Give us your opinion on our RTW travel
Replies: 18 - Last Post: Nov 24, 2012 3:51 AM Last Post By: joolz2
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Give us your opinion on our RTW travel
Hi everybody,We are a Canadian couple of 20years old and we are currently planning a RTW travel.
We will leave Canada with 10 000CAN$ each (it includes flight from Montréal to Santiago)
We will be backpacking during 1 or 1.5 years long on a budget.
We are interesting in travelling on a shoestring and to do lot of walking, trekking and camping.
Here’s our plan:
1. We will leaves on October1st Montreal-Santiago(Chile)
2. October-Chile
3. November-Argentina Mostly south of South America
4. December-Brazil
5. January: New-Zealand
6. February: Australia(Planning to work here from 1 month to 3 month maximum)
7. March: Indonesia
8. April: Thailand
9. May/June: Mainly China for trekking but also some Laos and Viet-Nam.
10. July/August: Nepal and India
11. September: Egypt
12. October: Greece
13. November: Norway
14. December: UK if we still have money but we could also try to work there for some months to finish the trip.
A lot of things could change since we will be leaving in a year only.
I’d like to hear your opinions on our planning!
Thanks you
Sorry if I made some mistakes while writing...English is my second language.
1
A couple comments. Generally a good itinerary. My first comment would be regarding Australia - you say you're planning to work for 1-3 months (first this would obviously have a knock on effect on the rest of your trip) - why? If you want to experience living in Australia then great, spend a year there working. Working for 1 month is a waste of time, first you need to find a job, then it has to be a job for just 1 month, then you'll only earn a tiny bit of money, hardly enough to save anything, then you won't get to actually travel around. You're better off spending an extra 1-3 months working at home saving money and then spend your time in Aus travelling and enjoying yourself.Then by the time you're hitting Europe it starts to get less good. Norway in November - great, for a few days to go skiing, go see the Northern Lights, but a this is cold. I know you're from Montreal (or I guess you are) so you know what a cold winter is all about. Similarly December in the UK is one of the most depressing times to be here, cold, grey, wet. I'd rethink that whole part of the trip.
Final comment - you're going to be spending a lot of time in more expensive places (Patagonia, Australia, Norway, UK.... ) nothing wrong here, just make sure you manage your funds properly.
Though over-all a nice trip to be had.
Bon Voyage.
2
I suspect that you may run out of cash. We based our Argentina budget on the latest LP shoestring guide, and it was far too light! Southern Argentina is more expensive than the the rest. Brazil and Chile are also not cheap.Does the $20k budget include all your flights, or just the first?
Being Canadian, you will get stung for a "visa" in Chile (and Brazil/Bolivia I think)
3
1.Thanks for your advice on working and travelling we will have to make a choice .We will also rethink about the last 2-3 months of our trips due to seasons...
2. Our budget does include only the first flight...I also bought the LP shoestring guide and maybe we will have to leave with more considering some expensive places we want to see!
All others comments are welcome
4
The problem with trying to travel to 3 or 4 continents on the same trip is that the air fares will be very expensive. To get this trip done i think you certainly will need more money. Your current 10,000, without taking any air fares out of it, works out at about 28 $CAN a day over the course of a year..... to put this into perspective this would hardly be enough for day to day travel in the cheapest countries on your plan.....Vietnam, Lao, China & India. You will also need to factor in preparation costs like Visa's, Vaccinations, travel insurance and all the other little costs that usually occur and add up to a having a big hole in your budget. Certainly agree with Toadoftoadhall in regard to your plan to work for a few months in Oz....no guarantee of finding decent paid work and you could rack up the costs while looking for work.......if its possible why not consider extending your trip and staying for a year in Oz on a WHV.....would allow more time to find work, save a bit and get some travel in. If this not possible my advice would be to just stick 1 or 2 regions.....maybe the cheaper ones.......spending a year travelling through South America, maybe adding Central America/Mexico or just sticking to SE Asia and India would have the makings of a great trip7
would have to agree strongly with Peregrinef......a few years ago my year long RTW trip ( 5 months in South America, 5 months in NZ & 2 months in SE Asia) cost approx 18,000 euro (22,,000 $CAN)......all flights, all preparation costs, visa's, vaccinations and daily travel costs. My trip was budget travel.....cheap hostels, cheap meals or cooking in hostels.....though plenty of nights out and done all activities I wanted to do. this was 4 years ago.....I know that countries such as Argentina are now more expensive to travel in than when I was there.8
As said above...your budget is far too low.Either....take more money...cut your time down....and/or cut your destinations.
This plan will cost you a fortune in plane fares for a start...if you look at 1 or 2 areas closer together it is far more doable on that budget.Obviously that will shorten your trip as well and so you will have more money per day.
9
The flight that you're going to get stung on is the South America to Aus/NZ. Shouldn't be too far shy of $2000. Maybe a few hundred between NZ and Aus, than another few hundred to SE Asia.That's 30% of your budget on flights.
I'd go to SE Asia and do it well, then live to fight another day.
10
Thanks for comments it’s really helping us!If we consider leaving with 15k each, and removing the last part of our trip (Europe), would this be more feasible?
11
By cutting off Europe do you mean shortening your trip by the 3 months you planned there or will you add those 3 months onto the cheaper regions (India & SE Asia)? The air fares are still going to take a lot off your budget......removing Europe after your trip to Egypt only means saving on one of your cheapest air fares. Going by the approx flight costs given by Peregrinef you may still end up spending 4 or 5 k on flights leaving approx 10k......if your trip is now going to be about 9 months this works out at maybe 40$ CAN a day.....probably still leaving you a little short12
Not nearly enough money. Some suggestions:You are going to the 3 most expensive countries in S America. If you went to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and/or Colombia instead, you could survive on about half as much as you would spend in Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
Fewer continents - you could easily spend a year just in Asia and S America, and this would cut down on inter-continental flights.
Cut out Australia, which is very expensive at the moment due to the strong Aus$, and there's no guarantee that you would get well-paid work there for a couple of months.
Don't set yourself a time limit. Just travel until you run out of money, then book a flight home on your credit card and get a job to pay it off.
14
You don't say, so I will ask. Do you intend to have WHVs for Australia and the UK or were you thinking of working illegally?
