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Due to our least favorite world traveler, COVID-19, no one is going anywhere at the moment. HOWEVER, this is a great time to plan for future trips, and depending on your financial situation start saving for your dream trip. So, how much does it actually cost to travel the world?
Less than it costs to pay rent in America. Seriously.
We do A LOT of advocating for budget travel and have often proclaimed that it’s possible to travel the world for $50 a day or less. And we aren’t the only backpackers/bloggers making this claim. We decided to put our money where our mouth is on our most recent adventure.
A one-way ticket to Asia. Our plan was for a year–maybe two– depending on how our daily budget faired. Unfortunately, the microbial world had other plans.
Although our long-term trip came to a screeching halt with the onslaught of this global pandemic, we still managed to travel for 6-months throughout Asia. And we plan to return abroad the day travel bans are lifted.
But after 6 months of logging our every expense, we have the hard numbers to help you determine just how much it costs to travel long-term.
This post will be continuously updated once we continue our trip abroad. So stay tuned.
How Much Does it Cost Two People to Travel the World for 6 Months?
We lumped our funds together and set off with the goal of spending $55 per day- everything included. Flights, accommodation, food, and all the fun stuff in between. 182 days abroad &…
Our Grand Total was $9,277.37
This means we spent less than $5,000 per person. And as for our daily budget…we crushed it. Our average daily budget was just $50.97 as a couple.
You may be wondering ‘Why is Malaysia so expensive?’. And due to a small hiccup on our end, we had to buy another round-trip flight back to Sumatra to retrieve Evan’s laptop. Whoopsies. In actuality, our Malaysia costs would have been $61 a day had it not been for those multiple flights. Mistakes happen.
Budget Breakdown
$50 a day seems like a teensy-tiny budget. But we could have spent less. Thanks to my handy-dandy TripCoin app it’s really easy to see exactly where that money went.
Financial-Friendly Tip: If you’re planning a trip, I cannot recommend TripCoin enough. Even if you’re not sticking to a strict budget, it’s proven you’ll spend less just by recording exactly where your money goes.
Our Average Accommodation Cost: $11.66
Our Average Meal Cost: $3.92
That average meal cost is also taking into account the random times we decided to eat at nicer restaurants and treat ourselves. (It does not, however, include alcohol). & about 80% of our lodgings provided breakfast.
That adds up to an average of $19.50 spent on food & a place to sleep every day. The other $30 per day was spent on alcohol, activities, trains, flights, souvenirs, and replacement clothes.
Day to day we were probably spending around $30-35. But a few bigger ticket items in each country add up. (& of course the few mishaps like getting $150 stolen from our bungalow in Pai, Thailand & forgetting our laptop at airport security.)
Our Travel Hacks
So, how much does it cost to travel the world? That’s kinda up to you. These are the travel tips and hacks we used to travel cheaply and save money every step of the way.
Stay in Guesthouses. Or CouchSurf.
Cheap accommodation is key. You’ll likely spend very little time in your room so don’t waste your daily budget on a place to sleep. We tried Couchsurfing in Sumatra & loved it. You sleep for free in a local’s spare room (or couch depending on the place) & often you get an additional insight into the city. Our host took us to an amazing dinner spot we never would have found otherwise and gave us a little tour around the city.
Booking.com is where we find our cheapest guesthouses & accommodation.
Prioritize Your Needs.
After about a week, we decided we didn’t need to pay extra for A/C anymore. A fan in most countries is more than sufficient. That saves you a bundle when booking rooms. The same goes for transport–we opted for the cheaper 3rd class seats on trains if the ride was 12-hours or less.
Travel Slowly.
Take a ferry, bus, or train instead of a flight. When your traveling long-term time isn’t as much of a concern. You’ll save loads and get to watch the scenery pass by from the window seat. Just be sure to download some good podcasts first.
Eat the Street Food. Or at the very least at local restaurants.
Egg Hoppers. Street Food in Sri Lanka Enjoying a home-cooked dinner at our guesthouse.
Don’t be afraid. I’ve never gotten food poisoning from street food. It’s cheap, authentic, and so damn delicious. Also, eat local cuisine, avoid any foreign or westernized restaurants.
Clarification: I have gotten food poisoning a number of times. Just never from street food. You can read all about our travel mistakes and mishaps here.
Learn Local Transportation. As frustrating as it may be.
Buses & trains should become your best friend. Take the subway. Ride the Skyrail. Don’t just jump into the nearest Tuk-Tuk or Taxi because they are often 10x the price.
Arrange Your Own Transport.
Buy your bus or train tickets at the station. Rent yourself a motorbike. Hostels and guesthouses will offer to arrange these kinds of things for you but convenience comes with a higher price tag.
Take the Long Route.
Certain activities (especially hikes) can be DIY. Don’t always gravitate toward the planned excursions. We saved nearly $40 by taking the long route to Mount Bromo in Indonesia instead of opting for the jeep trek.
Find Freebies where you can.
Many guesthouses offer free breakfast and many cities have free walking tours. Some guesthouses even offer free train station pick-up. Do a little research and you’ll save loads.
Make Friends.
Splitting the cost of a private room or transport to your next activity definitely lightens your financial burden. Safari jeeps, Angkor Wat tuk-tuk tours, basically anything charging by the vehicle–it pays to have friends.
Travel Light.
Carry-on only. This lets you opt for the super-saver fares on flights. Outside of the US and Europe airlines are a lot more lenient on the weight/size of your carry-on. But the lighter you travel the less likely you’ll ever need to pay for that checked baggage.
Buy a LifeStraw Water Bottle.
Water adds up. & bottled water is horrendous for the planet. You’ll have to purchase bottles of water almost everywhere you go in the world & just having a LifeStraw filter bottle saved us $500 on this trip alone.
Where We Traveled
We traveled to 9 different South Asian countries. But utilizing the tips outlined above this travel budget can be applied almost everywhere in the world. From South & Central America to the tropical islands of the Pacific to the crisp fall colors of Eastern Europe–the vast majority of the world can be seen for $55 a day.
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- Myanmar
- Laos
- Cambodia
- Sri Lanka
- India
Big Ticket Items
Flights. Obviously, getting to the other side of the world is a huge expense. We managed to find tickets for $360 apiece to Bali with a 3-day layover in Singapore. Check out my tips for scoring cheap flights.
Excursions. Trekking to find wild Orangutans in the jungles of Sumatra. Visiting an ethical elephant sanctuary in Thailand. Embarking on a 12-hour safari in Wilpattu National Park in search of elusive wild leopards. (Spoiler: we found them.) Visiting Angkor Wat & Borobudur temple complexes. Whale watching in Mirissa, Sri Lanka.
Pre-Trip Expenses
I did not include our travel insurance and the cost of tossing all of our belongings into a storage unit in the overall trip budget. I wrote a huge guide on how to save money for long term-travel that includes all my pre-trip recommendations.
We found the cheapest storage unit we could find. $30 a month for a year sitting right on the border of the United States and Tijuana, Mexico.
As for travel insurance, this was the first trip I decided to bite the bullet and get it. Thankfully, we did. Because a nasty bout of food poisoning near killed me in India. All drama aside, I did have to be hospitalized 3 times for the one stubborn food-borne illness and thankfully I was fully reimbursed.
WorldNomads is the top of the line adventure travel insurance that will cover you even if you maim yourself base-jumping into a tank of great white sharks. (Maybe not quite that literally.) We went with the cheaper and more conservative coverage of SevenCorners. It cost us $650 for coverage for the two of us.
I highly recommend checking out Travel Insurance Master to browse insurance companies to find the best deal. Their website is super easy to use and has cheaper companies like SevenCorners. Check them out here.
For more info on trip planning and budget hacks on how to save money to travel the world, I wrote a big beautiful guide on all things travel hacking.
How You Can Do Better
A large expense of ours was alcohol. We enjoy a beer or 10 on beach days and craft cocktails with dinner. As bartenders, trying cocktails from around the world is important to us. I’m not going to do the math on how much we spent on alcohol…just for my own sanity.
India’s best brews. ‘The Jungle Bird’ had to try this classic in the city it was founded in.
That’s honestly the only expense from our trip that seems a bit lavish. I would never recommend you cut spending on activities because that’s the whole reason you’re traveling in the first place.
Cost of Living in the US
I probably don’t need to outline how much it costs you to live in your home country BUT, for the sake of comparison, I’m going to anyway.
My monthly Los Angeles Expenses:
- Rent: $825
- Electricity/Internet: $35
- Car Insurance: $112
- Phone Bill: $40
- MONTHLY TOTAL: $1,012
This doesn’t even begin to cover expenses like groceries, gas, and having any kind of social life.
While traveling my TOTAL monthly expenses were $773.11 vs. $1,012 in basic living expenses back home.
Travel isn’t as expensive as we are made to think. If you have a burning curiosity to see the world and the drive to make it happen—money isn’t what is standing in your way.
If you need help planning your next trip abroad feel free to reach out (I’m more than happy to help) or check out my guide on how to plan a long term adventure abroad (coming soon).
Looking for other Trip Planning Resources?
- How to Finance Long-Term Travel & Make Your Dream Trip Cheaper.
- Your Guide to Scoring a Cheap Flight For Any Destination.
- How to Avoid Getting Scammed in South-East Asia.
1 Comment
Jess
December 29, 2023 at 12:35 amThis is a great article, so helpful! What one can also do is save up on ATM and bank fees. Save up on ATM side of the fees with apps like ATM Fee Saver – it gives a list of atms in many countries that do not charge any fees to foreign card holders or have much lower fees than others along with withdrawal limits. quite a life saviour. worth adding to your list of tricks! And also a get fee free cards while travelling.