We have now been digital nomads for nine months. We previously shared how much we spent in our six months in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay budget, and now we look at how much three months in Bolivia and Peru cost.
We have set ourselves a monthly budget of £1000 ($1550) for two people, so our daily budget is £33 ($50). We also have an extra few thousand set aside for big expenses like tours, major activities and flights.
It’s been six months since we sold everything we owned and left the UK permanently to embark on our Never Ending Voyage. We saved enough to keep us going in Latin America on a basic budget for a year, and Simon planned to get his web design and development business up and running to eventually cover our expenses.
We wrote about how to plan a round the world trip budget based on our previous experience, but this time budgeting was difficult. We had no idea where we would be going (except that we would be starting in South America) or for how long.
Managing your money when you are travelling is essential if you want to maximise your time on the road and avoid getting stuck with your financial pants down. Here are our tips for managing your finances on the road. 1) Create a realistic budget – See our post on How to Budget for Long Term Travel. Read the rest of this entry »
Our Keralan houseboat was paid for by our 'Fun Budget'
We are often asked how much it costs to travel for a year. Obviously this isn’t an easy question to answer – it depends on where you go, what you do and what level of comfort you would like. To answer this question for yourself you need to come up with a travel budget. This is how we budgeted for our year long round the world (RTW) trip.
Plan where you want to go
Have a rough idea of which countries you’d like to visit and how long for. You can (and very probably will) adjust this later, depending on what you can afford and how your plans change.
Calculate your pre-trip expenses
These include flights (RTW or pay as you go), travel insurance, visas, vaccinations and gear (clothes, backpack, camera etc).
Work out your daily budget
For this you need to know where you want to go, how long for and how much an average daily budget is for that country. For example we budgeted £12 each per day for India for 3 months which totals £1080 per person. It helps when countries within a region have similar budgets, so you can budget say £12 a day for 5 months on the Indian Subcontinent and £15 a day for 3 months in Southeast Asia. This gives you greater flexibility to change your plans without messing up your budget.
We are Simon Fairbairn & Erin McNeaney a couple who sold everything and left the UK in March 2010 to travel the world forever. We write about our travels and our journey to become digital nomads. Read more...
We are Simon Fairbairn &