The Economics of Traveling for a Year

Sep 29, 2013   //   by David   //   Blog  //  Comments Off on The Economics of Traveling for a Year

If your 3 kids go to a private school and take additional lessons say in music, or tutoring you’ll save about $60,000. Cancel your car insurance and no gas bills will save an added $7,000. Now rent out your home or stop paying rent. This will add say $3,600 to $4,500 per month.

All this adds up to about $115,000 of saving and income, just by leaving for a year.

Your expenses for the year include travel health insurance, flights, accommodation, food and the cost of attractions.

Food: In Asia, our family budget was $20 per meal. The most we spent on a meal for for the 5 of us was $30. Supermarket food in Europe is significantly lower cost than in Canada. Italy’s Co-op sold 1kg of pasta for 40c. And may items for a Euro or less. On average we spent about one third on food in Europe than we would have in Canada.

Accommodation: Stay in beautiful hotels in Asia for $45 per room per night. In Europe and Australia we rented 2 bedroom furnished apartments for $150/night. Some places we spent $250 per night.

Travel: Flights in Asia and Europe run around $100 per person per leg. In Europe bus travel is reasonable for example from Berlin to Vienna costs Euro44 on the bus with snacks and wifi. We did rent a car in Italy and France for about $200/week. That was an expense.

Attractions: Entrance to attractions and exhibits can be quite expensive. Just last week we visited San Fransisco. Entry into the Exploratorium (Science World) cost around $120 for the 5 of us. Most of the things we did in Asia didn’t include an entry fee. But I like to use guides to teach us, which adds some expense but is generally more than worthwhile given the cost of getting to the attraction. For example, we visited Yangon’s Shwedagon Temple twice, once alone, once with a guide. The guide provided a texture and insight we could not have alone.

 

 

 

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