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Cost of Traveling Around the World for a Year

With Backpacks

We have completed an amazing year on the road and looking back we cannot believe what fun we had. What surprises us even more was how little we spent during our 365 days traveling around the world. As you know each month since we left we have been tracking our expenses and sharing them with [...]

Monthly expense summaries are moving

August has come and gone and we have published the monthly totals of our expenses to date. As you most likely know, we have been tracking every penny we spend since leaving for our trip around the world. At the end of each month we publish the details of our expenses for the month and [...]

how much does it cost to travel around the world? (july 2011 tally)

July 2011 - expenses by category

July was a wonderful month of friends, good food, and saying a long goodbye to the United Kingdom. From a spending perspective we were helped tremendously by the kindness of great friends and people who trusted us to watch their homes while they were away. As a result, we did not spend anything on accomodations [...]

how much does it cost to travel around the world? (june 2011 tally)

June 11 expenses by category

Big News: Thanks to all the wonderful feedback and ongoing questions we get from these monthly posts, we are excited to launch a new website focused on our spending while on this trip.  The new site, RTW Expenses, will provide: More reports and charts detailing our expenses and giving you spreadsheet geeks out there (like me) [...]

Kitchen timers, writing, and discipline

If I just close my eyes and wish at the Writer's Court I will become a writer!

Remember when I wrote about Resistance and how our lower selves work really hard to keep our higher selves from achieving big things? Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve mostly kicked my lower self into submission on this book writing project in Edinburgh. I say “mostly” because there have been times she’s reared her [...]

How much does it cost to travel around the world? (May 2011 tally)

May Expenses by category

May was rough on the budget and the figures clearly show it. We went way over budget after 7 straight months of doing so well, but of course it was to be expected when we landed in Europe. Starting in South America was a gentle way to slide into our long-term travel lifestyle and now [...]

How much does it cost to travel around the world? (April 2011 tally)

April expenses by category

There’s no such thing as a free ride. Well, actually, there is, but it would be pretty bland without a bar tab and fairly flinty without tipping the staff. For most of April we were on the M/S Expedition, a polar cruise ship owned by Gap Adventures, as the only passengers on a repositioning cruise [...]

how much does it cost to travel around the world? (March 2011 tally)

March expenses

Has it really been six months already? Time seems to pass much more slowly when you are saving money than when you are spending it! March was a good month for us financially because we paid for the Antarctica cruise out of a separate fund (we talked about this before). The first 8 days of [...]

How much does it cost to travel around the world? (February 2011 tally)

Karen & money

February introduced our first country entry fees (thank you Argentina) as well as the start of our amazing Antarctica adventure (hence the delay in getting this post out).  For the month we spent $2,240 but since there are only 28 days in February our daily average was the highest to date at $80.  We actually [...]

how much does it cost to travel around the world? (January 2011 tally)

Jan 11 expense breakdown

With January we are getting the hang of life on the road.  Sure it took 3+ months, but when something so new is started it is inevitable you need to ease into it.  We started the month and 2011 in Ecuador and ended in Peru.  While Peru is slightly more expensive (specifically in terms of [...]