Budget
"So, how much is it to go on a world tour?”
This is THE big question, the one we are asked to answer all the time and which arouses everyone's curiosity. The answer is complicated, because it depends on many factors that are specific to each traveler: lifestyle and comfort when travelling, duration of the trip, countries visited, etc.
Indeed, the budget will be different if roots hostels and campsites are favored over 4-star establishments, if the trip is 10 or 24 months, and countries like Japan or Australia will not have the same costs as countries like Indonesia or Zambia…
You understood it, there are as many budgets as there are travelers.
In this article, we'll share our experience with budget planning as well as the real cost of our world tour. Two questions will therefore be addressed:
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How to estimate your world tour budget?
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How much did our world tour actually cost?
How to estimate your world tour budget?
After having established an itinerary, it is possible to establish a world tour’s estimated budget. There are two categories to consider: expenses to be incurred before leaving and expenses on site once the trip has started.
1. Expenses to be incurred before leaving
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The first international flight
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Administrative costs (passport renewals)
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Health (vaccines, treatment against malaria, insurance)
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Equipment
2. Expenses while on spot
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International and domestic flights
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Administrative costs (visas, bank charges, retention of telephone lines, SIM cards, etc.)
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Health (insurance renewal, costs related to covid)
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Equipment
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Daily spendings (lodging, food, transport, activities, etc.)
1. Expenses to be incurred before leaving
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The first international flight
Some travelers opt for a world tour plane ticket, that is, a set of grouped tickets to transport them from continent to continent and return them to their point of departure in 1 year. These are sold by travel agencies or directly by the airlines alliances themselves (Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam). Their prices vary between 2000€ and 5000€ depending on several criteria (city of departure/arrival, number of continents, distance…). While this system offers some peace of mind in planning and budgeting, we decided to forgo it to give ourselves as much flexibility as possible. This has proven to be beneficial with the Covid pandemic, which has involved many last minute changes. For more details on how to prepare and adapt your itinerary, click HERE.
We used the online flight comparator Skyscanner to find the most advantageous offer for our first country, in this case Indonesia for 344€/person. In general, it is better to plan approximately 400€/person for an international flight.
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Administrative costs (renewals of passports)
Many administrative formalities (described in detail HERE) involve costs before you even leave. Starting with the passports to be renewed. Indeed, the majority of countries require a certain number of blank pages for visa stamping, as well as a validity date of more than 6 months following entry into their territory. To determine the renewal fee, it is best to contact the nearest town hall. Being of different nationalities, the cost was different for each of us, namely 75€ and 86€, so an average of 80.5€/person.
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Health (vaccines, treatment against malaria, insurance)
Some health-related costs need to be budgeted for but also to be paid out well before departure. This is the case with vaccines. Important to note that prices vary depending on the pharmacies and vaccination institutes: each has its own scale and differences can sometimes be significant. It is therefore important to prospect in order to compare offers before committing. Below is a summary table of vaccines to consider for a world tour and their approximate price.
Of course, vaccination remains a personal choice (find our full article on health topics for a world tour HERE). As far as we are concerned, we got by for around 376.5€/person.
Besides vaccines, there are other health-related costs to pay before you go, such as treatment against malaria. This is one of the reasons we have established a basic itinerary. Indeed, only certain countries are affected by malaria and we therefore had to plan the number of drug boxes needed for our trip. Again, it is important to call pharmacies to compare their prices because it’s not cheap. Concerning us, we spent about 89€/person for treatment.
Another expense that should not be underestimated when budgeting for a world tour: long-term travel insurance. It is possible to pay in full (1 year) even before leaving or to operate on monthly payments. We explain how to choose the right insurance and the different possibilities in our full article on health around the world, available HERE. In general, the insurance is valid for 1 year, then it must be renewed during the trip if the latter is longer. Plan around 48€/person/ month for long-term travel insurance.
Concerning us, we paid the approximate sum of 41€/person/month for a year thanks to a couple formula and a partnership with our insurer, Chapka. Therefore we had to spend 492€/person in insurance before even leaving.
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Equipment
Equipment is a big expense to plan before setting off on a world tour. In general, it is estimated at 500€/person (clothing, hygiene, accessories, electronic devices, first aid kits, etc.). It is really personal and fluctuates from person to person. A full article on world tour equipment is available HERE.
OUR BUDGETED EXPENSES TO BE MADE BEFORE LEAVING WERE 1882€/PERSON.
2. Spendings on spot
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International and domestic flights
To estimate a flight budget, nothing better than numerous simulations on the online comparator Skyscanner. To this, it is important to add a good safety margin in the event of an interrupted or modified route. Our estimated budget for international and domestic flights was therefore 3320€/person (price not including the first international flight to Indonesia; see table below).
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Administrative costs (visas, bank charges, retention of telephone lines, sim cards, etc.)
Some administrative formalities involve expenses once there, but which are just as important to consider when estimating your budget.
This is the case with visas. We first relied on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to check the conditions of entry into each territory. The local government sites then allowed us to determine and anticipate their prices. Concerning us, our itinerary provided for the expenditure of 288€/person for visas (see table below).
In addition, as explained HERE on our page detailing the administrative formalities of a world tour, we have opened accounts to have credit cards with free withdrawals and payments abroad. One of them (joint account) involved running costs of 6€/month, meaning 72€/person for the tour that we had to include in our estimated budget.
Finally, we wanted to keep our phone line active for various reasons: validation of online payments, numbers associated with various useful applications such as WhatsApp, etc. So we both made the choice to switch our line to the Free operator and take advantage of its advantageous package of 2€/month. Over a 2-year trip, this resulted in a budget of 48€/person.
Other administrative expenses on site are to be anticipated, such as the printing of documents to cross certain borders, the purchase of prepaid SIM cards to communicate and/or the local costs of withdrawals from ATMs. On the other hand, these expenses remaining minimal compared to the rest, it is therefore possible to choose not to budget them in the administrative category but to include them in your provisional budget of daily expenses on site (see below).
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Health (insurance renewal, costs related to covid)
As a world tour insurance is only valid for 1 year, it must be renewed for a longer trip. It is therefore necessary to budget the approximate additional sum of 48€/person/month. Concerning us, we had planned the payment of 41€/person/month for our second year of travel thanks to our partnership, that is again 492€/person.
But the pandemic has turned many travelers upside down. Having appeared during the trip, it was impossible for us to budget the on-site expenses related to Covid before leaving. However, to anticipate them, it is better to establish a basic itinerary in advance in order to establish an air traffic budget, the total price of the covid tests to be carried out during the trip and/or the costs of a possible quarantine. The entry conditions related to Covid are specific to each country (vaccination or not, PCR or antigen test, quarantine, etc.). To find this information, we invite you to read our full article on health during a world tour, available HERE. Important note, in order to estimate the cost of antigen and PCR tests, it is advisable to compare the many laboratories available in the departure city of the visited country. Prices differ greatly from institute to institute and many centers are reachable by WhatsApp. Finally, it may be wise to establish a Covid contingency fund before leaving as the situation is constantly changing on the spot and not all expenses can be anticipated (new restrictions, change of itinerary, development of the disease...). We will discuss our Covid-related expenses in part two of this article, “How much did our world tour cost?” since it was absolutely impossible for us to budget for these expenses in advance.
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Equipment
Even though most of the expenses for the equipment are done before going on the trip, it may be necessary to purchase some parts on site and therefore to budget for this. We hadn't done it and yet we would have needed it!
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Daily spendings (lodging, food, transport, activities, etc.)
Last category of expenses to budget for a trip around the world and not the least: daily spendings on site (accommodation, food, transport, activities, laundry, miscellaneous…). To anticipate them, nothing is better than the blogs of other travelers to analyze their daily budget/country. However, as we mentioned above, this can vary greatly. The databases dedicated to travelers such as tourdumondiste and planificateur à contresens have been of great help to us, as they have the advantage of establishing a daily budget/person for each category of traveler (roots, backpacker, comfort). Given our situation, we based our budget a little bit below the backpacker traveler, and when we planned a humanitarian mission in a country, we set our daily budget a little lower again. On the basis of our itinerary and these databases, we have thus estimated our daily spendings at 21076€/person for our 2-year trip (see below).
OUR BUDGETED EXPENSES ON SPOT WERE ESTIMATED AT 25296€.
OUR ESTIMATED BUDGET FOR 2 YEARS OF TRAVEL IN 20 COUNTRIES THEREFORE AMOUNTED TO 27184€/PERSON, INCLUDING 1882€/PERSON TO BUDGET AND SPEND BEFORE LEAVING & 25296€/PERSON TO ANTICIPATE FOR SPENDINGS ON SPOT.
EXPENSES TO BE INCURRED BEFORE LEAVING
1882€/PERSON
First international flight: 344€
Vaccinations: 376,5€
Administrative costs: 80,5€
Malaria treatment: 89€
1st year insurance: 492€
Equipment: 500€
EXPENSES WHILE ON SPOT
25296€/PERSON
International & domestic flights: 3320€
Telephone line: 48€
Visas: 288€
Insurance renewal: 492€
Bank charges: 72€
Daily spendings: 21076€
However, when we left, we left with 18,000€ of savings each, below our estimated budget of 25296€/person. We therefore knew that we were going to have to make some concessions, but preferred to leave ourselves all the flexibility to make them where and when we wanted.
How much did our world tour actually cost?
As explained above, two types of expenses are to be considered when traveling around the world: expenses to be incurred before leaving and expenses on site. Our expenses to be incurred before leaving were 1882€/person. For on-site spendings, we used Excel spreadsheets that we updated regularly to establish a budget follow-up.
1. International and domestic flights
We had budgeted 3320€/person for international and domestic flights and spent 3350€/person, a positive difference of 30€/person (see below). Not so bad considering that our itinerary had to be changed a lot because of Covid. Indeed, our premature return (and departure) as well as the closure of many land borders have involved the addition of many flights that were initially unplanned. We thank our assurance of having covered part of our repatriation from Asia to Europe.
2. Administrative costs (visas, bank charges, retention of telephone lines)
We had planned 288€/person for visas and spent 211€/person, a negative difference of 77€/person compared to our budget. Indeed, also because (or thanks) to the Covid, we were not able to travel to Cambodia and Vietnam and therefore saved visa fees, despite the addition of the Jordanian stamp (see below).
On the other hand, the costs of maintaining our common account increased from 6€/month to 8€/month for 15 months, resulting in a total of 87€/person, a positive difference of 15€/person compared to our initial budget of 72€/person.
Finally, we had estimated our expenses for maintaining our telephone lines at 48€/person, an amount that has been respected throughout the trip
3. Health (insurance renewal, costs related to covid)
The renewal of our insurance was also in accordance with the estimate of this one, meaning a total of 492€/person.
Regarding the on-site expenses related to Covid, we obviously had no budget for this. We spent 440.99€/person on PCR and antigen tests to be able to move from one country to another, resulting in a positive difference of 440.99€/person compared to our estimated budget of 0€ (see below).
4. Equipment
We made the choice to better equip ourselves when arriving in high altitude countries (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia). We therefore went to our dear partner Decathlon in Medellin in Colombia to buy some warm clothes (jackets, hats, gloves, leggings and thermal clothes). We got for around 75€/person and therefore a positive price difference of 75€/person compared to our estimated budget of 0€/person.
5. Daily spendings (lodging, food, transport, activities, etc.)
We spent 11362€/person on site, a negative difference of 9714€/person compared to our estimated budget of 21076€/person. This is explained by the number of months spent traveling: 17 instead of 24, but also by our savings within the countries themselves. You can find at the end of each country article (available under the "Our Adventure" tab) a detailed budget under the form of graphs including the breakdown of our expenses on site (lodging, food, transport, activities, others). Below is a table summarizing the spendings by country compared to the budgets by country.
WE THEREFORE SPENT 17948€/PERSON FOR OUR WORLD TOUR, INCLUDING 1882€/PERSON IN SPENDINGS BEFORE LEAVING AND 16066€/PERSON IN SPENDINGS ON SITE, A NEGATIVE DIFFERENCE OF 9230€/PERSON COMPARED TO OUR BUDGET
SPENDINGS BEFORE LEAVING
1882€/PERSON
First international flight: 344€
Vaccinations: 376,5€
Administrative costs: 80,5€
Malaria treatment: 89€
1st year insurance: 492€
Equipment: 500€
SPENDINGS ON SITE
16066€/PERSON
International & domestic flights: 3350€
Telephone line: 48€
Visas: 211€
Insurance renewal: 492€
Bank charges: 87€
Daily spendings: 11362€
Covid: 440,99€
Equipment: 75€
BUDGET/PERSON
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Before departure: 1882€
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On site: 25296€
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Total: 27178€
SPENDINGS/PERSON
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Before departure: 1882€
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On site: 16066€
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Total: 17948€
DIFFERENCE/PERSON
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Before departure: 0€
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On site: 9230€
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Total: 9230€
So yes, a world tour is not cheap. But if you think about how much life costs here, you finally think that it's not that much... Indeed, 17948€ is the price of a small new car when you buy it.
A material good that devalues over time or life-changing experiences of a year and a half...? For us, the calculation was quickly done. Because as a famous quote says so well, "travel is the only thing we buy that makes us richer ..."