Well I’ve officially been on the road for over a year!! I can’t believe how fast time flies when you are having fun… & jet setting around the world! If you know me at all in real life, you know there are two topics that get me more excited than anything else: Travel & Personal Finance. So I thought it would be fun (for me anyway haha) to put together a post on what one year of international travel can look like from a financial perspective.

Some considerations:

• This is only for one person (me)
• I travel fairly cheaply (mostly staying in hostels) & in general don’t have expensive taste in food or transportation, but I also am saying yes to any experiences that I want to say yes to
• I am traveling fairly quickly so taking lots of flights + moving locations every 3-5 days usually. It’s much cheaper to travel slower
• I am not traveling in a super logical route. For example, while in Europe I went to England, then Northern Ireland, then France, then England, then Switzerland, then England, then Ireland… I was meeting up with different friends at different points so while it wasn’t logical, it made sense for what I was doing. However, again this is an area that one can make cheaper if they don’t travel in circles like I did haha
• I am flying home to California quite often for Christmas, my 30th birthday, and for some weddings. Again this is driving up some inefficiencies.

Here’s the trip summary leaving in June 2023, covering 30 countries across 6 continents:

• 6 months in Europe + Egypt – 19 countries
• .5 month CA visit for Christmas
• 1 month Fiji & New Zealand with my family – 2 countries
• 3 months Southeast Asia + Japan – 6 countries
• .5 month CA visit for my birthday
• 2 months Mexico + Colombia – 2 countries

In full transparency, my parents kindly paid for Fiji, NZ & Japan since I was with them for those three countries (very, very lucky!!) so this analysis will cover roughly 10 months (FJ, NZ, Japan + CA visits were roughly free). Also on this trip, I have tried to add what I spent in each country to its dedicated blog post so hopefully that’s helpful (for example: scroll to the bottom of this blog post to see how much I spent for 3 weeks in the Philippines).

Here we go…

Total Spend: $34.5k USD

Spend by Segment

This shows a breakdown of the total spend by trip segment. Obviously Europe will be the highest since that was the longest segment of the trip so far. Pre-trip expenses include: clothes, Workaway membership, initial flights, & electronics. Health insurance for the duration of the trip was $170 per month ($2,040 for the year).

Average Daily Spend by Region

This shows the daily cost by region, which makes it far easier to compare the costs agnostic of time spent in each spot. I was a little shocked to see that Southeast Asia was the highest since it obviously has a reputation for being one of the cheapest places to backpack, but I was living my best life while there. I spent $351 on 22 hours of massage (average of $16 per hour). I spent $577 on 13 dives (average of $44 per dive). I did a 3 day sailing trip around the Philippines. I did a 3 day cruise of Ha Long Bay. I did a 4 day motorcycle ride through Northern Vietnam. I spent $450 on tailor made clothes in Hoi An. This is opposed to Europe where the only “experience” I spent money on was the hot air ballon ride in Turkey. Put another way: in Europe, the activities category made up 15% of total spend. In SEA, the activities category made up 35% of total spend. So while the average daily spend was higher for SEA, I was living like a queen.

Spend by Category

This is a breakdown of how much I spent by category. As expected, accommodation is my largest spend, but I am actually proud of myself for spending so much on activities! I can be pretty stingy with spend so I love that I have said yes to so many experiences on this trip. A lot of them ended up in my top 5 memories of the trip 🙂 You’ll find the breakdown for the trip overall as well as by region.

Europe (6 months): $18.1k

Southeast Asia (2 months): $7.5k

Colombia & Mexico (2 months):

Spend by Month

This breaks down my spend by month! Sept was particularly high because I managed to spend $1400 in 3 days in Switzerland (thank you last minute rental car & expensive destination). October was lower because 3 weeks of that I was au pairing in Spain with living expenses covered. As noted on the graph, Dec, Jan, April & June are all low spend months because either I spent 2 weeks at home or my parents were with me. I averaged $2,877 per month over the course of this year, which when you compare it to what I spent just living in San Francisco, this is actually cheaper!

Top 5 experiences of the trip so far:

• Hiking Milford Track in New Zealand ($2045, but my parents paid for this)
• Riding Motorbikes through the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam (300 USD)
• Scuba Diving with Thresher Sharks in the Philippines ($88 USD)
• Hot Air Balloon Ride in Turkey (~$200 USD per person)
• Hiking in Switzerland (~35 USD)

Top tips for traveling cheaper:

• Stay in dorms in hostels – you might sacrifice a bit on quality of sleep but in general the cost savings + meeting so many cool people makes this a great resource for traveling on the cheap
• You’ll notice I spent almost $4500 on eating out. If you are staying in airbnbs or hostels with kitchens (more common in Europe, NZ & Australia), buy groceries!
• Travel slower. As I mentioned, you’ll save a lot on accommodation costs if you can book a month long airbnb than hotels/hostels for a few nights at a time. This also will bring down your transportation costs.
• Fly less! Unfortunately I am doing a lot of flying. I’d be saving a ton of money if I was doing bus/train travel and if I was going slower, thus visiting less places.
• Only take a carryon backpack. You’ll save on baggage fees every time you do have to fly.
• Use credit card points to book flights.
• Consider doing WOOFING or Workaway to save money in exchange for working a few hours a week (usually ~20)

Hope this was helpful!!! Wish my luck on my next year of adventures, starting with more time in South America 🙂