Refresh Journey

We were using a shared Google Sheets file for 2 years to plan budget details for this trip:

Airline Tickets – Around the world, tickets are not a great deal. Once we priced our trip, the cost of our tickets came out to be almost the same as if we bought RTW tickets. Buying separate tickets gave us more flexibility and reduced risks, allowing us to spend two summers in Europe. There is no advantage to buying tickets more than 3-4 months ahead. For now, we only have our tickets through the summer. We started our first leg of the trip (from Seattle to Buenos Aires) on airline miles and saved about $6,000 there. We also got our tickets through South America as one connected ticket over months and saved about $2,000 doing it this way vs. getting all separate tickets. This means we have one ticket to fly from Uruguay to Peru, then Ecuador, Colombia, and finally to Barcelona. This is a less flexible option that carries certain risks, but it was the cheapest option. We also got our tickets to Galapagos with Lufthansa miles. BTW, Lufthansa miles are the worst miles ever: their taxes and fees are often as expensive as a regular ticket price. We never care about the length of flights or layovers. We choose the cheapest option and then select the best time. Airline tickets make up 20% of our overall budget, and we’ve already spent 40% of it.

Accommodations – Things happen, life throws curveballs. We did not want to plan our accommodations more than 3-6 months ahead. Some reservations had to be made way ahead (e.g., Kruger National Park in South Africa), but most did not. Accommodations for 5 are more complicated and considerably more expensive to make than just for Pedja and me. Also, seasons play a role in how far in advance we need to book. We are staying mainly in Airbnb, small hotels via Booking.com, and some hostels. We are not into luxury travel. Most of our accommodations are places with less comfort than our own home (less space, fewer rooms/beds, poorly equipped kitchens, etc). If we had more time, we would probably explore other options – home swaps, pet/housesitting options, longer-term local rentals, etc. However, a balance between time and money is always hard to achieve. We will spend about 1-2 months with family during our 18-month travel period. Accommodation costs are 30% of our overall budget.

Transportation – Last summer, Pedja bought a car for us to use in Europe during this trip. Every year when we visit, we rent a car for 1-2 months. However, with him being there for 3 months last summer and us planning to be in Europe two summers in a row for a total of 3-5 months, we decided that purchasing our vehicle made more financial sense. This was made possible by our family members who took on the burden and risk of purchasing this vehicle in their name, storing it when we are not using it, taking care of it, etc. We don’t usually do this for our regular summer trips; we would rather rent a car and not worry about it during the rest of the year. In this case, it made sense. We will sell this car at the end of our 18 months.

Car rentals – We didn’t plan to have a car in many places. We’ll rent vehicles in several locations, but we will mainly utilize public transportation and ride-share options. We are currently planning to rent cars in Ecuador, Spain, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Most countries do not require an international driver’s license, but a few do. We got ours through AAA, and it’s valid for only 1 year. Pedja’s license will expire towards the end of our trip, so I’ll have to take over as the main driver for those last few weeks. We’ll also need to take full insurance coverage on most of the rented vehicles since we don’t have any car insurance at home.

Other local transportation – public transportation is usually the cheapest option in places we’ll be in, but anything times 5 is considerably pricier. For example, the train from Madrid to Barcelona is an excellent option for two (when Pedja and I went by ourselves), but when you’re with five people, it makes no sense. Renting a vehicle for that quick trip is a better option for a family of 5. Getting taxis or Ubers presents another issue. We always have to get two cars. It all adds up. Regardless, we’ll utilize local public transportation as much as we can. We’ve estimated transportation costs to be at about 10% of our budget, including the transaction costs for the car that we have in Serbia.

Food – we are looking forward to trying all the new foods we will have the chance to sample. We will not be able to cook as well on the road as we do at home. Most Airbnb kitchens are not well equipped (and have no basic things such as salt, oil, etc.). We also cannot eat out every meal of the day, not even once per day. Management of food on the road takes a lot more of our time and money than we initially anticipated. It’s easy for Pedja and me when we are alone, but not when there are five of us. We don’t shop for each of our kids’ favorite foods, but even so, we have to pay attention to food costs more than we thought we would. Our food budget is considerably higher than the average monthly income in some of the countries we are visiting. It will be interesting to see how well we stick to our planned food budget. We forecasted that about 20% of our budget will go to food.

Spending $/Venues/Events – living in Seattle for 18 months requires a considerable amount of expenditure (kids’ extra-curricular activities, camping, skiing, clothing needs, entertainment, etc.). This will be different during travel, but it’s still needed. We are traveling light, so we’ll need to flip some percentage of our bags’ contents from time to time. Maki will hopefully outgrow all of his clothes. We’re hoping to ski for a few days next season. We’ll go on our regular trips to Greece with Pedja’s family. We’ll have our family reunions in Bosnia. Kids will take some classes. This is all included in our spending budget, which is currently planned at 10% of our overall spending.

Other fixed expenses – travel health insurance, telephone, homeschooling classes, and subscriptions – 10%

Seattle house expenses – life insurance, house, and cat upkeep – We were lucky that Snezana is renting our home and taking care of our cat. She is a real Saint. Leaving our life behind for this long was a lot easier knowing that she’ll be there to hold the fort down. Also, half of our basement is rented as a short-term rental via Airbnb, and I manage it remotely. We planned to not depend on any income from the house, just have the house cover itself. That’s still the case. We have also seeded our life insurance account for the next 18 months, and those transactions are going through automatically without my involvement.

In summary, this is what we have planned as the distribution of expenses for the next 18 months:

Airline tickets: 20%

Accommodations: 30%

Food: 20%

Transportation: 10%

Spending $ / Venues / Events: 10%

Other fixed expenses: 10%

I track our spending in the Trail Wallet app (only for iOS) and then cross-reference it with our main budget plan in Google Sheets. For the first month in Buenos Aires, we were ever so slightly under budget in all categories, which was helpful because we could then make an unplanned small donation to a good local cause.

Update after 12 months of travel: We are still slightly under budget.