world trip by plane (regular airlines + low-cost airlines) as of December 2018. Stops in each city are 2-3 days. Adjust stopovers for yourself.
Moscow — Bangkok(no visa required). With a change in Irkutsk for 15.909 rubles. If you look at tickets from the regions, you can find them cheaper through Beijing. There is an option from Moscow via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.
Bangkok — Kuala Lumpur(no visa required). Ticket via AirAsia for $59 (4000r.)
Kuala Lumpur — Sydney(free transit visa up to 72 hours - issued via the Internet). Via AirAsia for $153 (10,400 rubles). Keep in mind that it is summer in Australia in January and winter in July.
Sydney — Hawaii(U.S. visa required). The most difficult segment of the journey. A ticket through Jetstar.com or Australian Airlines to Honolulu for 449 Australian dollars (22,000 rubles). You can catch a 50% discount. (Australian $221 flight - 11,000 rubles).
Honolulu (Hawaii) - San Francisco - New York(American visa). We make a stopover in San Francisco for 1-2 days. Ticket for 20 335 rubles. via Aviasales (through the Alaska Airlines website cheaper by 700 rubles.) You can fly through Los Angeles (stopover 24 hours) for 19,500 rubles.
New York — Moscow. Direct flight by Aeroflot via Skyscanner for 34,594 rubles.
I advise you to fly only with hand luggage. Be sure to use GPS navigator on your phone (Google or Maps.Me offline maps). Install an online English-Russian translator from Google on your phone.
Take it with you (order via Aliexpress) or buy an adapter for sockets on the spot (3 types of sockets are on your way).
Read about how to travel safely, save your money and documents.
Summarizing
Total airfare: 107 238 rubles. Visa costs: American $160 (10 880 rubles), Australian transit visa - free of charge, visas are not required for Asia.
If you buy all air tickets through search engines (aviasales, skyscanner, momondo), the cost will increase by 10-15%. If you wait for discounts and promotions from low-cost airlines, you can additionally save up to 20%.
If you fly in the summer months, during the off-season, tickets in Asia are much cheaper, plus you can find a ticket from Australia to Hawaii for 11,000 rubles. In total, your airfare costs will be about 80,000 rubles.
If you buy tickets in advance, you can still save up to 10%.
"Not being greedy is already wealth, not being wasteful is income."
Cicero
One of the most popular questions we get asked is how much money did we spend to go around the world.
However, we would like to emphasize again that For you main question should not be how much we spent, but how much you will spend when you travel on your own.
In this article, I decided to analyze the factors that influence the formation of the cost of a round-the-world trip.
I hope that the information below will help you understand, at least, where to start planning your budget for a trip around the world. And for someone it may be a discovery that big trips are much more affordable than it might seem! Let this be the first article on our blog about how to plan a pleasant, long, safe and cheap travel. We hope it will be useful.
Poll results
We conducted a survey on which we asked a secret question: how much does a round-the-world trip cost. We received not that many answers (199 in Russian). We also need to take into account the specifics of our audience. Among our readers, on the one hand, there are many IT people with large salaries and large requests, on the other hand, there are many hitchhikers and hikers, as well as familiar travel bloggers.
There were only six answers in English, so I did not include these results in the graphs.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey and shared it with your friends!
So, let's look at the most general result (on the horizontal axis, the cost of one year of active and interesting round-the-world travel per person in US dollars):
As you can see, most people believe that a one-year trip around the world will take no more than $20,000, while many are ready to meet $5,000. Therefore, I decided to increase the zone to $20,000, and it shows that the most popular answer options are about $10,000 (a nice round sum), $3,000 and $6,000.
Experience around the world. Let's see how the result depends on whether the respondents have been around the world or are going to.
It turns out that those who are going on a round-the-world trip are the most optimistic group =) Which, in general, is both logical and correct. We have few answers from people who have traveled, but their answer is no longer a forecast, but a result. Most spent $10,000 or $20,000.
Floor. Estimated cost of circumnavigation by women is generally higher:
Income. As income levels rise, estimates of spending on trip around the world also grows:
Age. The most optimistic estimates are given by the most elderly and youngest participants in the survey:
Analysis of own income
Oddly enough, the cost of travel no longer depends on the average price of hotels in Asia or flights across the Atlantic.
It depends on how much money a particular traveler leaves with.
So, first.
Estimate:
- How much money do you earn per month/year.
- How much of that money can you save.
- How many months/years are you willing to collect money.
Voila, it turns out a certain amount.
There are many advice articles on how to increase this amount (for example, not to buy unnecessary ones), I will not be scattered on this topic.
This amount is your reality, it determines your travel style, whether you will be hitchhiking and sleeping in a tent or flying in a helicopter :)
Choice of priorities
On a long journey (say more than two months) this is a very important question.
The choice is usually trite: time or money.
Let's say you have a list of places you want to visit. You can either skip it fast using buses/airplanes/hotels or savor it slowly by hitchhiking and living in different places for weeks on work away or couchsurfing.
This will greatly affect the final cost of your trip.
Photo: getting ready to board a regular flight from to.
But the most important thing:
stay positive no matter how you travel!
Strict planning
Expenditures
Consider what the cost of a round-the-world trip consists of and roughly estimate the amount.
Transport
The biggest cost is of course transportation. In particular, intercontinental flights. As a rule, it is impossible to avoid them, there are a few cases when someone managed to overcome the ocean by air or hydrostop.
But still, price can be made affordable if you monitor prices / discounts and buy tickets in advance.
When calculating the cost, you should immediately look at how much long flights will cost in total. As a rule, these will be one-way flights.
We once considered the so-called round the world tickets that most airline alliances offer, but they turned out to be unreasonably expensive and the process of buying and confirming each flight was dreary. Later, the refusal of such tickets was justified, because the entire route had to be flown in a year.
It is impossible to take into account the costs of smaller movements =)
Prices change, plans change during the trip, as I wrote earlier.
Everything happens here for travelers. by the fallback method. As the money runs out, we move from the plane to buses and hitchhiking.
An example of a calculation, or an arithmetic problem for a second grade student.
Visas
This cost item is small, but inevitable. It really depends on your citizenship and the list of countries you are going to visit.
Let's say our backpacker spent $400.
Housing
There are three options:
1. Spend the night on couchsurfing or check-in. Is free. Great option for long trips. Requires experience and skill ("wisdom"). Where it did not work out, we spend the night in a tent or in a cheap hostel.
If you haven't signed up for Airbnb yet:
Let's say that a certain French backpacker traveled for a year in inexpensive countries and on average paid $ 8 per night in a dorm:
8$ * 365 (days per year) = 2920$
Food
Surprisingly, food is usually not expensive.
Especially in warm countries, where one meal costs 1-4$US.
In addition, you can cook yourself, sometimes you will be fed by those you meet on the road, sometimes you will feed them.
Let's go back to our backpacker, $2 is "seemingly" inexpensive:
$2 x 3 (meals) x 365 (days) = $2190
But then again, you can eat cheaper than some French backpacker.
The costs are related to the fact that all equipment must be purchased first, if it was not purchased before the start of the trip.
You may need a backpack, a tent, a camera, comfortable travel clothes and shoes, and other things that are not always needed in everyday life. And it's not all worth it.
Equipment has three negative properties: break, get lost, as well as the fact that it can be stolen. In this regard, costs increase: you need to repair or buy a new one.
Our backpacker bought a backpack (200) + sleeping bag (100) = $300. Friends gave him a tent and a mat. In the course of the play, his shoes were torn 2 times, plus a bunch of clothes were worn out and leaky, and he spent another 300 on repairs and buying new junk.
Total $600.
Bars, alcohol, cigarettes, snacks
We are not monks, we are not blessed travelers. Our goal is not only to pass certain points on the globe.
Means, everyone has their own way to spend money on something unnecessary: alcohol, cigarettes, discos, etc.
There are backpackers who only hitchhike, but spend the money saved on beer. Although here. It's very individual.
Here for the calculation starts working limitation principle.
Let's say we bet $1 a day - that's $30 a month, or $365 a year. It's a can of beer, or ice cream, or some fruit every day.
For a Western European backpacker, we will bet $3. (From our observations, they thump a lot.)
Or $1068 a year.
Tickets for attractions and tours
The blogs of our compatriots are full of notes on how to climb where for free. But, unfortunately, this is not possible everywhere, not everywhere we want to take a steam bath and put ourselves and the workers of the local tourism industry in an uncomfortable position.
We have with the experience of traveling around the world, costs are significantly reduced, because we visit the banal less and less tourist places from a guide book and spend more time communicating with people and nature, searching for beauty in the everyday life of other countries.
We also travel more on our own than with a tour.
We will limit $100 per month. Actually, it won't be enough. No, Machu Picchu and other things.
Total $1200 per year.
For a French backpacker, we will introduce a limit of $300 per month. He, as befits a bourgeois personality, will pay for "trekking", diving and riding in a hot air balloon.
$3600 per year.
The medicine
In distant countries, there is a great danger of getting sick, including unprecedented exotic diseases, as well as getting into an accident or injury.
It is very popular to buy cheap insurance that costs less than $100. It has enough coverage to cure a runny nose. If a tourist gets into an accident, the coverage is enough to pay for 1-3 days of hospital.
So very important to have !
Moreover, the one that provides a large amount of coverage of expenses and includes various extreme sports (motorcycle, bicycle, hiking, diving, etc.).
Please add the cost of insurance to the estimate.
Also, in a good way, before leaving, you need to do vaccinations from various dangerous infections (yellow fever, typhus, tetanus, etc.)
Further on Facebook / VKontakte they write that they urgently need to raise $ 100,500 for treatment, because the doctors did not manage to collect the victim in 1-3 days. There are especially many such posts in groups in Thailand and Indonesia, because it is popular to fall off a motorcycle there. Let's say our backpacker bought for $1,000 a year.
Calculation for our backpacker
Class 0. European tourist. So our abstract French friend is going to spend:
6600 (transport) + 2920 (accommodation) + 2190 (food) + 600 (equipment) + 1068 (alcohol and snacks) + 3600 (tours) + 1000 (medicine) + 400 (visas) = 18379 $
Around 18-19k. Somehow it worked out a lot. Let's see how we can cut it down.
Class 1. Greedy European tourist. No alcohol and cigarettes! We will limit tours to $100 per month, we will take simpler equipment, we will limit the cost of food twice (that is, eat mainly rice and pasta with vegetables).
6600 (transport) + 2920 (housing) + 1000 (food) + 50 (equipment) + 1200 (tours) + 1000 (medicine) + 400 (visas) = $13170
Around 13-14k. Still a lot?
Class 2 Thrifty Traveler and a beginner hitchhiker. We cut transport costs in half. We halve the cost of accommodation and tours (meaning that most of the time we spend the night for free), cross out some countries so as not to pay for a visa. We remove the cost of medicine (not recommended, but, in practice, often it is). We do not get sick, we cross the road carefully.
3000 (transport) + 1500 (housing) + 600 (food) + 50 (equipment) + 600 (tours) + 250 (visas) = $6000
6k money. Already real?
However:
Class 3. Cool hitchhiker. This means that we only travel for free, for example, we pay only $ 2 * 1000 for flights through Tichiy and Atlantic Ocean and some ferries. We only stay for free, we do not take tours. We will climb into the sights like a pirate, i.e. exclusively free.
2000 (transport) + 0 (housing) + 50 (equipment) + 600 (food) + 0 (tours) = $2650
2-3k money.
Class 4. God of hitchhiking. An almost unattainable ideal. Travel through the seas and oceans by hydro- or airstop. As a rule, such a traveler knows how to please everyone and finds a common language with everyone. Including the leader of the Matoomba tribe in Africa, who only speaks the language of his tribe. He is also able to convince him to let him in for free on a train, plane, museum, spend the night in a house, give him a free visa. And to convince precisely the people whom he sees for the first time.
We lay down $ 1 of expenses for one day and how much is in reserve, let's say another $ 400. (We hope to return the reserve home! But part of it inevitably goes to visas.)
That is less than 1k money.
This class of travelers contains a huge number of people: these are students who hitchhike to the Crimea and sleep "savage". As well as grandmothers crossing half of the CIS as a hare on electric trains. Moreover, these grandmothers could easily make a trip around the world almost for free if they wanted to. But why do they need to? They only want to see their granddaughter, bring jam and cucumbers, touch the holy relic with their lips, and so on.
Very important: Usually, travelers fall into classes 3 and 4 not out of a desire to save money, but because they like this lifestyle. They like to communicate with drivers, look for appointments, they are satisfied with constant uncertainty, they are looking for adventure. If you are interested, you can read books by Anton Krotov for inspiration.
Interesting to see Which class of travel did the survey participants choose?.
It turned out somehow a lot of hitchhiking gods :)
To restore justice and get a more readable chart, I decided to remove those who were going to spend less than $365 (that is, less than $1 per day) and more than $30,000, we get the following:
Factors that shape the cost of a round-the-world trip
If in the previous section there were objective things that are difficult to change, now let's try to consider what is more dependent on us.
Who do we travel with?
This is a very important question..
If we approach the issue of travel philosophically, we can say that a traveler pays for every day on the road in two currencies: ordinary money and his internal energy. The only difference is that the energy itself is renewed (for free!!) when we sleep, have fun, drink wine, swim in the sea. If the energy runs out, you have to pay more money.
Everything is very simple.
You don’t have the strength to wave your hand on the side of the road and wait for a passing car - take a bus, you don’t have the strength to communicate with people at the registration desk - you go to a hotel, you don’t have the strength to look for a cheaper hotel, go to the one that got you first.
The list of options for making travel more expensive is endless.
And here your companion is very important.
He (she) can replenish your strength with a kind word, hugs and other things, as well as reduce your irritability and sour face. The fellow traveler carries a part of the general equipment in his backpack, runs to look for a hotel when he is no longer strong enough. Corresponds to couchsurfing.
The choice of a fellow traveler determines not only how pleasant it will be to learn Big world but also how expensive it will be.
Traveling alone has a number of advantages, but also many disadvantages. As a rule, it will be more expensive and more difficult.
The need for rest
The constant change of place and the mass of impressions can cloud our minds. With each week of the road we become less receptive to the wonders that new countries open up to us.
We become more distracted, lose things, miss the bus, etc.
I want to return home.
Therefore, on a long journey, you need to plan stops at pleasant cheap places to take a breath, relax, plan a further route, sort out the accumulated photos.
In general, in my opinion, well-planned rest stops reduce costs :)
For example, the bulk of this article was written while we stayed for a week with friends in Punta Arenas, Chile (thank you, Stasia and Daniel!).
Experience
In the process of traveling, we not only get to know the world, but also learn to travel. We analyze our mistakes, communicate with other travelers, read the Internet, and thus gain new knowledge and skills.
Most likely, a person who has already wandered around the world a lot with his brain turned on, will spend less money than the one who left his city for the first time. Because he knows how to buy air tickets and book a car more profitable. If this is a different style of travel, then he knows where to get up to quickly stop a passing car, how to spend the night for free (or cheap), where to get cheap food.
When Marina and I went around the world, within a month we noticed how our expenses began to decrease rapidly. You can gain experience faster if you go traveling with experienced comrades. (Or if you read our blog!)
Planning a trip around the world: seasons and holidays
A person who has had to open some modern guidebook has probably noticed that the story of a country often begins with its seasons. They are related to the climate, holidays and other factors that make visiting the country the most favorable.
There are 4 types of season: low, high, peak and transitional.
V low season visiting a country can be extremely unpleasant (for example, temperatures of -40, or eternal rains) or even pointless.
However, there are also examples to the contrary.
To the sound of a downpour, we sorted out photos and wrote a blog, planned what to see in Indonesia. It was cold! And in the evening it was always sunny, we swam in the sea and enjoyed the sunset. And plus we tried parasailing at half the price.
Obviously during the peak season (e.g. Christmas and New Year) prices skyrocket.
The cost of traveling around the world is largely determined by whether you can plan the logistics in such a way that everywhere hit the right season, so as not to fall for inflated prices and at the same time not to make unnecessary movements over long distances.
The cost of our round the world
This article was written when we spent more than a year and a half around the world, and it was coming to an end. And so we decided to roughly calculate our costs. It will no longer be possible to determine exactly, since the bank in which we kept part of the money went bankrupt, and our financial history disappeared in it.
For the first year of travel for one person, we spent about $ 11,000.
The most significant items of expenditure for the first year:
1. :) It took about $2500 per person. We have done OWD, AOWD and Nitrox certification, been on a dive safari, dived 49 dives.
2. Intercontinental flights: $2200 per person:
- Kiev - : 600$
- Manila - : 800$
- San Francisco - : 800$
How could you save
I will say right away that this amount can be significantly reduced, if you hitchhike or bike, but then such a trip as ours instead of 1.5 years will drag out for 3-5 years.
I repeat once again that such hitchhiking and cycling is not a way to save money, but a way of knowing the world. The stop-walker and cyclist notices things that the average traveler like us doesn't see.
But we could not afford to drag out the trip, we had other pressing matters. And the goal was set to visit several parts of the world, to feel what life is like in different countries.
How about work while traveling
Someone rightly notes that you can work while traveling.
Can even return in the black in terms of money.
I think this is a topic for a separate article. For now, I’ll write that Marina and I quickly rejected this idea for various reasons.
Firstly, we wanted to change our way of life for a while, clear our minds, and relax.
Secondly, we wanted to move quickly, actively, and spend all our free time on the trip itself, planning, photo / video analysis and blogging.
Conclusions from the above
If someone says that he traveled for 6 months for 200 dollars, this does not mean that you can do it. Likewise, if your friend spent $8,000 in one month in the States, it doesn't mean that you will never be able to travel all over the States on your modest salary.
Your budget is very individual!
You just need to collect as much money as you can and decide to go on a journey.
A truly round-the-world trip is more of a gamble, an adventure, than a pre-planned act, because we have an equation in which there are too many unknowns, and, in the end, that's the beauty of it.
Good luck in your endeavors!
The most popular question we were asked after the trip was about money.
There was no such person who would not ask, but how much does it cost to travel around the world for a year. And I, in general, understand these people, I myself probably would not have resisted.
In this post, I will try to answer this question in as much detail as possible.
So let's start our financial striptease -)
I warn you, the article is long and boring, only numbers and no photos.
You should not take this article as an axiom, i.e. if we have spent this amount of money, this does not mean at all that it will be acceptable to everyone. These expenses were due precisely to our desires and possibilities based on our preferences.
It cannot be said that we kept ourselves in a black body and sat on bread and water, but at the same time, sometimes we had to limit ourselves in some way. We lived both in hotels and hostels, flew planes and hitchhiked, ate at restaurants and local cafes. It all depends on the country, the season and your specific circumstances. Therefore, these figures can be considered as a kind of indicator average temperature in the hospital, i.e. it gives only a general idea, without specifics.
The following expenses include only travel expenses: flights / travel, visas, meals, accommodation, all kinds of tickets, bike rentals, souvenirs, etc.
This does not include preparation costs: purchase of backpacks, insurance, trekking shoes, camera, etc.
It also does not include unforeseen expenses that could have been avoided.
All costs are for 2 people, i.е. if you are traveling alone, you can safely divide the amount in half.
We were on a world tour for almost 1 year, from 2012 to 2013, the prices are accordingly for this period. So, let's begin.
We spent a total of 198 days in Asia and spent $8627 during that time.
On average, it took us about $ 45 per day for two of us, this is the amount excluding flights. Also, the daily expense does not include obtaining expensive visas: Chinese, Australian and American. But the daily expense includes travel and small visas, which are placed at the border, or relatively easily, quickly and cheaply obtained at the embassy.
Those expenses that were not taken into account in the daily expense are shaded in gray.
The daily expense includes everything except visas and flights, it is very convenient to use it to about estimate the cost of living in the country. This also includes the cost of entrance tickets to various attractions. Once again I will say that these costs are averaged and approximate, i.e. It's possible we forgot to count something.
We made a visa to Moscow through an agency, of course cheaper by ourselves, but at the beginning of the journey we had little time and no experience in obtaining visas at all, so we decided to entrust this matter to professionals. They made a double entry visa, because. We planned to stop by, but we never did.
China turned out to be very expensive, for some reason I naively thought that it should have been cheaper there, for example, as in Tai. It seems like cheap Chinese goods and all that, yeah, how about -)
It turned out to be especially expensive in China to move around the country, because. distances are large, but I want to see more. In addition, in China, we only learned to communicate with Asian sellers.
The cheapest country in Asia turned out to be for us, for a decent double with internet in a Siem Reap guesthouse, we paid about 6-7 dollars per room.
I also note that the longer you live in the country, the less expenses you get, especially if you rent housing for a month. This is exactly what we did in, as a result, for a month of living in a house in Ao Nang, we paid 5,500 rubles. Prices for hotels in Ao Nang short term can be seen.
The most expensive, of course, turned out to be, it was expected, and there is nothing to do there for more than 3 days. During this period, it is quite possible to have time to see everything. You can get a rough idea of hotel prices in Singapore.
After Asia was Australia, where we headed from Bali. $1301 spent in Australia in 25 days
We received a visa to Australia in Bali, this process is described in great detail.
Australia was the most expensive country we've ever visited, the minimum price for a hostel averaging $30. And this is for the biggest dorm, not in the best hostel.
I wrote about prices in Australia and how you can save money there.
Basically, we managed to save money by staying with couchsurfers. Thanks a lot especially Dima and Tatyana Komarov.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to thoroughly see the country, for this you need to either hitchhike for a long time, or rent a car (the best option).
From Australia we flew to Buenos Aires and started traveling around South America.
As a result, in 81 days we spent $8333 with joint efforts.
The flight to SA turned out to be even cheaper than we planned, the usual price is about $ 2000 per ticket, but because we took a ticket the day before departure, the price was lower. Usually the opposite is true, but as you can see, there are exceptions.
The most expensive country turned out to be (which was quite expected) about prices in Argentina there is such a wonderful one.
But what we did not expect at all is such high prices from Brazil.
In general, in almost all countries of South Africa, prices are higher than in Russia, the exceptions are, and perhaps a couple more countries in which we have not been.
Argentina came out on top in part because there is no cheap way to get around the country. Or expensive buses or airplanes. And the price of the plane is sometimes cheaper than the bus. The distances in the country are huge, sometimes it is cheaper to fly somewhere by plane than to travel by bus for 20 hours.
Bolivia turned out to be the cheapest, and in my opinion, the most colorful country in South Africa. To be honest, I did not expect so many emotions from this small country. Housing prices in Bolivia can be estimated at the cost of hotels in the country's capital city of La Paz.
By the way, in Bolivia, we got an American visa without any problems, perhaps this information will be useful to those who are going to travel around the world.
The biggest expense in Bolivia was probably the Uyuni salt marsh tour. We chose the most expensive company and were very satisfied.
amazing place, unique and the only one on earth, and no money is a pity to see it. I can say with confidence that for me it was the main motive to visit SA.
Peru is a very touristy country, although once you get off the beaten path, something in between Cambodia and Bolivia appears before your eyes. You can see housing prices in perhaps the most popular Peruvian city of Cusco among tourists.
I am often asked - "Leva, how is it that you can?" Usually people are interested in two things: where do I get so many vacations, and where do I get so much money. Everything about the vacation is simple - which leaves me time to travel. As for money, I honestly never counted how much I spend on my trips.
But I think it's time to figure out how much such a life full of travel costs me...
In order not to go far, let's take 2017 as an example. Over the past year, I was on the road for 138 days, and managed to visit 15 countries (including several trips around the USA):
Those of you who actively follow my blog know that - it is atypical, so I will not take it into account. After all, I definitely can’t afford to have such a great time on winter holidays every year.
Since I love to fly to Asia and Europe, and for this I need to cross the oceans, air tickets are one of the most important items of expenditure. Here I am - with their help, I made five transoceanic flights in 2017. Moreover, he did it in business, and even in the first class. (Miles are the best way to fly business class.) It's hard to forget with their double beds on board.
But for the rest of the flights, I paid with honestly earned money (and therefore, I flew mostly economy!) I am a loyal client of Delta, and if I already buy tickets, I try to fly with Delta or their partners in the Skyteam alliance. For the past couple of years, they've been tracking the dollar equivalent spent on flights throughout the year. I went to look at it at the end of 2017, and I saw this:
It was sometime in November and Delta charged me $4,826. In fact, this number does not take into account taxes and fees (say, about $ 700), and in my case, there was still an upcoming flight to Buenos Aires, which cost one and a half thousand dollars. In the end, I figured that I spent about $7,000 on flights.
Then I thought that this could be easily checked, and started to add up all the tickets purchased for 2017. A little more came out - somewhere $7,500 .
This does not include domestic flights. True, there were not so many of them in 2017, and I also took some for miles. But I decided to calculate them together with the rest of the expenses "on the spot".
Here everything is simple for me - there is no way (or desire) to count every penny spent. Therefore, I guess that being abroad average costs me $200 per day. This includes accommodation, meals, transfers, etc. There are cities and countries more expensive, there are - much cheaper. But in general, in my opinion, on average, it turns out that way.
For example
Of course you can travel much cheaper. For example, I prefer to always stay in centrally located hotels. The number of stars does not bother me much, but the proximity to the center is yes. Often I go to expensive restaurants, especially when traveling with gourmet friends. For example, how to go and not try there?
And in general, you can choose initially inexpensive countries - I know there are guys who can spend a whole month somewhere for $500! But I do not like to save a lot on trips. At the same time, I do not think that I am somehow particularly squandering. Although no one seems to think so.
In short, in order to understand the approximate costs in this way, we take these $ 200 and multiply by 138 days. It turns out $27,600 . I just saw it, and it seemed like a lot. But nothing can be done.
So what comes out? My total annual travel budget comes out to somewhere $35,000 . At the current exchange rate, this is a little more than two million rubles.
Do you think this is a lot? Did you expect more? Or less? Maybe if I didn’t spend that kind of money on constant travel, I could afford to live somewhere in the center New York, and not (which, on the other hand, are closer to the JFK airport!)
