How do you prepare your travel budget and how much will you need for your trip? This is a question that cannot be answered simply without some details:

Large expenses

Is it worth spending €1,500 on a ticket for just one week, when some airlines now offer round-the-world tickets for just over that amount? It’s up to you to decide based on your travel budget. If you can, try to schedule your vacation time based on the ticket price, not the other way around.

The cost of the destination and the duration

Based on your average budget, is the country you want to go to a good fit? If not, there are two options. Either you decide to stick with your choice, then you’ll have to review the duration or postpone it to save more money. Or you decide to change, then don’t hesitate to visit sites like https://planificateur.a-contresens.net/ . They will give you the average daily cost per country. You can then adapt your trip to your budget. Be careful, this is often the average price when traveling with basic comfort.

For budget travel ideas, here are our personal suggestions: Philippines (30€/day), Peru (25€/day), Bolivia (20€/day), Chile (35€/day), Argentina (40€/day), Brazil (40€/day)… These prices are valid for a typical day including: transport, food, accommodation, moderate leisure activities, of course when we did not have a plan to sleep at a local’s house.

Way of traveling

Once you’ve bought your plane tickets, accommodation and transportation are the biggest expenses in your travel budget. For those on a tight budget, consider guesthouses, youth hostels, and campsites. For transportation, consider buses, local transportation, or even hitchhiking, depending on the country you’re traveling to, while respecting safety regulations, of course.

As for us, we’re more of a backpacker and a grassroots traveler. We’re careful about our spending, with the minimum of comfort (food, accommodation, transportation) so we can enjoy ourselves the rest of the time (activities, outings).

Exception: travel by car or van

Motorized or not? We usually go backpacking, by bus, or hitchhiking, but you also have the option of:

Rent a car: rental and fuel costs, but you save on transportation costs and are free to travel. (Mozambique and Tenerife)

Buy a vehicle (car, van): if you’re really going away for a longer period, this solution can be very interesting.This is not insignificant ( see our tour of Europe in a van ).

Car or van rental for a mid-budget road trip

Once the big items are taken into account (airfare, daily cost of living in the country, transportation, accommodation, etc.), we sometimes forget the smaller, more modest expenses. But when added together, they are not insignificant.

Here are the hidden costs you should keep in mind when calculating your travel budget.

For your information, the figures we give as examples are those for our 3-month trip to South America at the end of 2013.

Hidden costs to consider

Administrative: the cost of the passport (tax stamps) varies from one French department to another (€86 in September 2016 in Réunion).