19 Aug How Much Did 15 Months of Travel Cost?

We spent an incredible 15 months backpacking through Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia, but how much did this trip cost us? We’ve tallied up the figures to reveal how much we spent including pre-trip costs, flights and visas; we’ve also broken down how much money we spent in each country we visited.

So, How Much Did 15 Months of Travel Cost?

Here’s how much money we spent during our initial 15 month trip through Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia:

• Pre-trip costs (minus flights, visas etc) = £2,222.86
• International flights = £2,768.50
• Travel costs within countries (including domestic flights) = £21,208.71
• Visas = £424.20
• Total figure of how much spent during 15 months of travel, including flights, visas and pre-trip costs = £26,624.27

That means, on average, our trip cost £1732.60 per month for two people (or £866.30 per person) including all pre-trip expenses, flights, visas and all of our day-to-day living costs while we were travelling. Here’s a pie chart to illustrate in percentage terms what we spent that total £26,624.27 on:

Notes on Flights and Visa Costs

You can find out all of our international and domestic flight costs in this separate breakdown. When it comes to visa costs it’s important to note that these will vary depending on what passport you hold and how long you intend to stay in a country; we hold British passports, here’s a breakdown of what we spent on visas:

• Two 30-day Laos visas each, which we got on arrival = £86 (£21.50 per person per visa).
• One 31-day Vietnam visa each, which we got in Luang Prabang in advance = £80 (£40 per person per visa).
• One 30-day Burma visa each, which we got in Bangkok in advance = £38.20 (£19.10 per person per visa).
• One 30-day Cambodia visa each, which we got on arrival = £30.50 (£15.25 per person per visa).
• One 60-day Indonesia visa each, which we got in London in advance = £70 (£35 per person per visa).
• One 60-day Thailand visa each, which we got in Kuala Lumpur in advance and extended by 30 days in Thailand = £119.50 (£22.25 per person per 60-day visa and £37.50 per person for visa extension).
• All other visas were free up to certain amounts of time.

Country Cost Comparison

We thought it would be interesting to break this total figure down to see how much we spent in each country we visited, that way other travellers can get an idea of how expensive each place is. The countries in the table below are listed in order of how much we spent per day starting with the cheapest (Laos) to the most expensive (New Zealand). Bear in mind that the costs are for two people.

It’s important to note that the figures in the table below do not include flights into or out of the country or visa costs as these will vary depending on where you’re travelling from and to, which passport you hold and how long you’re staying in the country for. However, these costs do include any domestic flights we took within each country.

* = There are no visa costs to enter these countries for certain periods of time.

Money Spent in Each Country Per Day

Be aware that some of the countries may appear more expensive than they actually are when looking at the total cost column in the table above. For example, we spent £4,690.91 in Thailand but this high cost is due to the fact that we spent 133 days there, the average per day figure for Thailand is actually a pretty reasonable £35.27 for two people. So, we think it’s most useful to look at the per day costs to see how cheap or expensive a country is, as illustrated in this pie chart:

How we Spent our Money

So what did we spend all of that money on? While we were travelling we used the fantastic Trail Wallet iPhone app to record all of our spending, this allowed us to see exactly where our money was going. You can read all of our detailed cost break-downs by country on this page but here’s an overview of how we spent our money in each country we visited. Note that domestic flights are included in the transport costs listed below.

Quick Cost Facts

The following figures are based on our per day costs.

• Our cheapest country for activities was Taiwan (£0.89); the most expensive was New Zealand (£48.32).
• Our cheapest country for food and drink was Burma (£7.23); the most expensive was New Zealand (£16.52).
• Our cheapest country for accommodation was Laos (£7.58); the most expensive was Australia (£33.43).
• Our cheapest country for transport was Vietnam (£4.69); the most expensive was Australia (£31.95)
• Our cheapest country for miscellaneous costs was Australia (£0.74); the most expensive was Thailand (£2.85).
• The most expensive country on our trip was New Zealand (£122); the cheapest was Laos (£29.10).

On average we spent £46 per day for two people during our 15-month trip. If you take off Australia and New Zealand and count just what we spent in Asia, our average daily costs plummet to £35.07 per day for two people – not bad!

Notes about our Day-to-Day Travel Costs

Everyone travels differently and your costs will vary depending on factors such as whether you like to eat cheap local food, whether you prefer to stay in hotels or hostels and guesthouses and whether you fly everywhere or take trains and buses instead. Here are some notes on how we travel to help you make sense of our costs:

• We stayed in mid- to low-range accommodation such as hostels, cheap hotels and guesthouses which sometimes included breakfast.
• We ate out for most of our meals but in more expensive countries like New Zealand and Australia we cooked our own food from the supermarket most of the time.
• We used local transport as much as possible travelling by bus, train and boat. We also took domestic flights in large countries like the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.
• Our miscellaneous costs include such expenses as laundry, toiletries, medicines, gifts, clothes and various other costs.
• We tried not to skimp on activities and we did everything that we wanted to.

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Do you think we spent a lot on our trip; how do your costs compare?