BUDGET
There are some amazing travel blog out there, and many of these supported us in developing a rough budget for our year-long adventure. Nevertheless, we found it challenging to budget for our trip at a more specific level, as very few travel blogs we could find offered in-depth, day-by-day, breakdowns.
We were looking for something more than “ball-park” figures for spending per-day, but very few blogs/online budgeting tools could offer us exact amounts.
This page is for those who love a spreadsheet, fancy formula, finicancial planning and neat, little categories set our in columns and rows. Or maybe you are just curious about how much it costs to embark on a 12-month adventure? Either way, you ‘re in the right place!
When devising a budget, we sorted our anticipated expenses into 5 categories:
- Accomodation
- Food & Drink
- Activities & Sightseeing
- Travel
We also added a ‘Buffer’ category for any unforeseen or incidental expenses such as exchange fees, visas laundry services (we figured we’d need to eventually wash or undies!), restocking personal hygiene products, etc.
We have spent hours researching approximate costs of travel by trawling though other blogs, booking platforms – such as booking.com – and attraction websites, to land on a daily budget for each category.
Pre-Departure expenses
Naturally, there were a number of items and services that had to be purchased before our feet stepped into a depature lounge. These items included intial flights, gear and travel insurance. We also had to pay for some week-long tours in advance, but have left these out of this section. These tours will be included in our country budget breakdown posts.
The table shows all our (approximate) pre-departure expenses.
| Expense | Cost for 2 (AUD) |
|---|---|
| Vaccinations | |
| Travel Insurance | $2600 |
| Backpacks | $840 |
| Other Gear | |
| Flights out of Australia | $962 |
| International Sim Cards | |
| Photos (for visas) | $80 |
| International Driver’s Licenses | $98 |
| TOTAL |
Gear
- Apart from our backpacks, we chose to also purchase a number of other pieces of equipment to help us along. These items included:
- Packing cubes
- Travel adaptors
- Money belt
- Tech organisation kit
- Mini first-aid kit (just in case!)
- Drybags
- Portable phone battery
- Activated charcoal (for food-poisoning)
- Collapsable food containers
- Passport wallet
- Luggage scale
- Playing cards & boardgames
