Our budget
I think coming up with what I felt was a realistic budget was one of the most difficult things I had to do. I read a lot in travel books and other people’s blogs about how to go about doing this. This is an explanation of how I came up with the budget and then the actual budget itself.
First, we had to figure out where we were going to go and how long we were going to spend in each country. I came up with the table below that outlines the countries/regions, the amount of time in each area, and I loosely classified them as 1st World, 2nd World, and 3rd World based solely around generally how much stuff costs in those areas.
Here’s my table:
| 1st World | 2nd World | 3rd World |
|---|---|---|
| New Zealand & Western Europe |
Eastern Europe | China, Thailand, Egypt, South America |
| 1 month | 2.5 Months | 8.5 Months |
Then, I did some research and figured out about how much it would cost per day for things like food and lodging for the countries we plan on visiting. I made another chart where I multiplied the amount of time we would be spending in that category of country by the amount of money per day it costs for that thing in that country (is this confusing?). And I added in some guesstimates for about how much I think plane tickets, gear, books, etc… would cost, too.
Here’s that chart:
| Advance Expenses | $1,000.00 | |
| Air Tickets | $3,500.00 | |
| Long-distance bus and train tickets |
||
| 1st World | $1,000.00 | |
| 2nd World | $500.00 | |
| 3rd World | $750.00 | |
| Accomodations | ||
| 1st World @$20/day | $600.00 | |
| 2nd World @$12/day | $900.00 | |
| 3rd World @$8/day | $2,160.00 | |
| Food | ||
| 1st World @$20/day | $600.00 | |
| 2nd World @$10/day | $750.00 | |
| 3rd World @$6/day | $1,620.00 | |
| Local Transport and Sundries | ||
| 1st World @10/day | $300.00 | |
| 2nd World @$6/day | $450.00 | |
| 3rd World @$2/day | $400.00 | |
| Replacement clothing | $400.00 | |
| Books & Maps | $100.00 | |
| Souvenirs | $300.00 | |
| Contingency fund | $2,000.00 | |
| Total | $17,330.00 | |
| +10% for padding | $19,063.00 |
(Just a side note, I’m glad the html class I took is paying off! It’s fun making charts! Which probably means there’ll be more coming soon…)
So, when everything is said and done, I’ve budgeted $19,063.00 apiece for our trip. This will be living pretty cheaply. Mostly hostels and some camping (although we decided not to take a tent, but I’m sure I’ll cover that later). We already know we can both rough it, so I’m pretty sure we can stick to this budget. But I’ll revise it as we get closer to June 1, 2008 as things change. I can definitely update how much we actually spent on plane tickets and pre-trip expenses. I hope this is helpful. If you have any specific questions about any of it (or find fault in my math… yikes!), let me know!
Cheers!
Gina.
Tags: budget, Pre-Trip Planning, rtw, Travel
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