Preparing a budget for an extended backpacking journey is no small feat, and I have spent countless hours pouring over my travel budget to crunch the numbers in an effort to make this trip work.
The money I am spending on this trip is the culmination of my life savings, and I have no college debt to the credit of extensive scholarships, graduating early, and support from my parents.
Estimating Daily Cost of Living
There are many online resources to support you in your efforts to prepare a travel budget. One of my personal favorites is www.budgetyourtrip.com, which estimates a daily cost of travel in different parts of the world. My favorite feature of this free site is that you can indicate the travel style you are seeking - budget, mid-range, or luxury. For all of my planning, my budget was based on the budget recommendation, but modified to reflect more specific costs I calculated.
As you will see in in the attached spreadsheet below, I recorded the "Expected Cost/Day" and "my Cost/Day" for each country. Due to the transiency I anticipate on this trip, my travel expenses generally exceeded the online daily budget estimate. If I were to stay in one city at an AirBnB where I could buy groceries and cook, it would be much cheaper.
Travel Credit Card
After a lot of research, I decided the best travel credit card was the Capital One Venture One VISA. I had to apply twice before they approved me for it, but it has been accepted everywhere internationally so far.
Nothing is more frustrating than being unable to book something when you have the money and cannot pay - it is worth it to get the card!
Points I earned on this card also paid for my flight from Helsinki, Finland to Bangkok, Thailand as well as hundreds of dollars in rebates for accomodation.
Travel Debit Card
Especially in Asia, there are a lot of places that do not accept card. I spend a lot of times at ATMs on this trip, and I cannot reccomend the Charles Schwab debit card more highly.
I did a lot of research before making this decision, because acquiring the card was a loophole that sounded too good to be true.
When you open up an investor account with Charles Schwab, a free benefit to investing with them is a high-yield checking account that reimburses all ATM fees charged by ATMs around the world.
Thats right.
The card charges no fee for using it, and pays you back whatever the ATM charges you. This is a huge amount of money when your entire trip is popping ATM to ATM!
even better, you don’t actually have to invest with Charles Schwab. Just open the investor account, put in $0, then open the checking account where you put all of your cash.
This card has been a game changer.
Transportation
Although the most talked about way to travel through Europe is via the Euro-rail train, I found this method of travel to be much more expensive than it was 20 years ago. It is no longer backpacker budget friendly. In addition, Eastern Europe lacks the extensive public transportation that is omnipresent in Western Europe, so I found buses to be the best option for the majority of my trip.
As I researched cost of connection from country to country, I kept track of the rough costs in my excel sheet. However, I also want to keep in mind that the map of my trip may change as I go. In Europe, you can also fly from one country to the next for $100 or less. If I grow exhausted of long bus rides, I will absolutely consider hopper flights.
Buses are also extremely easy to find in Asia, I have heard that the open-ended bus ticket is a great, cheap way to see Vietnam if you do not want to buy motorbikes for the journey.
Using the Google Maps trip planning feature, I dropped pins at all of the locations I wanted to travel to and created a route plan for the next five months. While I expect this plan to change, having a skeleton plan is essential.
Also, as a fair warning, google maps my not account for all the roads that actually exist in less traversed countries. In Vietnam the maps will also put you on roads motorbikes are not allowed on. Don‘t put all of your faith in Google Maps!
Accomodation
For the past six months I have spent almost every night in hostels. Hostels are the best way to meet people along the way, which is especially important when solo traveling!
In addition, hostels are the cheapest way to travel. In Serbia, the most low-cost country I will be traveling to, hostels can be as cheap as $10/night. Usually European countries had hostels between $16 and $30 - I shot for $20 per night. In Asia, hostels are $4 to $10 per night - I shot for $6 per night.
Always check for bed bugs!
If you plan to stay longer in one place, probably with friends, AirBnB is worth checking out. It is more active in Europe than Asia, but a cool option for cities with limited hostel options. I rented an AirBnB in Tallinn, Estonia and it was so refreshing to have my own shower and kitchen.
Below is a template on Google sheets that you are welcome to use to prepare for your own trip.
The cells are editable, so if you decide to change the number of days you will spend in a particular location, the cells will shift to accommodate that change.
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