First published: Sun 31 Mar 2024.
Els Slots
Trip Budgeting
Comments
4 comments
Michael Ayers
1 year, 3 months ago (Mar 31, 2024)
Don't forget to include a line item in the "other" category for "repetitive testing for newly emergent viruses by pcr/antigen." Last time, that added up to $US 2,800 for me... ;-}
Reply
Chris W.
1 year, 3 months ago (Mar 31, 2024)
One thing I do heavily is the points&miles game. Now I must say, espcially the miles part, was easier as pre-covid. This way often one can travel around cheaper. But, I do see these as additional trips and not budgetted for the current trip. I would however, if it makes sense, hop hotels on a three night stay (that is 3 hotels instead of just one). Or fly with stopovers just to get more miles.
I do not really use public transport (except for example high speed trains in China). It’s often slower and the faster way make sense so I can work in the morning or evening. Not retired yet.
Patrik
1 year, 2 months ago (Apr 17, 2024)
I am in a similar situation as you, as I quit my job 7 years ago to travel, using my savings. Initially I did part of my travels with my car until it broke down near Naples and I sold it. It was unpractical anyway as it had to be taken off the road when I travelled outside Europe for longer time to avoid paying road tax and insurance.
My starting point is that 'time' is an almost unlimited resource, where 'money' is limited. I have set a daily budget of €50, and I also use a standard spreadsheet, though it is yearly with separate tabs for each trip. I log every expense in the sheet but do not have specific categories, except for accomodation. The sheet then also becomes a kind of log, showing which museums I visited and which daytrips I made.
During the trip, I measure if I am 'above' or 'below' budget, without worrying too much about it, the point is just to be aware. I have been consistently below budget these years though it seems I will need an inflation correction this year.
I travel with a focus on WHS, but visiting WHS is not my main purpose. So I do not have a budget per WHS and also skip (natural) sites that I consider too expensive. I have skipped Serengeti for example when I was in Tanzania and have not felt any regrets (something I was worried about when deciding). I instead went to a nature reserve that was on the t-list and had a wonderful experience.
I often make longer trips (4 - 8 months) and fly very little during them. Also, I barely use taxis and shuttles as I dislike them, and generally do not take tours as I find them limiting instead of adding to the experience. To get to places I take public transport and also find hitchhiking enjoyable and fun, to my surprise. And sometimes I walk somewhere with my backpack for a day or so, very relaxing and enjoyable.
My daily accomodation budget is around €20 and depending on the country, this will often mean I stay in airbnb's, and very occasionally in dorms. I like apartments or shared apartments where I can use a kitchen to cook veggies and have nice bread for breakfast, something I miss when eating out for longer periods of time. I thought I will do camping as well but have never gotten to it.
I stopped buying local sim cards (my phone is not able to use e-sim) as the prepaid packages seem to focus lately on selling huge amounts of data for limited periods of time, and it adds up when one just needs 0.5 GB for a month. So I just use wifi when available.
I try to pay directly as often as I can with my NFC chip on my phone, which has a free virtual debitcard which does not add bank fees to the conversion rate, so this is the cheapest way to pay when available, it saves about 1.4% compared to other debit cards or atm cash . It's not a lot, but it adds up.
The other thing is that I often look for cheap flights or train/bus tickets, and based on this see if I can build an interesting itinerary out of it. For example last year my 4 months summer trip started with buying a €22 DB train ticket to Austria 6 months ahead and from there I started booking next steps, towards the Balkans. I often book up to 3 months ahead and then do the rest while traveling. During the trip it will somehow become clear when it has been long enough, and then I will start to see how to get back, usually by booking a cheap plane ticket from somewhere which will then be my destination. It's like a game.
By the way, in my spreadsheet the currency is € for every post. As one of my purposes is to track expenses, I need one currency to be able to compare on a daily basis. I use a conversion cell, so if I spent 10.000 COP in cash, I write for example 10000*q1, which then calculates the amount in € and shows €2.50. And when I pay by card, I write down the actual amount in €. I noticed you seem to do this differently.