is £1000 / month a realistic RTW budget?
I'm taking 12 months off to travel around the world with my girlfriend and I have a niggling feeling we've not saved enough ! 🙁
We have £25,000 between us (and we're saving £5k-6k for flight fares, ground transport, VISAS, Jabs, Gear etc )
We've been told by friends who have travelled 10 years ago (on their gap years etc) that they did well with £1000 / month (£30 / day or £60 between us) - but every where I look, I can't make the maths add up 🙁
I'm not sure if:
• The (seemingly) expensive hostels are all I see, because those are the ones savvy enough to be online targetting westerners before they arrive (when prices seem cheaper than home - but outrageous for SEAsia / C.AM) - while perhaps there are cheaper options there, but they're so budget, they're not even online.
• With modern technology, access to wider context and ten years of tourism later - businesses are raising their prices, because they know tourists will pay through the nose for stuff anyway (which is why a Kayak tour in Thailand is now £120/day)
Worth Mentioning
We're both quite accomplished in our field - and arent really looking for a 'work abroad picking fruit' type travel - We've also looked at HelpX in general but we don't think working behind a bar / hostel, or paying 'a small contribution to build a bungalow in exchange for matress' is what we're looking for.
this should feel like a break from working a high paced professional life - not a 'work to live' slog.
We're not a fancy hotel type of travels. We've looked at places to rent apartments longer term and we can quite easily camp or live in cheap hostels (i think) but we don't want to feel like runaway paupers around the world - bumbling franctically from place to place before the money runs out. We want to enjoy some kind of relaxation 🙂
anyway - TL;DR
• Can you still live abroad for £30/day? (or £60/day between us)
• Should we shorten the length of the trip? Is it a waste of time to do it all in less time (ie end up seeing less, because we're rushing through?)
gah!
🙂
Short answer is....depends where you are going exactly.
There are many places where you can (or at least,I can) live ok (or even well) on £1000 a month.
There are also many where I couldn't.
On the specific points...yes,it is usually true that you can find cheaper (even a lot cheaper) rooms if you don't book it all in advance.The kind of family run places that are often not online.Not everywhere though.
Prices have risen in the very popular places (Thailand is a good example).There are now far more 'flashpackers', families, tourist on 2 week trips...they are all prepared to spend more per day than the old style backpacker was.
It also depends a lot on exactly what you want to do of course...not just accommodation, but food, transport, activities, drinking etc. etc.
Also how fast you want to go...that is a lot of ground to cover in a year, so your per day spend is going to be higher than if you take it slowly.
On the specific countries...I have been to all of them except Sri Lanka and Fiji, though some of them were a while ago.
£30 a day per person......is too little for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, the USA,NZ and Oz.Even for standard day to day living.....a decent room, food, local transport, some things to see and do.........never mind expensive activities.Belize and CR--just about enough.
The others you can do it no problems.