Well the epic adventure has officially come to a close! I am so unbelievably grateful that I got to spend so much time exploring this beautiful world – what an enormous privilege. As per usual, I tracked every penny of what I spent so here is the final installment of what I spent on this trip! See here for the original post of my 1 Year trip Cost Summary & the Two Year update. Also if you are considering doing a big trip, check out my best tips for planning an epic adventure here.

Some considerations:

This is only for one person (me)
I travel fairly cheaply (mostly staying in hostels) & in general don’t have expensive taste in food or transportation, but I also am saying yes to any experiences that I want to say yes to
I am traveling fairly quickly so taking lots of flights + moving locations every 3-5 days usually. It’s much cheaper to travel slower
I am not traveling in a super logical route. For example, while in Europe I went to England, then Northern Ireland, then France, then England, then Switzerland, then England, then Ireland… I was meeting up with different friends at different points so while it wasn’t logical, it made sense for what I was doing. However, again this is an area that one can make cheaper if they don’t travel in circles like I did haha
When in Europe, I did spend a decent number of nights staying for free with friends!
I am flying home to California quite often for Christmas, my 30th birthday, and for some weddings. Again this is driving up some inefficiencies.
I have spent both summers at home in CA (a total of about 5 months between the two summers). This has actually saved me some money as I don’t pay for accommodation while I am home (thanks Mom + Dad!)

Here’s the trip summary leaving in June 2023, covering 54 countries across 7 continents:

6 months in Europe + Egypt – 19 countries
1 month Fiji & New Zealand with my family – 2 countries
3 months Southeast Asia + Japan – 6 countries
6 months Mexico + South America + Antarctica- 6 countries
1 month Australia + Vanuatu with my family – 2 countries
3.5 months in Central America – 7 countries
3.5 Months in Western Asia + Europe – 15 countries

Here’s how many days I spent on each continent in my 2.5 years of travel:

In full transparency, my parents kindly paid for Fiji, NZ, Australia, & Japan since I was with them for those four countries (very, very lucky!!) so this analysis will cover roughly 27 months (as the aforementioned countries were essentially free). This does include any spend I had while in CA, which is usually cheaper than traveling as I have no accommodation costs while at home.

Also, on this trip, I have tried to add what I spent in each country to its dedicated blog post so hopefully that’s helpful. For example: scroll to the bottom of this blog post to see how much I spent for 3 weeks in the Philippines!

One last caveat – I did not include my costs for going to Antarctica because I got a deal through Freestyle Adventure Travel & signed an agreement that I wouldn’t share what I spent. Check them out if you are ever interested in exploring the one of the coolest (pun intended) places I’ve been.

Here we go…

Total Spend: $78k USD

Overall this about what I expected to spend on this trip! I’m averaging just under $3k per month while really enjoying life. I haven’t really said no to too many things while on this trip. I spend an average of $40k per year in my “regular” life while living in San Francisco, CA, so I’ve spent about 25% less by traveling to 54 countries (over the same time period) – not bad!!

Spend by Segment

This shows a breakdown of the total spend by trip segment. Obviously Europe would be the most expensive since that was the longest segment of the trip by far (a total of 9 months spent there). Pre-trip expenses include: clothes, Workaway membership, initial flights, & electronics. Scuba diving really drove up costs in Central America.

Average Daily Spend by Region

I was pleasantly surprised that I naturally (without too much oversight) maintained an average daily spend of less than $100, regardless of the region. Without scuba diving, Central America would have been far more affordable (perhaps the most affordable not including Oceania & CA, which are anomalies). If you are looking for bang for buck, it will be no surprise that Central America (outside of Costa Rica + Belize) & Southeast Asia would be my recommendations! You could also get great value in the northern parts of South America with Colombia, Bolivia & Peru.

Outside of Antarctica, the countries that cost me the most per day were Liechtenstein, Switzerland & Belize.

The cheapest were Tunisia, Kosovo & Latvia.

Spend by Category

This is a breakdown of how much I spent by category. As expected, accommodation is my largest spend, but I am actually proud of myself for spending so much on activities! I can be pretty stingy with spend so I love that I have said yes to so many experiences on this trip. A lot of them ended up in my top 5 memories of the trip 🙂 You’ll find the breakdown for the trip overall, as well as by region.

Europe (6 months): $18.1k

Southeast Asia (2 months): $7.5k

South America & Mexico (4.5 months): $14.5k

Central America (3.5 months): $13.2k

Europe + Western Asia (3.5 months): $9.9k

Top 5 experiences of the trip:

Antarctica ($$$$$)
Riding Motorbikes through the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam ($300)
Hiking Milford Track in New Zealand ($2,045)
Climbing Acatenango in Guatemala ($105)
Scuba Diving with Thresher Sharks in the Philippines ($88)

Top tips for traveling cheaper:

Stay in dorms in hostels – you might sacrifice a bit on quality of sleep but in general the cost savings + meeting so many cool people makes this a great resource for traveling on the cheap.
You’ll notice I spent almost $11k on eating out. If you are staying in airbnbs or hostels with kitchens (more common in Europe, NZ & Australia), buy groceries!
Travel slower. As I mentioned, you’ll save a lot on accommodation costs if you can book a month long airbnb rather than hotels/hostels for a few nights at a time. This also will bring down your transportation costs.
Fly less! Unfortunately I did a lot of flying. I would have saved a ton of money if I did more bus/train travel.
Only take a carryon backpack. You’ll save on baggage fees every time you do have to fly.
Use credit card points to book flights.
Consider doing WOOFING or Workaway to save money in exchange for working a few hours a week (usually ~20).
Make friends on the road and then go visit them in their hometowns. It’s the best way to experience a place in a (usually) non-touristy place & you save money on accommodation: it’s a win-win!

Bonus section:

Since I track so many things beyond just expenses, here are some other fun facts from the trip!

Took 117 flights
Visited 201 cities in 54 countries
Spent $1950 on massages (avg per hour cost: $31) in 27 countries
Went scuba diving 37 times in 8 countries across 4 continents (North America, South America, Oceania & Asia)
Sent 274 postcards in 38 batches (Grandpa was #1 recipient)
Country visited the most times: England (9 unique visits). I spent 67 nights in England and spent $0 on accommodation thanks to all my friends there 🙂
18 land border crossings (mostly in Central America & Asia)

Well that’s the final cost breakdown of this epic trip around the world!! I hope this was helpful and as always, feel free to ask me any questions!

Time. Is. Flying. I have now completed 2 years on the road! Since I track every dollar I spend while traveling, I thought it would be helpful to publish an updated report of how much this trip has cost me! See here for the original post of my 1 Year trip Cost Summary. Also if you are considering doing a big trip, check out my best tips for planning an epic adventure here.

Some considerations:

This is only for one person (me)
I travel fairly cheaply (mostly staying in hostels) & in general don’t have expensive taste in food or transportation, but I also am saying yes to any experiences that I want to say yes to & not staying in the cheapest hostel.
I am traveling fairly quickly so taking lots of flights + moving locations every 3-5 days usually. It’s much cheaper to travel slower.
I am not traveling in a super logical route. For example, while in Europe I went to England, then Northern Ireland, then France, then England, then Switzerland, then England, then Ireland… I was meeting up with different friends at different points so while it wasn’t logical, it made sense for what I was doing. Or how about when I flew to Australia in the middle of my 3 months in Central America for a wedding? This is definitely an area that one can make cheaper if they don’t travel in circles like I did haha
I am flying home to California quite often for Christmas, my 30th birthday, and for some weddings. Again this is driving up some inefficiencies.
I have spent both summers at home in CA (a total of about 5 months between the two summers). This has actually saved me some money as I don’t pay for accommodation while I am home (thanks Mom + Dad!)

Here’s the trip summary leaving in June 2023, covering 42 countries across all 7 continents:

6 months in Europe + Egypt – 19 countries
1 month Fiji & New Zealand with my family – 2 countries
3 months Southeast Asia + Japan – 6 countries
6 months Mexico + South America + Antarctica- 6 countries
1 month Australia + Vanuatu with my family – 2 countries
3.5 months in Central America – 7 countries

Here’s how many days I spent on each continent in my two years of travel:

In full transparency, my parents kindly paid for Fiji, NZ, Australia, & Japan since I was with them for those four countries (very, very lucky!!) so this analysis will cover roughly 21 months (as the aforementioned countries were essentially free). This does include any spend I had while in CA, which is usually cheaper than traveling as I have no accommodation costs while at home.

Also on this trip, I have tried to add what I spent in each country to its dedicated blog post so hopefully that’s helpful. For example: scroll to the bottom of this blog post to see how much I spent for 3 weeks in the Philippines!

Here we go…

Total Spend: $66k USD

I feel pretty great about this number! I’m averaging about $3k per month while really enjoying life! I spent an average of $40k per year in my “regular” life while living in San Francisco, CA, so I’ve spent about 20% less by traveling to 42 countries – not bad!!

Spend by Segment

This shows a breakdown of the total spend by trip segment. Obviously Europe would be the highest since that was the longest segment of the trip so far. Pre-trip expenses include: clothes, Workaway membership, initial flights, & electronics. Health insurance for the duration of the trip was $170 per month ($2,040 for the year). Scuba diving really drove up costs in Central America.

Average Daily Spend by Region

This shows the daily cost by region, which makes it far easier to compare the costs agnostic of time spent in each spot. An interesting trend I’ve noticed is that I seem to scale what I’m comfortable spending on based on roughly a $100 per day budget. To be clear, I don’t do this consciously or intentionally as in I haven’t limited myself to $100 per day, but I do seem to naturally know that in more expensive countries, I have to be more simple in my spending, whereas in Southeast Asia, I go crazy with activities and still can’t spend as much as existing in Europe. Put another way, here’s the percent Activities made up of total spend by region:

Europe – 15%
Southeast Asia – 35%
South America – 18%
Oceania – 1%
Central America – 25%
California – 14%