How Much Does 1 Year Of Travel Really Cost?
Good morning. We are naik and kim and we've been traveling the world for more than one and a half year now, and the question we get a lot is, how much does it cost to travel full time it's actually a question we've never addressed. At least not in detail, in any of our videos, and people often assume, that it's going to be very very expensive, because people typically think of like the holiday, packages, that you look at at a normal tour operator and that that is how we travel and the way we spend our money as well that's actually not the case and i think maybe this video will surprise you in one direction, or the other we will see that later on in the video. Also for those of you who watched the previous, video where we showed you around our, let's say another quarantine, routine, because that's not what we did every day during home quarantine, but like what we do when we relax, and chill in home court and you will notice that we are, not in quarantine, anymore we are out and about, we are free people now free to go and roam where we want. So we'll be exploring. More of belgium, in the coming videos, and. We've got a really exciting, plan coming up with, like we're finishing, up the plan it's it's we think, we'll talk next week. There will be i think a big announcement. Yeah i think there's four more videos before we tell you and those are us exploring belgium, and then we will let you in on what is going to happen in the future, for our channel but it's really exciting it's really exciting but first today we are talking. Money. Yeah, but before we give you any actual, numbers, about how much it is exactly, that our travels, are costing us because that is what this video is about we're going to tell you today how much the exact, number is on everything, that we spent, traveling. We spent, every penny, traveling, for a full year last year in 2019. Doing all the stuff that you've seen in our videos last year but before we do that before we can give you some exact, figures, we have to tell you a little bit about our travel style, maybe if you're new to our channel you don't really, know what our travel style, is yet and that's important because i mean you can say what's the price of a car but you can buy a ferrari, or you can drive a ladder an old beat up car just to be able to compare we need to tell you a little bit about our travel style i think if you would summarize it in one word i think the term people, usually use to describe our travel style is flash, packing, so not backpacking, like bare bones travel.
Hustle, Dorms, every single, day, stuff like that you know eating ramen, noodles, sleeping in tents, and just wild camping, and stuff like that it's not what we do but still, we travel on. Really budget, budget, that's what they call flash packing we usually take double rooms but the cheapest we can find is usually what we go for unless it looks really dirty and run down otherwise. Cheapest room available. With or without a shared bathroom. In terms of food we usually eat street, food, because we love it not just to save our money because we love it but it's also usually the cheapest option, cheap local eateries, and all that expensive restaurants, or international, restaurants. We don't eat like. International. Food, or, that much which is usually more expensive like if you go for pizza or burgers, yeah, in terms of transportation, we don't take a lot of flights we try to keep the flying to a minimum for multiple reasons not just budget but also, being a little bit more environmentally. Friendly. Which means that we usually take like, buses, local transportation, we walk around a lot we don't take that many taxis. So also, there on that front we're doing the budget option whenever, we can, and in terms of entertainment, we don't do a lot of organized tours we try to just organize it ourselves, look if we can find a bus somewhere, train somewhere. And just, go there by ourselves, of course we have done some doors like organized. Uh treks for multiple days and sometimes, it's just more easy to go on the tour but most of it we organize ourselves yeah nice added benefit is that we can explore at our own pace, not spend lots of money of course but explore at our own pace and film at our own pace, which is really really nice as well, so what did we do, in 2019. Because that may make it easier for you to figure out for yourself if we do like a small recap, of what did our travels look like in 2019. So you can figure out for yourself what do you think, the money we spent in the end is a lot or not so much maybe as you expected. In total we traveled almost a full year we spent a few weeks at home we traveled for about, 318. Days if kim's. Calculations, are correct of course they are correct i'm a mathematical. One so we spent about, six seven weeks at home we came back, before christmas, and we came back in may as well for a few weeks but we spent a few weeks at home which we didn't count into your travel budget because we weren't paying. Accommodation, we're staying with friends and family and all that stuff so, what we now included, is everything. Uh including the flights. Traveling the actual traveling, all those numbers including, like everything that we spend during that year it means. Uh if we went to a doctor, or if we went to. Some shampoos. On screen. Every every penny that we spent, was included, in there so in 2019. In total we visited, 14, countries, wow. From january, to may we traveled through latin america we went to mexico. Guatemala. Honduras. Then we flew to colombia, to meet up with a friend. After that we went back to belgium for a few weeks like we said, um in may, and then we started an overland. Journey, from brussels, to beijing, 12 000 kilometers, over land quite a trip quite, quite a trip taking us through eastern europe, through russia. Taking the train all the way from russia through mongolia. To beijing, in china. And then from china we went to vietnam. Thailand, and then flying back, to belgium, through norway right yes we spent a few days in norway because it was cheaper to fly to norway than to fly to belgium. So we thought hey let's have a quick stop in norway for a couple of days so that's included, as well, most of those countries, are, i would say, pretty budget-friendly. Like vietnam, thailand. Even, russia to an extent, and china yeah. Only, really expensive, country with norway where yeah, you'll see that later on and then i would say eastern europe, and, russia would be like middle budget somewhere before we tell you the actual number think about it for a minute like one year of travel, 318. Days for two people, for all the countries you went to, recommendations. Scuba diving. Everything, every single activity, how much do you think that it cost us before we tell you we'll give you a minute to think about it maybe pause the video.
So How much do we end up spending. Mucho de niro in total. Everything. That we did in 2019. All those places we visited, every, penny that we spent on food accommodation. Transport. Everything, down to the sunscreen. And the, and the earbuds, if you were staying at a dorm. Cost us twenty, seven, thousand. Four hundred, twenty eight thousand four hundred. Twenty eight thousand. Cost us twenty eight thousand, four hundred. And a little bit of pocket change, euros, that's how much. People also for two people for one person it was 14, 000, uh euros. Uh for one year so it's about, a bit more than one thousand. Probably like one thousand, three hundred, euros, or something per month actually also the first time that we've properly. Yeah we have never calculated random numbers for ourselves we knew we were we had an idea roughly how much it was but we didn't know exactly, how much it was it's a bit more than we expected, probably or that we had budgeted, for we had budgeted, about. 26, 000 euros, give or take i don't remember exactly exactly but so we're about 2 000 euros over budget which we'll come back to later, with the reasons why there's some good reasons and some, not just not so good reasons. Later, so i think all in all i mean we're pretty happy with that we're pretty happy with what we spent, and. Part of it was beyond our control we're under control so there was nothing we could do about that, and then there was a little bit overspend, so all in all i think we did very very well in keeping to our budget and we're also really curious to know what you guys think about that budget like when we gave you the minute to think is it more or is it less than you expected, us, to have spent in that year we'd love to know your opinion on that so leave it down in the comments we'd love to know and we'll break it down a little bit for you because now it's just a really big number and seems like it comes out of nowhere, but we actually and also in our budget we had like made multiple categories, so it's just come to a comprehensive, thing, because i think in the end we ended up spending, how much per day. So all in all it's about 89. Euros, per day uh. For two people so 45 euros per person including everything as well as flights including the flights, and, without the flights, it's about 77. Euro for two people, so it's less than 40 euro per person per day if you exclude the flights, all in all i think, that's a really really good budget pretty happy with that yeah and it's i mean we know it sounds like a huge amount of money, but that actually makes me think about something that a former colleague once told me when he asked us like how much are you planning, on spending, if i can ask i mean and we don't mind sharing the numbers when i told him we planned to spend about twenty six thousand twenty seven thousand euros for two people for a year he was like well, basically, it's just like if you wanted to buy a nice car yeah it's not. I mean it's similar, even a really nice car, not even like the nicest car you could think of but we just chose to spend, a lot of money on travel, instead of spending it on stuff. And buying a car for example, and buying a car for example, anyway, back to the spending. What did we spend it on because, yeah, that's also important to know of course. We broke it down into categories, first we're going to tell you, what we spent in each category. Categories, being please correct me if i'm wrong, food and drinks. Accommodation. Transportation. Entertainment. And then other, obviously, food and drinks includes, everything. From bottled water we bought, through our street food through small snacks we bought at least some fancy dinners as well because. Once in a while we treat ourselves, to fancy dinners, it was rare but it did happen yep. So for food and drinks we spent, 9, 500, euros which is about 33. Of everything that we spend, we don't really save so much on food or like try to eat, like ramen, or noodles every day.
Food Is like having the local food and having the food that we want to try is a big part of experiencing, the culture so we don't really cut back on that, yeah so 33. Of, the total budget is about 30 euros per day for the two of us which is not excessive, accommodation, is for 4, 500, euros which is about 16, percent, um transportation. 3600. Euros which is 13. Entertainment. Also big category, almost five thousand euros, 17, percent, includes, everything, in terms of entertainment like if we did a guided tour it's in there so when we did scuba diving it's in there all the special activities, we went whale watching in mexico, it's all in there all in there we have the category, other which is basically. Everything, else everything else seven and a half percent. And flights which were about thirteen percent which is actually, a reasonably, low number for the flights i would say yeah so in the category, utter just to backtrack for one moment, that includes. Everything, from. Visas, that we had to arrange, through, sunscreen. Shampoo. If we had to buy a new t-shirt, that's in there, all the shopping that we did. If we had a headache and had to get some medicine at the pharmacist, that's in there as well laundry, is in there, all that stuff so literally everything, else that is not one of the other categories, is in there and then for the flights that mostly covers the international. Flights, we allocated, a separate budget to that as well maybe let's talk a bit on how we. Built the budget maybe that's very interesting to know yeah before we go on to tell you a little bit more about the budget per country like not in detail but there are vast differences there and that's, interesting to explain as well, how did we come, to this budget i mean did we just wake up one day and be like let's spend 27k, on travel yeah that sounds like, so what we did actually we made uh multiple, budget because, it's not so easy to buy just for a whole year for travel, and then include also some special activities like scuba diving which are is inherently, quite expensive into just like a daily number into a daily number so what we did is we broke it down so we had a one budget for flights, i don't know the exact amount, we'll put them on the screen 2, 500. Euros, roughly. Or 3 000 that we had budgeted, for that. And then we had. 60 euros per day. To spend, on let's say daily stuff daily stuff. Which included. Food. All the other category. Our accommodation. And let's say the normal, activities, that we did like if we went to a museum, or. So that is 60 for the two of us that is like our standard daily budget that we had on normal days and we didn't do, lots of special stuff yep, and then we had a separate budget, which was our activities, budget which we call it the. Our favorite budget yep, it was about 3 000 euros, for the two of us for the whole year, and that we included. Our let's say special, activities, that were more expensive, if we went scuba diving which is just, quite expensive. We took this trans-siberian. Express, which was also i mean, more expensive, than usual transportation. So we took that out of that budget. Um. We did a multi-day, trek which was also quite expensive, and we took that out of that budget so it's like the, special, things budget and i think that really helps because. Then on the day-to-day, basis you spend a bit less it's a 60, euros per day but then, you also have the special budget which you then can spend on more expensive, gifts and you don't have to level it out all the time otherwise, if you just say like oh we'll put we'll take the total number and divide that to the number of days we plan to be gone for, 80 euros for two people per day instead of 60, you're going to tend to spend, close to 80 per day every day, you're gonna spend more on normal days and then on days when you do extra stuff, you're gonna all, in all go above budget so i think that's a really good way to set up a budget because, we really wanted to do mainly scuba diving i think it was very important to us a lot of the, money went to actually.
We Went scuba diving in mexico. In utila. Honduras, he went in in thailand, so a lot of that came out of that budget, indeed. Yeah, how much did we budget, before we left like you know the the the. Flights the adventure, stuff. Um and then the normal budget i think we were at 26. 000 just about, yep we have an overspend, of about 2 000 maybe 2 200, euros, a part of it comes from the fact that last year in may we had to take emergency, flights back home, because of a family emergency, that we had my grandmother, passed away and then it was. Sudden well not. She was sick for a long time but it was she died very sudden and then, within, 24 hours notice we had to take a flight back home all the way from colombia, with some a lot of transfer, stops. Paying, a lot of, baggage fees as well, so that came out about. 1 000 euro, more expensive, than we normally would have, budgeted, for, if i remember correctly we paid almost, 2 000 euros for those flights just one way for the two of us. So that put a really big dent in our budget. So yeah, those are the things that are kind of unexpected, and we couldn't do anything about and i didn't want to miss, being with my family in this time so we just took the flight back and, swallowed, the loss, and then there was the other bit of the overrun, about a good thousand euros i guess that is which just, because, we did we wanted to do some fancier, stuff, we overspent, sometimes, especially the first few weeks in mexico. It was the start of our trip and we didn't really want to hold back on just having a beer or just eating some additional stuff or going to a party, yeah so i think there we spend a bit and then in general we just, overspend, a bit we also don't want to be like oh there's this really nice place we want to go for food we really really want but we're not going to do it because a lot of those places we're only going to be there once yeah indeed like we really love food and sometimes, it's just a special, restaurant, or one place where you really want to go. And, you just go i mean in the end we overspend, let's say 1 000 euros that we had control, over for a whole year. And i think that's that's pretty fun that was worth it i think we were very deliberate, in choosing the things we spent that extra money on it was worth it it was worth it, there are pretty significant. Differences, to the budget that we ultimately, spent, in each country that we visited, we'll just put an overview, here on the screen of what we spent on average for two people a day. We'll see which side it fits on. Um. Without, flights, so that is the average. That we spend per day for two people traveling in those countries, including our entertainment, budget right including, everything, except for flights yeah so some of the, for example mexico i have to cheat for a minute because the numbers mexico, is a little bit more expensive because we did some more scuba diving there so you will see that in mexico. Colombia.
Russia. And, norway, we especially. Spend, significantly. More. Than our average and then we budgeted, mexico, was probably due to more scuba diving. And. More indulging, ourselves at the beginning of our trip, yeah, and then which, we do have columbia, we were traveling with a friend and we just chose to go out a bit more and, spend a bit more time at restaurants. And some nicer rooms and hostels. Yeah and then russia is almost 90 euros on average per day that is because, part of the cost of the trans-siberian. Express that we took. Like our journey on the trans-siberian, railway taking the train all the way from moscow, to beijing, was included in there as well, moscow, and russia especially, was also a bit more expensive. Kim had their birthday, over there and we just went out to a fancy restaurant, had some really good food, and then the real kicker. Fortunately, we only spent two days there is norway. By far the most expensive country that we traveled to last year norway is known for being notoriously. Expensive, this, ship is one of the most expensive, countries in the world together with switzerland, probably how much we spend there uh 140. Something, euros, on average for two of us per day and we stayed in like i mean the cheapest department we could find was still really really nice but it was quite expensive, and yeah, for example taking transportation, was expensive, we had some food for two people just like, a normal, dish with one, beer, each and how much did we pay 60 70, euros, for like a basic and we looked for the cheapest restaurant, that we could find like the most budget friendly, that we could find so as you're gonna see if you're gonna try to make a budget like this yourself, if you wanna do a longer trip maybe it's good to research, in advance, which countries are going to be more expensive. And which are not um take that into account for your budget, well we, mostly, took roughly the same, budget for each country and, maybe, adjusted, our lifestyle a little bit yeah like for example. Eastern europe guatemala. Is, pretty cheap and i don't think we underspend, that much there, but yeah we could have done it on cheaper property in guatemala, but then. Since we had some budget we, sometimes, chose to, go for beer sometimes more or something, like that well for example berlin which is in germany, which is the normal, european, prices. Is a bit more expensive, already, and, yeah we just chose to, go to a shop and buy some bread and some. Cheese or something, so we we kind of balance it out also a bit with our lifestyle, actually yeah so we in in berlin, and eastern, europe we really didn't spend much money. Outside, of what we did in our videos and even then we try to be very budget conscious plus we slept in dorms all the time so you may be surprised, to see that eastern europe is actually one of the regions where we, had the lower budget because that's but that's because we adjusted, our lifestyle not because it's that cheap no indeed so are we rich, do we are we where are those, fund kids, where does this, money.
Come From our parents give us all the money did we get all the money did we win the lottery, it's not that big of an amount, but still no we did not get the money from anywhere. It is hard. Earned, money that we made working at our corporate jobs for, i think six or seven years or something like that yeah we spent, six seven years, working our corporate jobs and basically, we chose to not spend, a lot of money on stuff to buy. We didn't get a second car we just didn't, buy a lot of clothes anymore in the last two years he had a company car he brought me to work and picked me up every day even though i made more than enough to get my car rolled and we just made the choices, to save up and of course i mean we are we're in a very fortunate, position, to have, to have been in very high earning jobs. So i mean we know it's not easy for everybody to do the same, but, still we made to really made the choice to save up for uh for that and a few words of encouragement, in case you're not in a high-earning, job and you're like why can't i make that kind of money why can't i make a lot of money and have it easy, to save as well and do a trip like that something, you still can. We're not going to go into that here in detail because there are a bunch of resources, out there on how to save for long-term, travel, but even if you don't make a lot of money and you make small, adjustments, to your lifestyle like for example, every time you go to starbucks, maybe you go a few times a week it costs you five or six euros to get your cappuccino, at starbucks. Don't go to starbucks, instead make your own coffee, instead of going out for dinner a lot of times with your friends just invite them over at your place it's a fraction of the cost. And there's a bunch of things you can do which we're not going. Into right now but it's still possible, we understand, it's not possible, for everybody, to do it but, i mean, just have a look at what you're spending money on and, try to come up with a plan it's not like we saved up this money in one year we took, three four years to save up so i mean we also and we needed some buffer as well so we needed to save up more. Quite a lot of years i'm planning to get to this point so that is the, final budget, like the actual, spend, yeah for one year of travel for two people there was 2019. Where we traveled a full year, uh this year we're actually doing on less budget. We, the plan, or the plan is was. To travel on 60, euros, per day including, everything including, our flights, including, international, flights visas, more. Uh expensive, activities, and all that because well yeah we just want to do it cheaper and since we already traveled for, one year last year we already did quite a lot of things that we wanted to do which were more expensive so we just thought well, let's try to do it cheaper this year so we're trying to, not live off our savings as much as we did last year because last year we didn't have basically, any income, like for those of you who think that we travel.
From The money that our youtube channel made us in 2019. You would not get very far no it was about 1, 600. Euros we made in total over 2019. Many videos, that we made, it's not a lot of money it's yeah basically. Very small maybe just to cover the overrun, almost so that it only, covers the overrun yeah but this year fortunately, our youtube channel is a lot further from where it was end of last year yes we're making a bit more money now, how much i don't know exactly maybe we can make a video about that one at some point yeah our goal, is to try to break, even. For our travel costs for the full year by the end of the year, which is ambitious. Um and which will only work if our channel continues to grow, pretty well so, if you're new here please like this video because it helps us and let us know in the comments what you think as well thank you all so much for watching and for your support, we shall see you in the next one next one we're going to explore. Our home city, yeah. No it's. The oldest city in belgium, it's where we are actually right now it's where we grew up that's where we're going to be filming tomorrow, or the day after soon see you in the next. One.
2020-09-12 23:42
