Our Cost to Travel Around the World for 1 Year
365 days. 19 Countries. 5 Continents. $48,256 spent. Our goal when we first set out on this around the world trip was to average $123 per day across the year for a total of $45,000 (we each saved up $22,500 each). We ended up slightly missing our budget goal, I’m going to blame getting sick at the end of the world trip which caused us to have to take a quick pit stop in Thailand before heading to our final country of India. Had we not gotten sick, I think we would have made our goal of $45,000 for the 1 year around the world trip. Below is a quick 1 minute video recapping our 1 year around the world trip!
How Much We Spent on our 1 Year Around the World Trip by Category
Total Cost: $48,256 (note these costs are for both of us COMBINED, not per person)
Air Transportation: $9,783. 34 flights for 2 people
Ground Transportation: $9,708. This includes but isn’t limited to taxis, Ubers, trains, rental cars, gas, public transportation, etc
Accommodation: $10,601.
Food: $9,614 (~$26 per day)
Travel Activities & Excursions: $6,274. (our most expensive activity we did was the hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia, Turkey which was $220 per person)
Miscellaneous Costs: $4,484. This includes
Money saved from travel hacking: ~$10,000. It is hard to assign a dollar value for every point we used from our credit cards that we redeemed for airplane tickets and hotel nights. The value can change depending how they are used but the rule of thumb is they are typically worth around ~$0.01. To maximize your budget for your around the world trip, it is well worth your time learning about travel hacking so you can use more of your money on experiences while traveling!
*Some items that weren’t included in our budget were cell phone plans, health/travel insurance, credit card annual fees
How Much We Spent on our 1 Year Around the World Trip by Country
Indonesia (Bali) – $1,834 (21 days)
New Zealand – $4,171 (38 days)
Philippines – $3,525 (26 days)
Thailand (second time) – $2,498 (12 days)
How Much We Saved by Travel Hacking for our 1 Year Around the World Trip
We were able to save ~$10,000 through travel hacking during our trip. The majority of this was done through getting sign up bonuses for travel credit cards. (Note: if you are not able to pay off your credit cards in full each month I do not recommend taking on credit cards to travel hack). I will make another post about our travel hacking journey and go into further details on how and why we picked different cards to sign up for and how we utilized those points to save us money on our travels. Peter also had a travel credit card that he had accumulated points for over 5 years, this came in handy and allowed us to stay in Norway for as long as we did.
Lessons Learned After Traveling Around the World for 1 Year
I think the biggest choice you will have to make when deciding on your around the world trip is the speed at which you travel. I think just about every one of our travel days to a new country ended up being one of the most expensive days of our world trip. So if you want to see a lot of places, just know that you either need to offset those costs by spending less in each country or potentially increase your budget.
Some great ways to save money during your travels is to do work exchanges where you can get housing and sometimes food costs covered in exchange for your work. We did this twice during our year, once in New Zealand and the other in Australia (two countries where it isn’t the cheapest to travel around). In New Zealand, we worked for 2 weeks and got 3 meals a day as well as a place to sleep in exchange for working 4 hours/day for 5 days/week. In Australia, we watched someone’s pet and house while they were away on vacation for a month. Our housing costs were covered but we had to pay for our food during this time.
Another thing looking back at our first year, if I were to pick one thing where it makes sense to spend your money it would be on the experiences. It can be tough at times choosing where you want to be tough with your spending and when to allow yourself to spend a little more than you had planned that day. If you go with the slightly cheaper hotel option, that $10-20 every night adds up and that saved up money can be put towards once in a lifetime experiences.
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