After completing your travel plan you should know roughly how much you need in the bank to make your dream a reality. By keeping track of your income and expenses you should be able to put together a budget to work out how long its going to take to reach your goal. When I started saving for my trip I cut back on a lot of unnecessary things to help get me to where I wanted to go as soon as possible. When the chance arises to go to the cinema or for a night out, just stop and ask yourself – would I rather spend that money now, or would I rather save it for an even better time on my trip abroad?!

    Here are some ideas on ways to help you save money in the lead up to your trip:

    • Cut alcohol
    • Cut coffee
    • Cut eating out
    • Cut smoking
    • Cut snacks
    • Cut soft drinks
    • Cut the cinema
    • Cancel your gym membership
    • Cancel your magazine subscriptions
    • Cancel your newspaper
    • Cancel your netflix
    • Disconnect your landline
    • Disconnect your internet connection
    • Cook from home
    • Get a housemate
    • Open a savings account
    • Sell stuff
    • Walk or ride instead of public transportation
    • Work extra shifts
    • Work a side hustle

    How much money do I need to travel?

    As the saying goes, how long is a piece of string? To put it simply, it depends. It depends where you’re going, it depends how long you’re going for, and it depends on your style of travel. Are you going to stay in hotels, hostels, or are you going to try couchsurfing? Will you fly between destinations or will you take a bus or train? Will you get around by taxis, public transportation, or by foot? Are you planning to eat out every night, or are you going to cook for yourself? Are you planning to drink? Is it enough to see famous sights from the outside or do you plan to go inside every attraction? There are so many variables it’s impossible to give a definitive answer. Everyone is different and everyone has their own style of travel, you’ll need to work out your style as you go. One of the best pieces of advice I came across when planning my first trip was this:

    "When you've worked out how much money you think you'll need, double it."

    While you might not spend double of what you’ve worked out, it’s always better to have too much than too little. Any extra money can go a long way. The way I look at it, any money you save you can put towards extending your trip. Ultimately, how much money you plan to take it up to you.

    When I was planning my first trip abroad, I researched the individual daily averages for every country I planned to visit. Doing it that way can be veeery time consuming. In my opinion it’s much better to work out a daily average by region. These are the daily averages I’ve used in each region in accordance to my style of travel.

    • South East Asia USD$25-30
    • Indian Subcontinent USD$15-20
    • Central Asia USD$30
    • Caucasus USD$30
    • Eastern Europe USD$40
    • Western Europe USD$60

    For my Eurasia Trip, I decided on EUR€60/AUD$100 a day for the duration of my trip. That including EVERYTHING (flights, travel insurance, visas, etc). My philosophy being that this was to be the trip of my life and I didn’t want a second grade experience. I’d done a budget trip before, and this time I wanted to not have to worry about counting every dollar.

    My style of travel was pretty relaxed; I stayed mostly at hostels and budget accommodation, I ate out once a day, I self-catered in expensive countries, I walked as much as I could, I used public transportation for larger distances, wherever possible I took buses between my destinations, and drank as much beer as I pleased. I was always careful with my money but if I wanted to visit an expensive attraction or to have a really good meal every now and then, I would never hold back.

    I went all over the place, crossing Europe from east to west and back again with jaunts into the Middle East and Central Asia. Through all this I kept my daily budget exactly the same. My reasoning being; in some countries I would spend well over EUR60 a day, while in others I would spend less than half of that, but in the end it evened out. On average I didn’t spend EUR60 a day, so every dollar I saved on my average went straight towards extending my trip. I’d booked a one way ticket and was extremely flexible, so I ended up with a bonus extra couple of months at the end of my trip.

    There are of course a lot of ways to make travel fit your budget.

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