We’ve made no secret of our budgets as we’ve posted our spending for each and every country we’ve passed through along the way. Just about everything included brings us to a grand total of:

$59,114

That number is for both of us for 21 months of travel. It includes all of our airfare, (except the one trip we took between the US and Europe since that was for a wedding and not for travel) buses, food, lodging, gifts, souvenirs, postage fees, visas and medical expenses. And again, that’s for BOTH of us….a combined total.

Could we have spent less…absolutely. In Africa we spent $5000 climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, taking a safari to the Ngorogoro Crater and visiting the Mountain Gorillas of Uganda. Take out that two week period and our total trip cost went down by nearly 10%.

What else isn’t included? I think I left off our travel medical insurance. Anything we purchased back in the US isn’t included, which does account for most of our gear, but on the other hand we sold a ton of stuff before we moved out which more than covers that expense. I also didn’t include all the tailored clothing we purchased in SE Asia, since that really had nothing to do with our trip at all.

Otherwise it’s all there. Transportation accounted for nearly one third of all of our spending. Activities averaged out to be about a quarter and food and lodging combined for 28%, but we spent a touch more on food than we did on sleeping, probably thanks to couchsurfing. The remaining 15% or so were the miscellaneous things that can vary dramatically such as how many souvenirs we purchased, over $2500 in visa fees, and how much time we spent at the Internet cafe or on the phone.

The point of all of this, of telling you our deepest darkest secret, is to make it abundantly clear how easy this is to do if you make it a goal and stick to it. We’ve just developed a new financial planning website to help others do the same, so feel free to use it!