Zwischen Sommer 2012 und 2013 durften wir für ein ganzes Jahr die Welt bereisen. 

Unsere Reiseberichte können noch immer gelesen werden und befinden sich unter der Rubrik «Unsere Reise».

Travel Budget

General

You can go with nearly every budget you just have to choose the countries and your style of traveling wisely. Also consider that you do not only need money for travelling, but also enough to cover your costs before and after your travels as well as the fix costs at home during your travels. The recommendations below are from our experiences travelling as a couple in their late twenties. We have worked and saved four years to travel, we had our share of cheap, dirty accommodations and eating oatmeal for several weeks. This time were looking forward to travelling with a budget that allows us to sleep in private rooms, not sharing bathrooms regularly, eating nicely and not skipping activities we really want to do because there is no money. 

Yes you can go with little money but in case you think you will be on a very tight budget, rather wait some more months and save more money. It is just more fun when you can drink an extra beer, join the extra tour or do not have to cut things just because of a price raise.

Once you have chosen your countries, check your budget again. After our travels we recommend the following calculation:

Travelling Costs + Fix Costs + Pre/Post Allowances

Fix Costs

Allowances you have at home while travelling.

• Insurance: Medical insurance as well as one for your goods. Monthly rate depends on the countries your travelling (US, CAN, Hong Kong, etc. makes the rate higher) and the franchise.
• Rent: In case you have not rented/ given up your apartment or you rented a storage room for your stuff.
• Pension: In case you are having some private pension fund you need to pay annually or if you travel for more than one year, if you want to avoid having “holes” in your retirement funds.  
• Subscriptions: Mobile phone, magazines, memberships, and so on.

Pre/Post Allowances

Especially if you quit your job for travelling and are not sure when you will have a new one after your travels, you need to calculate those into your travel budget.

• Medical Expenses: Check ups before and after your travels as well as vaccinations
• Equipment: Backpack, outdoor equipment, guide books, …
• Taxes: At least in Switzerland you often have to pay taxes after filling out your tax record and upfront for the next period. 

Traveling Costs = Daily Costs + Extras + 15% for unexpected Expenses

• Daily costs cover accommodation, food, public transport and small sightseeing expenses. They can be found per country on several Internet pages as well as in every guidebook and are often split according to your travel style.
• Extras like tours, entries, activities and courses. Memorable activities like bungee-jumping, kayaking, cooking classes and so on might be cheaper than at home, but they are seldom for free. Same for guided tours, it might not be much for what you get, but it can easily be twice your normal daily costs. Included in the extra costs are also the long distance travels. Even if you travel with buses and trains, try to do as many overnights as possible, they cost and eat up easily your daily budget. Clearly it depends on your discipline and your preferences, but our extra expenses where approx. 500 USD a month a person, everywhere, also in Asia and South America.
• Unexpected costs; you just never know what happen and there are some price traps (see below), as well as price raises, inflation and emergencies. Generally it happens more often that something does cost more than expected than the other way around. 

Money traps:

There are moments you feel like your money got stolen. Most of the times you cannot do anything against it, as there are just expenses you have to make. It might just make you feel better if you know what to expect and already take it into consideration.

• Airport transports: Arriving in a country with tons of luggage, the easiest is to take a taxi. Especially if you consider it as a “dangerous” country. However, in many places airport taxis have a fixed price and are just out of any relations. Same for public transport, sometimes the airport line is operated by a private company which just demands a higher price than the normal public transport (Sydney, Auckland, Hong Kong, etc)
• Taxes and service charges: Mainly in North America but also in some upper class hotels in Asia and everywhere in Nepal and India, the listed prices do not include taxes, service charges and tips. The taxes and service charges can easily add up to 25% on top of the price. Be aware, often those add-ups are also not included when booking hotels over Internet platforms.
• Postage: Over the year we sent nearly 50kg stuff back home. These are good souvenirs and memories, but after adding the postage, many of them are no bargains any more. Even in South American countries, the postage can be quite expensive, especially when you send only small quantities. Normally after the first kilos, the additional ones do not cost that much more. Try to save up some stuff and try to send it by sea freight (if possible and you trust the postal service). Another way to save postage is to check if somebody you know is in a certain city for holiday and can take some of your stuff home – facebook might help to find people who would be travelling and willing to take something home for you.  
• Forgotten Depots: Many Asian hotels want a cash depot when doing a advance personal bookings, for safety reasons or for key cards and so on. Especially if you stay longer, DO NOT forget your depot, it is your job to remind them, most hotels will not do it.
• Visas: Costs you cannot avoid but are still there. Most visa cost 25USD or more, not including process fees, express fees, handling fees or pictures made in a special format.
• Money Withdrawal: Check at home you banking fees for money withdrawal abroad. Be aware that you might pay twice, once your home bank and you also get charged from the local bank. Try to calculate how much you need and combine it with credit cards. Still you will have to withdrawal a ridiculous small amount of money sometimes at the end of a stay to cover unexpected cost or have much left at the end.
• Money Exchange: Over the year I am sure that we lost more than 100USD just by exchanging money, mainly left over money from one county to be changed into its neighbor country’s currency. Watch out, there are currencies, which cannot be exchanged/used outside their countries (Laos, Argentina, Vietnam, etc) or they do only exchange nice looking bills. Check before you leave!

• Inflation: Not really a trap, just unexpected. If you are on a tight budget, compare the current prices for accommodation and transport with the ones in your guidebook/ your calculation before you go. Mostly in countries where tourism is new and growing fast as well as in the ones with instable political situation. The most extreme we experienced was Argentina where prices increased 2-4 times over a period of 2 years.

Money savers (the usual):

• Member cards: Show your student, youth hostel, rotary or whatever card at every museum or event, maybe you get a discount. Some cards do even list the places where you get a discount on their pages.  
• Ask: Just ask if there is any discount for whatever reason. If you are alone or only 2 people the cashier might give you a discounted ticket just because.
• Group discount: If you already find travel mates at the hostel, booking tours as a group can give you a good group discount.
• Internet research: Research can save you a lot of money in many ways:
  
  • Admission free days or times for museums
  • Special offers, free tours, etc. Sometimes the city’s tourist board offers free or cheap activities (Hong Kong, US national buildings, etc) or there are “tour for tips” (Paris, Washington, Santiago, Sydney, etc).
  • Travel pages or blogs for tips and price guidelines: If you have already an idea about the price for a taxi ride the chance to get totally ripped off is smaller.
• Visa requirements: Coming with all the documents needed, can save you time and money.
• Internet rates: Many hostels, events and tour operator have special Internet rates or offers.
• Coupons: Especially in NZ, Australia and North America we looked for coupons in tourist offices for activities and hostels. There are also special coupon apps and Internet pages. If you have time, compare the coupons, there might be different offers and read the small print (only certain times, only with other offer,..).

• Discount cards: Especially in the US and Australia, having a discount card of certain supermarkets can lower you grocery prices up to 30%. Unlike in Europe you often only get the discounts when you have the card. 

Other considerations

Weight gain or loss

We expected to gain a lot of weight when not exercising regularly on our travels. We were right in the US, where we sat mostly in a car and ate a lot of greasy food. However, as soon as we came to South America we started loosing the extra kilos just by eating differently and walking around more. Additionally I had some sport apps and used them occasionally.

Contraception/ Birth Control

Unfortunately I did not think this through and now I am struggling every month to find my contraceptive. What I learnt is that you should check the availability, the impact of time changes, stomach issues and other medication, and the transport requirements. During long bus rides I had time to think about the different hormonal methods and their pros and cons on travels.

• NuvaRing
  • Positive: Less affected by time zone changes, not affected when having stomach issues
  • Negative: Need to be stored below 30C, not everywhere available, often very expensive to get locally
• Pill
  • Positive: Nearly everywhere available, often prescription free, no special storage need
  • Negative: Think about it every day, time zone changes should be taken into consideration, might be useless in case of stomach issues (diarrhea, vomiting)
• Implant
  • Positive: No supply issues, not affected by time zone changes and stomach issues
  • Negative: Need to seek medical assistance in case of issues

Clothes

Although I know that I can buy missing items locally, I normally bring too much. When choosing your clothes and you are not going to hand-wash them all the time, consider the following:

• They will get dirty
• They will get washed very hot (North America)
• They will get washed cold (South America, Asia)
• They will be washed all together
• They will get dry cleaned
• White will not stay white, other colors may change too
• Cotton will mostly survive, decorations will not
• Often newly bought clothes will loose color – heavily!

Regarding women’s clothes in warm countries there are also some considerations to make when packing. Wearing bikinis, hot pants, mini skirts and tank tops at beach places is ok. Wearing those clothes in other parts could create some issues, not only that you might offend people by showing so much skin, it could also lead to even stronger staring, worst case getting sward at and touched, feeding the image of sexually available western women and not getting access to certain spiritual places.

Also for other reasons it can be better to bring or buy light clothes with long sleeves (at least covering the shoulders) and long trousers or skirts: As well as showing respect for the local habits the long clothes help prevent sunburn and mosquito bites, cover secret pockets with your passport and credit cards better, prevent you from freezing when going into crazy cooled down places and ultimately support you to avoid direct contact with filthy bus and train seats. As nice as shorts and back free shirts are, I at least find the seats in public transports and waiting rooms often very disgusting and am happy if I do not have skin contact with them. 

Wart ihr schon mal da? Könnt ihr uns was empfehlen?