Travelling the world for a long time can seem out of reach. So how much money do you need to travel to different countries, and what is the breakdown? We’ve been collecting our expenses for each country and want to share that information with you here!
When the idea of travelling the world for 18 months started to become real to us, we tried to research exactly how much money we needed to save. The answers we found were so varied, we couldn’t really create a budget to travel the world. Also, people have different types of trips, and prioritised different activities and locations. We want to be super transparent with how much we’ve spent in the hopes it will help others plan their travel. We also hope it will inspire you that you can travel with less money.
Our Definition of Budget Travel
What does ‘Budget travel’ actually mean? Budget travel looks different to different people from hitchiking and cooking your own meals to travelling to cheaper countries but still staying in 4 star hotels and eating out because it’s cheaper than at home.
For us, budget travel means we do the following:
- Try to minimise costs where we can, by researching ahead for good-value accomodation and destinations
- Research which type of accomodation is cheaper in the country (hostel bunk beds, homestays, or small apartments)
- Typically book accomodation with a kitchen so we can cook, or somewhere with a meal (or 2) included
- Catch public transport (if considered safe) instead of expensive tourist shuttles
- Generally try to cook or make atleast one meal a day
Being on a budget is fine but we often have to remind ourselves why we travel – to experience different cultures, meet new people and explore different locations around the world. That’s why although we aim to be budget, we believe in spending money on good-value experiences (which may sometimes be expensive) such as trying the local food and partaking in unique or local activities.
How Did We Afford This Trip?
People often ask how we afford this trip. The answer if we are pretty honest is a bit boring. During COVID, we saved money for around 4 years by working full-time office jobs (not overly high-paying) and saved a huge chunk of our earnings. We lived at home for around half this time and then had a cheap rental and share house the other half to keep our costs low so we could save for travel.
Neither of us own a house or property and we decided to put money towards this adventure while we are young. Together, we left Australia with $75,000 AUD in May 2023. We will write another article shortly with more detail on saving for this trip!
What is the Cost of Travelling Each Country?
Obviously the answer is going to be different for each person and the type of trip, but below we share some of the details of how much money we spent in each country we’ve visited on our trip.
We’ve found that the cost varies greatly depending on the type of accomodation you choose, and how often you travel and change location. Accommodation and transport have been between 50-60% of our expenses on this trip even though we usually go for cheap accommodation and public transport to get around – it’s still expensive!
Country Breakdown
| Country | Days | Spend | Accomodation……. Type | Food……. | Transport |
| Albania | 20 | $121 | Hostels and Home stays | Ate out most meals | Public Shuttles |
| Canada | 30 | $141 | Stayed with friends | Cooked our own | Flights + Megabus |
| Croatia | 22 | $180 | Booking.com basic private rooms | 90/10 cooking/eating out | Ferry and Flix bus |
| Cyprus | 7.5 | $211 | Airbnbs | Cooked our own | Hire Car |
| Denmark | 7 | $167 | Hostel (dorm) | Cooked our own | Flixbus |
| El Salvador | 7 | $108 | Hostel (dorm) | Ate out most meals | Chicken Bus |
| Germany | 21 | $164 | Stayed with friends & Hostel | Cooked our own | Flixbus and train |
| Greece | 17 | $188 | Basic private rooms Airbnb & Booking.com | 50/50 cooking and eating out | Ferry (Eurail pass) |
| Guatemala | 16 | $127 | Private rooms in hostel | 50/50 cooking and eating out | Chicken Bus |
| Italy | 15 | $182 | Airbnb basic private rooms | 50/50 cooking and eating out | itabus (inc overnight bus) and train |
| Jordan | 9 | $263 | Hostels (private and dorm) | Ate out most meals | Tourist Shuttle (Jett Bus) |
| Mexico | 23 | $140 | Hostels (dorms) | Ate out most meals (street food) | Tourist Shuttle (ADO) |
| Montenegro | 8 | $129 | Booking.com basic private rooms | 50/50 cooking and eating out | Tourist Shuttle |
| Singapore | 5.5 | $152 | Hostel (Dorm) | Ate out most meals (street food) | Subway |
| Switzerland | 4 | $201 | Stayed with friends | Cooked our own | Flixbus and train |
| Turkey | 17 | $148 | Hostel (dorm) 1 nice hotel in Cappadocia | Ate out most meals | Bus (Flixbus and local) inc overnight bus |
| United Arab Emirates | 4.5 | $118 | Hotels (1 night free through Etihad) | Ate out most meals (street food) | Public Bus |
| United Kingdom | 19 | $190 | Stayed with friends + Airbnb | 80/20 cooking and eating out | Train and Subway |
| United States of America | 4 | $268 | Airbnb in Newark NJ | 80/20 cooking and eating out | Subway, PATH and Overnight bus |
To read more on our guides for each country, click here!
Category Breakdown
Below is a breakdown of our expenditure so far divided into categories. You can see the area with the largest expenditure is Accommodation and Transport. Note ‘Other’ includes items such as Flights, Fees & Charges, Shopping, Coffee and Laundry.
We hope you’ve found our budget to travel the world useful. As we get further into our trip (and making our blog), we’ll aim to provide further breakdowns for each country and keep this page updated. If you have any questions send as an email or a DM on Instagram!
