Total Cost to Travel Around the World

Cheapest Places > Our Story > Our Budget: Total Cost to Travel Around the World

Traveling the world on a budget of US$900 to US$1,700 per month per adult is very possible. We were able to travel this way over the course of 5 years, attempting to prove that it is something that we could do, comfortably. We made it more of a point after the first year, where we were able to live on just $868 to $1,248 per month, per adult. And, in many countries around the world, this is not a poverty rate. It’s actually a fairly decent lifestyle on a low budget only because the cost-of-living is considerably lower in these other countries. Here’s a look at our 5-year budget analysis:

• Year 5 Total: $28,532 ($14,266 per adult)

  • * $2,378/month ($1,189/month per adult)

• Year 4 Total: $29,949 ($14,975 per adult)

  • * $2,496/month ($1,248/month per adult)

• Year 3 Total: $20,821 ($10,411 per adult)

  • *$1,735/month ($868/month per adult)

• Year 2 Total: $24,476 ($12,238 per adult)

  • *$2,040/month ($1,020/month per adult)

• Year 1 Total: $41,702 ($20,851 per adult)

  • *$3,475/month ($1,738/month per adult)

Additionally, these added costs crept in because we ended up having 2 children along the course of our adventures, which we kept separate from our regular costs to give multiple perspectives for people traveling differently, such as singles, couples, couples with a baby, or couples with kids. We hope that these budgets prove to be useful to you during your endless travels!

Annual World Travel Costs per 0-2 Year Old: Available upon request
*until end of March, 2023, our total costs for our 2 year, 4 month old - including birth in Malaysia - had been $2,179.00
Annual World Travel Costs per 2+ Year Old: Available upon request
*until end of March 2023, our total costs for our 4 year old - including birth in Cape Town - had been $7,814.08

“We teach people how to travel the world super affordably.”

Learn how to make your own travel budget - Long-Term Travel Budgeting.
Find out what countries you can afford to travel through: The Earth Awaits.

Our allocated budget, and the amount that we have already spent, is shared in the graphs below. 

If you are looking for our expense breakout by category, please see this page.

LOCATION SPECIFIC BUDGETS

Summary of the Budget for Year 5

It should be clear from the budget this year that our trip to Colombia only ended helping us a little bit, but then when we decided to explore Medellín a bit more at the end of April, it ended up putting us over budget even more, even after increasing our budget to $2,500/month.

Then, without really looking into the costs of Costa Rica, we headed out there to see the rainforests and nature. It ended up being quite a bit more expensive than we expected - with many items being close to the costs of living in the United States! Luckily, most of our accommodations were still a bit cheaper, but after last year’s flight to the United States putting us over budget by about $3,300 and these mistakes that we’ve made since, we ended up over budget by more than $3,500.

To make up for this, we decided to stay at a place south of Mexico City for 5 months - which was considerably more affordable. Our expenses there have been extremely low - about $1,300-$2,000 per month for the whole family - and thus our budget was able to recover. Additionally, as we came into the United States for Christmas time, our friends hosted us at no cost, which most travelers would only be able to get through house-sitting.

This got our budget back in order before heading out through Los Angeles and Hawaii on our way back to New Zealand in February. Needless to say, the expenses were considerably higher for those locations. We hope the synopsis of how we traveled with various budgets over the last 5 years has been helpful for you to understand how certain decisions can increase your spending while others can get you back on budget. Let us know if you have any questions.

Saving Money on Travel | How we were paid $2,050 to Vacation in Paris | How to Earn Money while Traveling

Summary of the Budget for Years 3 & 4

We opted to go back to Malaysia to get our budget back on track in late February of 2020. Although we planned to go to Taiwan in late May, Covid-19 popped up and we ended up not being able to leave Malaysia. We made the best of this affordable country either way. As they managed to reduce Coronavirus Cases to the single digits in late June, the ability to travel around the country became available again. From late June to mid August we visited many places in Malaysia.

From mid-August through March of 2021, we just relaxed, prepared for our second child to be born, and then relax a bit more. At no time did Malaysia offer us the vaccine, although we were expecting it to become available in May.

Then Malaysia basically kicked us out in April, so we had to get a last-minute ticket to Turkey, which was fairly expensive (compared to what we were used to). Late April and May were spent up in the Trabzon area next to the Black Sea to just hang low some more. Then we spent June in Antalya.

In July we decided to do 2 road trips from Antalya, and then we flew into Albania - so, July was expensive due to transportation costs of cars and airfare. Albania was not as affordable as we were led to believe, especially in Tirana.

We flew in to Duisburg, Germany in November and, although we found an affordable place considering its place in Europe, it was still more costly. We knew we’d be over budget in November and December as we were exploring Christmas Markets.

Early in January we went to the Netherlands for a few days and then flew out to the USA. That flight was very expensive. We were only able to do this because family allowed us to stay with them at no charge for the entire month.

Travel months, especially those with airfare, generally put us over budget. However, we make sure to stay long enough in one area to help spread out the costs of transportation. Thus, you will notice that we were almost consistently UNDER budget (spending less than budgeted) in the longer term, even though some months are over budget - with the exception of our return to the USA.

Expenses were lower after our move to Columbia in mid-February.

Saving Money on Travel | How we were paid $2,050 to Vacation in Paris | How to Earn Money while Traveling

Summary of the Budget for Year’s 1 & 2

In the first two years we learned that some places are more expensive than others.
Occasionally you have to “balance” those countries out, staying at a more expensive one for a while will put you over budget,
but you can get back to budget by staying in cheaper countries for a while as well.

From March through July 2018, we explored Paris, the Canary Islands, Marrakesh, Italy, and Austria - but we maintained our budget mostly because we had a decent budget at this time and occasionally stayed in shared bed-and-breakfasts (the owners also lived there) and used the Eurail train pass. There was no cheap methods of transportation from August through October, as we passed through the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, and Germany. We stayed at shared bed-and-breakfasts and rented cars.

November was spent in Egypt, but we did a Nile River cruise there. The flight to Cape Town in December was expensive.

We also learned that staying for 3 months in Cape Town made it much more affordable by decreasing our airfare costs - something we would likely not have learned if we didn’t have to stop to have a baby!

February and March of 2019 were affordable in Bangkok. Then, it got even more affordable from May through September when we lived in Malaysia, Bali, and Nadi (in Fiji).

Things got more expensive again from October through November in Australia, and then New Zealand from December through mid-February (with a 2-week road-trip in February).

Saving Money on Travel | How we were paid $2,050.88 to Vacation in Paris | How to Earn Money while Traveling