Budget
Last year, we spent 6 weeks in Vietnam as part of our six-month backpacking trip. If we started with the idea of staying within a budget, we quickly realised that we didn’t want our trip to be entirely dictated by money. After Hawaii, we kept our budget loose, without going crazy either, even if it meant that we needed to re-think our itinerary.
Last year, we spent a whole month in Thailand as part of our six-month backpacking trip. If we started with the idea of staying within a budget, we quickly realised that we didn’t want our trip to be entirely dictated by money. We kept our budget loose, without going crazy either, even if it meant that we needed to re-think our itinerary.
We knew Japan would be expensive so we initially had a budget of $95 per day. We quickly decided that we didn’t want our trip to be entirely dictated by a budget so we kept it loose, without going crazy either. We were able to more or less stick to it, spending close to $110 per day (or $55 per person). We were surprised to notice that we spent almost the same as in Hawaii, where we flew from, but without restricting ourselves as much.
Since we’re travelling as a couple, the averages described below are for two people per day and are actually rounded up.
If you have read this blog before, you might remember that we didn’t exactly fall in love with Hong Kong. After a month in Japan, where the streets are clean and people are kind and helpful (even though they don’t speak English), we ended up in the crowded and dirty streets of Wan Chai where I felt uncomfortable and stared at. It wasn’t our favourite destination but we would still encourage other travellers to go and experience it by themselves. Although we met people who share our point of view about the city, a lot of people actually love it there and expats are countless.
Hawaii is the most expensive destination we’ve been to. Even Japan didn’t seem that expensive to us after spending six weeks in Hawaii! But we were determined to make it work on a budget and we did. We ended up spending $60 per day and per person which is pretty good for a state like Hawaii. Here is how we did it.
In 2014, we came back from a trip to Jamaica with one goal: tour the world. We would take two years to prepare and organise this adventure and the list of countries we wanted to visit was already endless.
Now that we have defined our itinerary and budget, it is time to think about a concrete aspect of our trip: vaccinations.
Organising a long journey implies significant involvement and takes time. It has been about a year and a half since we started to think seriously about this trip and saving up for it. Now, it’s time to buckle down and start planning.
