1

Your plan of countries to visit, amount of time for each country and the time of year are good. However as Jim Burns said your planned budget for each country is way off.....even adding your 4000 buffer over the course of the 13 months only amounts to around $30 a day......may be enough for countries like Vietnam & India but doubt you will get through a years travel sticking to that budget

2

No problem in planning ahead....Take the buffer an add it straight in now, then get another buffer! Doesn't matter where you got your numbers from, but they are off--Some by a little, some by a lot. As a long time budget traveler, living in Asia on your budget, even for me, would be next to impossible. I realize that in actuality, it will be double this because there are two of you, which saves alot on accommodation, but hey, you gotta eat and have a bit of fun and move around!! That's 500 baht a day in thailand.......not much of a chance, even if its 2 at a 1000. . Laos...no way.....got very expensive over the last few years... India, possible, but difficult, on your budget unless your staying in the lowest form of accommodation. India too, is getting much more expensive. Costa Rica, you are close on an EXTEMELY severe budget, but still i think no chance.

What i see more than anything is that you think you are going to have 20K to travel with, EACH. If you've been to France, greece etc, then skip it... Take your 20 grand and stay in all the other countries. Given 2015, for sure the cheapest hostel for 2 will be 40 euro minimum in Europe .. In other words, skip europe and concentrate a bit more in South America.... add in Colombia on top of Ecuador and Peru and Bolivia... . One month for each would be enough to get a great taste but peru is addictive!!

Re: India for 2 1/2 months.....the problem i see here is that most people travel around india following the weather. You have picked a very difficult time...Its on the cusp of changing weather. Its bloody hot from Goa to the South, and can be rainy in the north. Do you want mountains or beach for India??? Might want to consider India a bit before South East Asia, or better yet, take it as it comes. The time that you allocated to Europe is the time you should be in India. Very easy at any time to be in Bankok, grab a visa to india, and easy jet over..... But again, think what you want to see....

Again, your numbers...Did you just use an out of date LP. Go on something like hostelbookers.com and check out some prices. Even the cheapest dorm room for 2 in Manuel Antonia in Costa Rica is going to set you back about 20 UK pounds..... and that's in 2013. Same in Ecuador....

I guess you know which countries you want to visit....What's the old adage? Throw out half your luggage and double your budget!

Good luck though..You are on the right track

Edited by: TravellinAndi

3

Now some of the responses on here have me slightly concerned. I can see that the OP's budget is pretty low however...
The wife and I are heading out around July 2014. I have budgeted around £80 per day (approx USD$127) per day, for both of us, for countries like Russia and China. £100 per day for U.S and mexico (again for both of us). However, for areas like SE Asia, India and central america we are looking at having around £38 (approx USD$60). We spent 4 months in India in 2009 and had a daily budget of about £28 for both of us and were very aware of being on a budget but didn't really struggle. So my initial thoughts were that these budgets would be ok. Does anyone have any thoughts / reassurance?

4

This thread could be useful for you in order to get an idea of how much to budget for the Western Europe part of your route.

5

They all seem too low to me.....

Of course it depends on many things.If its all hostel dorms,cheapest possible street and supermarket food,no organised activities,no alcohol or nights out,local buses only,walking around cities (ie no taxis)......some of these daily budgets are possible.

Do you want to travel like that?

6

$12 a night in vietnam sounds like a specially fun adventure, apparently its cheaper than india!($13) you could probably come somewhere close if you were camping everynight in a park. Did you grab these figures from the nightly lotto draw ? =)

7

$60 a day is fine for two people in SE Asia. It will easily cover hotel ($10-$15), food ($5-$10 per meal for two) and transport (roughly $20 each for 12hrs on a bus).
You may need to budget a bit extra for big excursions, visas, flights etc.
Vietnam is slightly more expensive, but not hugely. In Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, we have been paying around $10-$15 for a double ensuite room with air con. In Vietnam, we have just booked a dorm for around the same price.
Have a look on Hostelworld - it's pretty good at giving an idea of the accomodation costs in various cities.

8

Thank you all for your advice! I got my numbers mostly from this travel budget calculator:

http://www.budgetyourtrip.com//budgetqueryadv.php

I had checked its budget lodging estimates against hostelbookers, airbnb, etc., and it seemed to match fairly well. I guess I just assumed that if they'd gotten that right, they'd have gotten the rest right. I have also heard of a fair number of couples doing year-long RTW trips on 20k each, so I'd hoped it would be alright. Like I said, some of those numbers did seem pretty low...guess they were lower than I thought. I've been having some difficulty finding consistent info on things like cost of food, transportation, etc. for some of these countries. Guess it's back to combing the internet.

If anyone else still has advice, it would be very welcome of course.

Thanks again!

-Mari

9

Oh, also, we're hoping to WWOOF in Spain...we'll mostly be there to practice our Spanish again, since it will have been a while since South America at that point. That would cut out lodging and at least some food. Otherwise, I wouldn't have added it. But I think you guys are right about Greece and France...Europe is so expensive :(

Do any of you have experience with Morocco?

10

Buy a guide book and then add abit more to there suggested budget as there always out of date

11

On that site you linked to above....

I just put in 2 cities that i know very well...Palermo and Rome in Italy...and it gave me VERY low estimates for daily budgets.

Not only,but it told me that Palermo is more expensive..which is absolutely not true.

So i wouldn't trust those budget estimates too much.....;-)

12

You could also give us some more info.

Do you want to stay in hostel dorms or double rooms?

Do you want to eat in restaurants? Or are you ok with supermarket sandwiches/street stall food?

Do you want to do organised activities like diving,trekking,mountain climbing etc.?

Do you want to go out in the evenings? Discos,clubs,pubs?

13

Morroco will certainly be less expensive than Europe.....on a recent medium budget trip to Marrakesh and Essaourisa our daily budget was $50 a day each......could be done cheaper.....you can get accomadation for $10 - 15 a night....eating street food is very cheap.
Also think it would be unwise to arrive in Spain thinking you are guarenteed to be able to go WWOOFING and that is going to help you cut down costs and save money.
Agree with others that you should buy some up to date guidebooks and look at websites like hostelworld for accurate accomadation prices

14

bmovieneil
Does that include transportation from city to city? Does it include accommodations? What were you planning to eat? If you aren't staying in a dorm room, eating at fast food restaurants plus self catering, only including local transport, and not planning to visit lots of museums, then this is fine for two people for Russia. If any of the of these variables are not correct then it is insifficient. I usually suggest a minimum of 75 USD per person per day in Russia.

Ruth