How much money I spent travelling around the world for an entire year
You want the number? Here's the number you nosy bastard
“How the f*ck did you afford to travel for an entire year??”
This is a question I get asked all the time
(Honestly, you guys have no shame)
But in all fairness, I’m an open book and truly believe in being open about finances. So it’s a reasonable question to ask me
I can tell you now, it wasn’t cheap. But it was worth it. If you are ever in a position where you can travel for an extended period of time - you should. Definitely. Without a doubt
For context:
Last year I spent 366 days travelling
Yes - I know how many days there are in a year - 2024 was a leap year!
And no - I don’t mean I worked overseas or did a ski season or volunteered somewhere for free food and shelter.
I travelled.
I just travelled.
I left Australia on the 14th of January 2024 and flew back on the 14th of January 2025.
Whole other story…
But let’s dig into the nitty gritty numbers because I know that’s what you nosy bastards really want.
Overall Financial Position
In my (very sparse) research before leaving Australia, I had come across a $25,000 USD estimate on this travel blog about the costs of gallivanting around the globe for a year. In blind faith, I based my saving decisions around that figure, especially because of the sheer volume of travel I was planning on doing.
So, I saved.
And I saved hardcore
Before leaving, I worked as a junior doctor throughout 2023. I will admit, the pay was decent. However, in order to acquire the aforementioned decent pay, I did slave away on an orthopaedic unit for 60 hours a week in the middle of Melbourne winter and then pick up a million and a half Emergency shifts over Christmas instead of seeing friends and family.
Couple that with 7 years of working and saving during uni, spending on absolutely nothing aside from groceries and rent, and spending most of my waking hours studying and working, I managed to save a respectable amount of cash.
By the time January 2024 rolled around, I had a comfy $52,000 AUD (Around $32,000 USD) sitting in my bank account.
So, satisfyingly, I could budget exactly $1000 a week (I love a nice round number)
This money was my entire life savings—the sum of my year as a doctor and the scraps I’d made doing odd jobs during university.
And I planned to spend it ALL.
I almost succeeded.
When I returned home a few weeks ago, my bank account had dwindled down to about $5000.
So all in all:
$52000 - $5000 = $47,000 spent
At first glance, that truly does seem like an absurdly large sum of money. But consider this - a lot of people will spend close to that number, if not more, throughout the year while living a normal life in Australia. Rent, utilities, car registration, going out and treat-yo-self things can be expensive.
Contrast that with the idea of taking a 12-month holiday (essentially) and truly ✨finding yourself✨.
Jokes aside, it’s a worthy comparison to consider.
Anyway, where exactly did I spend my money?
Breaking it down by continent
I’m not a big spender. In fact, I’m usually a very small spender. But while travelling, your spending habits are almost entirely dictated by the place that you’re visiting.
Across my travels, I covered four continents - Asia, Europe, South America and North America.
So let’s delve a bit deeper:
Asia
Countries visited: Phillipines, Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, Jordan, Turkiye
Duration: 15th Janurary to 9th April - 85 days total
Total Spend: $6000 Approx
Average spend per day: $71 AUD
Notes:
With this being the first part of my trip, I was trying my best to be extra frugal given I had an entire year to budget for. Southeast Asian countries are notorious for being cheap backpacker destinations, and for good reason. Accommodation and food are very affordable given currency exchange rates (I had a few meals in Thailand that cost no more than $2 AUD equivalent) but flights between locations tended to be standard pricing. Nepal, for the most part, shared the affordable prices, but it could get costly when trekking in the Himalayas. Furthermore, as I approached the Middle East and travelled through Jordan and Turkiye, prices trended up. Jordan was surprisingly more expensive than I anticipated.
All in all, the classic 18-year-old British backpacker locations in Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia) allow you to travel frugally for around $900 AUD per month, while the Middle East will cost quite a bit more.
Europe
Countries visited: Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Czechia, United Kingdom, Albania, Greece, Spain, Portugal
Duration: 10th April to 10th September - 153 days total
Total Spend: $24,000 Approx
Average spend per day: $156 AUD
Notes:
This was my first time in Europe, and my oh my, did I have fun. Prices between countries varied a lot with Finland and Switzerland leading the charge in absurdly expensive grocery stores, while Greece’s 3 euro gyros were a saving grace. Countries in Eastern Europe ended up being quite affordable. Western Europe, on the other hand, really drained the bank account, and especially so during euro summer. I specifically recall 8-bed hostel dorms costing over $100 per night in Florence (how preposterous!). Due to the high travel costs in Europe, I ended up cooking most meals as hostels thankfully had kitchens (Asian hostels never had kitchens for guests). Also, a special thank you to Tesco meal deals for helping me survive in London! 🙏
South and Central America
Countries visited: Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico (technically North America but as far as most travellers and backpackers are concerned, we’ll classify Mexico as a Central American country)
Duration: 11th September to 23rd December - 103 days total
Total Spend: $10,000 Approx
Average spend per day: $97
Notes:
South and Central America are only growing in popularity amongst backpackers as they continue to make safety and travel infrastructure improvements. These countries are not as cheap as Asia, but they are still cheap enough that you can travel long-term without breaking the bank. After my escapades in Europe, I really pulled the purse strings tight in Colombia and Peru (going so far as to save on the tour guide and raw dog the Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu). However, after making it to Mexico with a reasonable amount of my net worth still intact, I decided to let loose and splurge. You could definitely do these countries at a lower budget than me.
North America:
Countries visited: Canada, United States
Duration: 24th December to 16th January - 23 days total
Total Spend: $7000 Approx
Average spend per day: $304
Notes:
The final frontier. America was always going to be expensive but I never could have predicted just how much things would cost. I saw my money disappear before my eyes while in New York for Christmas and New Year’s. Especially given the weakening Aussie dollar, conversion rates were not in my favour. My hot tip is not to buy a single coffee in the US - New York coffee is not compatible with Melbourne taste buds.
What’s the best barometer for the travel costs of a country?
Unless you’re taking the type-A route and planning every minute and transaction of your trip (yes, that was meant to sound disdainful), it can be good to have a rough estimate of how much travel in a specific location is going to cost.
In my opinion, accommodation prices are a pretty good relative indicator of how much you will likely need to spend, although you should compare standard pricing rather than peak season pricing when doing your research. When I needed to gauge how much visiting a certain country was going to cost before I arrived, I’d be sure to check HostelWorld first to determine the relative price-point of accommodation, then do a (very) rough extrapolation of that cost to things like food, activities, etc.
I used to be a loyalist to the “pint price test,” whereby the price of a pint of beer would theoretically indicate the relative costliness of a country. But 1 euro beers in Berlin, which is not at all a cheap city, really disproved that method.
My Budgeting Style
Finally, let’s talk about the data all of this is based on - my approach to budgeting and financial admin.
Throughout the year, my spending habits varied wildly.
I spent some periods of my travel sleeping on friends’ couches, taking overnight buses to avoid paying for accommodation, or eating an entire baguette (0.99 euro) with a tub of hummus (2 euro) for lunch so as not to not break the bank in the French Riviera.
In contrast, I spent about $500 on a night of Aurora hunting in the Finnish Lapland and dropped $250 USD on a fancy Christmas dinner in NYC.
To try and generalise my habits might be a stretch, but overall I was very willing to spend on unique experiences while saving on food and lodging as much as possible. I’d recommend you do the same if you’re willing to forgo some creature comforts.
This wild oscillation between conservative and gung-ho spending was partially down to my laissez-faire approach to travel admin.
I found out that I enjoy travel far more when there’s an element of spontaneity to it. Sometimes this means spending a large amount of money on the fly and then at other times, working hard to reel it in and get back on track.
So when it comes to the actual logistics of budgeting, I opted for a very general “awareness” of my budget rather than actually budgeting.
So basically I didn’t budget (lol).
Given I had saved such a nice, round number of $52,000, I knew approximately how healthy my bank account should look at any given week during my gap year. ie. By week 6 of my travel, I should, at the very least, have $46,000 remaining.
This allowed me to budget without having to spend too much time on the financial administration that I simply didn’t have the time to do.
Thus, if I had a few expensive weeks after travelling Italy and Switzerland, I’d really cut my costs and do a lot of cooking and cheaper sightseeing in Croatia and Slovenia.
If you’re also somewhat avoidant of unnecessary admin, then I actually highly recommend the same approach. It’s definitely a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times but frankly, as long as you have the ability to brutally cut down expenses when you’ve overspent, you’ll make it work and also save lots of admin time.
However, if you’re a real freak, just go with the spreadsheet to be safe:
(This is from my friend Jack who spent 9 months travelling Europe in 2023)
So…
Why did I write this article?
Well, it’s because everyone kept asking me how I managed to afford 12 months of travel.
Or, they were too coy to ask the question directly, but not coy enough to hide their curiosity.
As someone who was lucky enough to have an amazing experience taking this gap year, I really hope you see my experiences and realise just how tangible long-term travel is.
Whether you backpack India after scraping together $3000 by selling your old car; or rent a mansion in Positano after inheriting $500,000 from daddy’s trust fund - I think that putting a number to how much everything cost, how long everything took and which locations were more affordable really makes the sometimes far-fetched dream of travel a little more realistic (366 days seems like a very long time when you’ve confined yourself to 10 day trips your whole life).
So I hope you found this post a little useful and a lot inspirational - ideally inspirational enough for you to quit your job, pack your bags and book that one-way flight too.
(After doing some budgeting, of course)
Manoj ❤️
My website: https://manojarachige.com
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manoj_arachige/
My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoj-arachige
Would you have considered doing fixed deposits that paid you $1000 each month?