Central & South America (& OZ/NZ ?) in the same RTW + Budget questions

Dear RTWers,

Let me tell you about our plans... with my girlfriend Teresa I'm
planning on leaving in August for around a year. For me it's my second
trip - I spent 9 months in South America after my studies, 5 years
back (for Tere it will be the first time). We're in the lucky position
that we live in Belgium, where by law you are allowed to take a
sabbatical year off work, so the only thing still in our way is to
find someone to rent out our flat for 12 months.

The idea is to backpack (8-10 months) but also do some volunteering
(2-4 months).

Our budget is about 15 000 Euros (23 000 USD, 11 400 UKP) in total
including flights. That leaves us, after flights which seem to be
around 2000 Euros per person (?), to a daily budget of 18 Euros (27
USD) if we are away for 10 months.

Living standards: Accommodation in dorm beds and shared showers is
okay for us, a minimum of cleanliness would be nice though. Hopefully,
from time to time a real double room with private shower, and the
occasional meal in a restaurant.

Destinations: Initially our plan was to combine South and/or Central
America with Australia&NZ, SE Asia and Tibet/Nepal. We have now almost
ruled OZ/NZ out :-( since I don't think it will fit the budget (unless
someone tells us it is really easy to find a job over there for 1-2
months that allows to cover living costs and some spare time for
travel?). I also would have liked to visit parts of South America I
haven't been to on my previous trip: Patagonia (Southern Argentina &
Chile) and Northern/NE Brazil.

Another concern for the above "ideal route" is that it seems to be
difficult to find a RTW that includes S.America - OZ/NZ routes (and
even more difficult to find C.America - OZ/NZ routes) (and literally
impossible to find S.America to Central America routes)

With budget constraints, a likely route now appears to be something
like: Europe --> Panama overland {Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras,

Nicaragua, Guatemala} to Mexico or Southern US (+- 5-6 months incl. 2
months volunteering) --> Hawaii (2 weeks) --> Japan (1 week) --> Hong

Kong overland {Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia} to
Singapore (3-4 months) --> home

It would be really nice if some of you RTWers could give us feedback
regarding one of more of the following:

1) Our budget - is it realistic for a route like the above "likely
route"? I.e. around 20 Euros per day per person for 8 months of
backpacking in Central America and SE Asia and 2 months of voluntary work.
2) How much would a week in Hawaii or Japan set us back? I'd love to
travel in Japan but I guess 1 week Japan = 1 month Laos?
3) Recommendations or resources for free or almost free volunteering
opportunities in Central America or SE Asia. We both speak fluent
Spanish, I work in IT, Tere in Chemistry, we wouldn't mind working
with kids for example.
Should volunteering rather be arranged before leaving or can you
easily find projects whilst on the road?
4) Is it realistic to think that we can find a job like working in a
hostel or something, while on the road, that would allow us to get by
for a while once we're starting to run low on money? I know a lot of
people teach English but none of us are native English speakers so I
guess that's not really an option?
5) Do you know a RTW ticket that allows combining S.Am with C.Am
and/or S.Am/C.Am with OZ/NZ?
6) How to do OZ/NZ on a budget?
7) What are the taxes like on RTW tickets? 10%? More?
Or anything else you think we should know... :-)

This mail has become really long now, sorry about that!!! Any help
will be greatly appreciated.

Charlie & Teresa

I'll answer questions 5 and 7.

You can combine Central and South America, and Australia/NZ on virtually all RTW tickets. Some have routing restrictions (maximum mileage) that will make it difficult, but the Oneworld Explorer ticket (sold by continents, not mileage) will easily allow all those places.

Because airlines use "hub and spoke" routing systems, sometimes you need to supplement the RTW ticket with short hops, in order to avoid having to go from, say, Honduras to Panama without needing to route through Miami. Too much of that "doubling back" will quickly eat up your mileage allotment. With Oneworld, Lan Airlines (divisions based in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador) have extensive networks throughout SA, with some (not a lot but some) to Central America. Note Central America is part of North America for the purposes of counting continents (just as the Middle East is part of Europe for the same reason.) Lan flies from Santiago to NZ and Oz; Qantas is also starting Buenos Aires - Sydney nonstop later this year. (Both are in Oneworld.)

As to taxes, yes, around 10% has been typical; however increasingly the airlines are adding pretty stiff fuel surcharges (which aren't taxes but which also aren't included in the RTW base price) so by the time you travel I'd mentally add something like 13-15% to the base price, and be prepared for it to be more, unless oil prices go down. (Sure, you bet.)

I don't think Hawaii will be affordable on your budget.

Even travelling in cheap countries, I would consider your budget unrealistic. The USA, including Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and yes, Oz/NZ, will all be beyond your budget. As will pretty much any major city in S. America.

I suggest you wait another year, save hard and have enough money to enjoy your trip, not just survive it.

I have a positive outlook for you with a few caveats.

-Are you under 30? In which case you get working holiday visas for Australia and New Zealand. Studying the seasonal fruit picking schedules can help plan where and when you might find different kinds of work. And there are lots of people working down under doing all kinds of things.
-Can you make a profit or a loss out of your flat? We just got our flat rented yesterday. But we are going to be losing about 1500 EUR over the year while we are away. The let is for a year which gives us security but we were hoping to make a profit to pay for some activities
-Look again at the flights, especially oneworld but see how much you can do overland. Even so, if you do actually go round the world and/or include Hawaii/Japan as well as NA, CA, SA, Oceania then I think your flight cost estimate is low. But check the oneworld costs and look at star alliance (if flying klm somehow is convenient)
-Of course the US and Hawaii are expensive. And CA is more expensive than SA (from what I understand 20 EUR each will be tight for CA but is OK for SA especially if you are cute with local black market currency exchange)

(I should note that we have a similar plan. We have just under 30 EUR per day each for 11 months including US, CA, SA, NZ, Aus, Indochina. But that is after paying 3200 EUR each for flights, after paying for insurance (1500 EUR for the year!!), equipment and medical costs (2000 EUR?) and also after a lot of our US costs are paid for (car hire etc.). We know we will run out of money and have to work in NZ and Oz and stay with family...)

www.funkideli.fi/blog

Your anticiapted loss is 1500 MC_Deli. You are assuming that because they signed a 1 year lease, that they will stay for the full year. What if they move out after a couple of months? What's plan B in that case?

You are also assuming you will find work in NZ/OZ. What if you don't? Are you counting on finding work and saving money to fund further travel? This is a mistake I see all to often here on the TT. If you find work and use it to supplement travel funds, that's fine. It allows you to stay longer in a place if you want to and quit and leave when you feel like it. But if you have to find work to fund further travel ), it is a bad idea.

Travelling on a budget is fine. Travelling on a bigger budget is better. Enjoying your time is better than spending a lot of your time looking for the cheapest everything and having to not do/see things because of costs. I have seen a lot of backpackers who spend so much of their time searching for the cheapest everything, they do very little enjoying of where they are. It is better to travel for 6 months enjoying yourself than 12 months simply surviving the experience.

It's not about being positive. It's about being realistic and enjoying as much as you can afford. If I were the OP, I'd double the budget forecast and half the time or as I said, work for another year and then go.

When people post these kinds of posts, the basic question they are looking for an answer to is, 'how little can I survive on?' The question they should be looking for an answer to is, 'how little can I enjoy myself on?' That's not the same question.

Many thanks for all your replies:

@Gardyloo --> I will look into the Oneworld explorer ticket. I'd ruled this backtracking via Miami out before, but it's all another story on a ticket with no mileage restrictions.

@MC_Deli --> I'm under 30 but unfortunately the WHV only exists for some set countries. We're of Spanish & Luxembourgish nationality and there is no agreement between our countries and OZ/NZ for Working Holiday Visas, so we can't get them. We're making a loss of about 400 Euros out of the flat, but luckily we can compensate this by the allowance we will receive from the generous Belgian government for doing a "career break" - they pay you a fee hundred Euros per month while you're on this career break programme, so our budget is more or less what we will spend on the road. How did you figure out this shocking amount for medical costs and insurance? I hope this is for both of you together, but even if it is it looks extortionate to me. Just had a look at your blog - well interesting. However you have a hell of a packing list. You're hoping all that to be less than 15 KG (maybe I have misunderstood something?)?? good luck :-) Looks like a fantastic trip you're going to make - I really liked the world map in your blog.

@Wayworn1 --> Of course there are different budgets for different people with different lifestyles and expectations. I think nobody would disagree on the fact that it's better to have a larger budget than a small one, but it's not always an option to save for another year and go then. For us for instance, the moment is this year - in August we'll have the opportunity to go and we can't really (besides the fact that we don't want to) wait for another year, for many reasons. I know from experience than I can enjoy myself quite a lot with 20 Euros a day in South America, since I have already done this once before during 9 months. What I don't know is how Central America and South-East Asia compares with Bolivia-Peru-Ecuador-Brazil-Argentina budget-wise, this is the reason I asked about it. Your reply actually made me a bit worried, but later I saw that on another thread you suggested that a good (global) average budget to travel with would be TWO HUNDRED US$ (unless that was a typo?), so now I am not too worried anymore about your "warning" advice. Don't get me wrong though, I do appreciate your answer.

The $200 on the other post was a bit of a joke LuxCharlie, so go back to worrying. I consider a good overall budget to be 50E per person per day. That average would probably get you everywhere you want to go. 28E will not, simple as that.

You are part of the 'Now' generation. I want what I want and I want it NOW. That isn't necessarily a good thing LuxCharlie. At 28E you are in fact not going to get what you want. So as I said, I'd either wait and save more money or reduce the total time to allow a higher average per day.

At 28E per day/person, you cannot afford to visit more expensive places. That means that rather than simply choosing where you want to visit, you are forced to choose only cheaper places or go to a more expensive place for a shorter time. I can't see how that makes any sense. If I am going to travel, I want to travel to the number one place in the world that I want to visit. Not my second or third choice. So if top of my list was USA, Australia, Canada, UK and Japan, I wouldn't be happy going to Thailand, Malaysia and Brazil, regardless of how cheap they might be. I also want to spend the amount of time in them that I want to spend. I don't want to go to the USA for a week for example when I figure I need 3 months to see and do what I want to see and do there.

I'd rather go to my top 2 places for the amount of time I want in them than go to 6 places I'm not as interested in for twice as long.

If you see all places as being equally as good to visit, then I suggest you have little real interest in any of them. If everywhere is the same, anywhere will do. If that's the case, there nothing more to be said.

Shame about the whv - to continue: Both of us need decent shoes, decent sleeping bags, one decent missing rucksack, contact lenses for a year at 280e, contraceptive pills for a year at 100e, jabs for two to about 350e, a few guidebooks, other odds and sods - it all adds up. And with the insurance there are only a few provides in Finland and, after the annual holiday insurance that covers three months, the extra 9 months each for a year of travel cost. We have been round the major providers including the 'travel specialists' and all in it is costing us a shade over 1500 eur to be insured for the year and less than 200e of that is house insurance. yes, it is very f'**ing expensive up here.

Our budget is 56e or 28 eur each per day. Though, as I mentioned, that is after major known costs in North America an some set aside for Galapagos. The budget level is one reason Japan is off the menu and why we will be working in Oz/NZ. There is another extreme here - you only have to go to the couch surfing sites and find people traveling on much lower budgets and getting what they want. If I wanted to visit expensive places I'd blow the lot on a weekend in a dubai seven star

Edited by: MC_Deli - lhv sounds like a luncheon voucher