I had dreamt of travelling the world for years but always assumed that I would need to win the Lotto to do it… but last year proved to me that the adage of “Never assume, as it makes it make an ASS of U and ME” is correct.
Please don’t get me wrong, a lot of sacrifice is needed and often situations change meaning savings are required for other more pressing matters. However, if at this stage in your life travel is your key priority then I truly believe it is achievable!
It wasn’t until December 2017 that it became our priority. Ciarán and I sat down and looked at our savings and did a rough estimate on how much we initially thought we would need to budget for our trip. However, it proved really difficult to get the information we needed! We both knew people who had travelled in the past, but we thought it would be rude to ask them for money advice. For one reason or another, us Irish don’t tend to like discussing finance. It is often deemed tacky and impolite so instead we turned to the World Wide Web.
Majority of the websites and blogs we reviewed were amazing at giving budget tips and tricks but didn’t answer what we thought was a simple question. How much does it cost to travel the world for 6 months? We didn’t get the information we needed so this meant we spent nearly every waking moment researching costs and creating excel spreadsheets (Ciarán not me… I knew dating a Project Manager would come in useful one day) trying to figure out exactly how much we would need. We quickly learnt that a travel financial plan is a minefield. With 7 continents and 195 countries, each having their own variable to consider. It was no wonder that information was slack.
Once we set off on our trip last June, we kept our spreadsheets going and tracked our daily expenses. We were adamant not to go above our budget. The detailed breakdown was not difficult to complete, but it did require a lot of work. We often said that we wished we hadn’t been so stubborn and asked a friend for money advice as it may have saved us a lot of time and energy.
Even though, I’m still someone who loathes discussing peoples financial situations, I did promise that I would share our high level budgets. If it even helps one person enjoy their experience a fraction more and offer a little relief leading up to their trip, then this blog was worth it.
*** Vaccinations, Long Haul flights & Outdoor gear
