Travel Budget. 1 Year.

South America - 3 Months (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Columbia)

No offence to you - but 3 months for 6 countries seems a bit crazy. Stick to 3 countries and spend it evenly in those 3 countries.

Brazil will be the killer - monetary wise. So maybe not spend much time there.

If you can spend as much time in the cheaper countries (SE ASIA/South/Central America) you could do it.

Perhaps look at a RTW ticket - as you are doing it.

You can do it on that budget (easily if you spend more time in SE Asia and cut down on Brazil and the USA).

Don't forget that apart from Mexico,there are lots of countries on the way to the USA.......Guatemala and Nicaragua are great destinations...but you will have to give more time here if you are not going to fly....

As Trent says,3 months for all of those SA countries is VERY fast..you will need to fly here,cut some out or give more time.

NYC is VERY expensive and very out of the way(depending where you are going in Canada of course).

Cost depends on many things........obviously,where you go ;-)

But also...how fast you travel (slower is cheaper)....accom (hostels are sometimes but not always cheaper)...food (local street food is always cheaper)...means of transport (in general,public bus is cheaper).......beer (less you drink,more money you will have for other things)......activities (if you want to do diving,organised trekking etc. you will spend far more than just wandering around a place)...the exchange rate (which can vary wildly over a year)

So hard to estimate......at a reasonable minimum maybe $20 a day in SE Asia......around $30 in much of CA and SA.....$50 in Brazil and a little more in the USA.........$80 in NYC ?

If your on a tight budget then Phuket is not the best place to be starting your adventure..
Be careful, Phuket will be full of cashed up Aussies on a two week bender / package deal with lots of money to throw around.. The Thais will take advantage of it all, and good luck to them.
Being christmas and new year time, you have chosen one of the more expensive ports-of-call in which to start your adventure..

Good luck, if i was you I'd be moving on from Phuket a.s.a.p.

I would consider missing mexico for 2 reasons. 1) due to the current situation with the drug cartels mexico is becoming the new columbia. 2) the areas that you will be less at risk will be more expensive. I would go over to cuba and spend some time there personally then fly to the u.s via mexico (no direct flights from cuba). The north of thailand cambodia and laos are very cheap and vietnam also, though more likely to be exploited. you probably need to budget a minimum of $50 per day for S.E asia. You want to enjoy yourself dont try stretch out the time by not doing/seeing something. For the trip you are suggesting and for the amount of time you need $50K if you really want to enjoy yourself. Either save up for another year or spend your entire time in one area either asia or south america. You will never be too old to travel and you dont have to see it all tomorrow. If this is your first backpacking trip i suggest a 2 month trip first, you will learn from all the mistakes you make ( we've all been there) as well as learning a great deal about yourself. This isnt meant to put you off. A common mistake is that people try to see too much on too little money and time. Its better to come home with money left over ( great for the next trip) rather than having to miss out on an experience due to money running out.

I have considered a Tound the world trip myself - Air Treks offers a RTW ticket - this can be had for as little as $3000 or so - depending on the itinerary and i believe it is good for a year.

Are you talking about working illegally in Canada? ie. under the table? If so, think again.

You cannot work legally as a tourist and there are very few under the table type jobs in Canada. Unless you know what work you will be doing I would not count on finding work at all.

Agree with all the above advice except I think that your south american countries is do-able in 3 months as long as you don't plan on exploring every inch of every country. I started in Rio and ended up in Bogota and only flew once between Sao Paulo and Montevideo. This was in 3.5 months and I also visited a couple of cities in Ecuador. It really depends on what sort of traveling you like to do, I don't like to spend too long in one place (3 days per town is what I generally do, up to a week for large cities like Buenos Aires) and I completely skipped Iguazu falls and Patagonia because it would have eaten up too much of my time.

I think this is a pretty good budget, I'm assuming you've got $25k in AUD btw. $25/day for Asia, $35/day for South America, $70/day for the US and $50/day for Canada (as you won't have to pay for accommodation). Plus add on your flights, visas (incl. working visa for canada!), year-long insurance, vaccinations, travel gear etc... you're getting pretty close to 25k.

Personally I'd advise against getting the RTW ticket, especially with STA travel. I worked out that it would have been cheaper if I did it myself (I did this in 2009 from Australia to Canada) so now I'm on my way home to Australia and have booked flights myself. Look at budget airlines like Air Asia for SE Asia, Spirit Air for flights between South/Central America and the US and all domestic carriers in north america are very competitive since so many people fly. Your most expensive leg is going to be Asia-Brasil... there are no direct flights I believe, how much is it costing you?

As for the US, I don't know what your interests are but me (I'm an architect, so I love seeing buildings, and I also like music, chilled out nightlife, art galleries, wine-tasting regions, road trips through beautiful landscapes)... so when I traveled through the US I visited Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, road-tripped from Dallas to Houston, New Orleans, Orlando, Miami, flew to Chicago then flew to Toronto. But it depends on where you're ending up in Canada. If it's Toronto I'd save NYC for a vacation once you've saved up some more money working- it is a helluva expensive city these days.

Oh and there is some sort of pass you can get with Amtrak and there are a lot of rules and it's really not that worth it. There is a bus you can get with the national busline Greyhound, a lot of people don't rate it but I've been on a few and didn't think it was that bad, worst I ever experienced was just some lady saying "I just got outta prison, it totally wasn't my fault" lol. A 60 day pass is something like $500 from memory.

But flights are really affordable especially since it's a large country it will cut out some traveling time. But I would also highly recommend setting some money aside for car rentals- it's such an amazing country to drive around, especially through Oregon state, the Napa valley in Cali, seeing small random towns in Texas...just to name a few of the interesting drives.