What Does it Cost to Travel the World? Numbers from our First 2 Months
Before I left home I wrote a post titled, “What Does it Cost to Travel the World – What Does it Cost Not To?” where I was discussing the costs of a nomadic lifestyle and how I believed we would save money while being on the road. This week I got a prod from a commenter, Drew, who was frustrated I hadn’t used actual numbers in that post. It was a relevant point. At the time it didn’t seem right to use concrete numbers since we hadn’t gotten on the road yet and I would just be “guesstimating”. But now we’ve been out for 2 months and I’m ready to share with you what the numbers look like.
I realize that, like everyone, our family situation is unique. What we spend money on, the number of children we have, etc. will make our numbers look different than yours. Still I hope our example will give you some idea of what a nomadic lifestyle might look like financially for you.
Let’s start with our expenses back home. We lived in a 4 bedroom home in rural Austin, Texas. Our family had 2 cars and we had 2 kids in private school. Our third child was being homeschooled because we just couldn’t afford tuition for 3 as much as we loved the school. 2 of our kids were taking private music lessons.
These numbers only reflect regular monthly expenses that are affected by our travels. For instance, our mortgage is not included because we continue to pay that while we are traveling. Health insurance, utilities, etc. all stay the same at home. While we are away we are renting a section of our home to offset the rental paid abroad. We have also sold one car. You will see these numbers below.
Monthly Expenses Austin:
School tuition 2 children: $1800
Homeschooling 1 child: $100
Car payment: $270
Car insurance: $79
2 mobile phones on family plan: $50
Gas for one car used to transport children to school: $300
Food: $1000
Music lessons: $320
Netflix 3 at a time: $17
Total: $3936 per month
Monthly Expenses Brazil:
Rent 2 bedroom apartment electricity/water/monthly maid: $500
Tuition 3 children: $850
Gas: $17
SIM cards for 1 mobile phone: $25
Bus: $160
Food: $500
Total: $2052
Income while traveling:
Rent of home addition in Austin TX: $500
Total monthly travel expenses with home rental subtracted: $1552
Monthly savings of life in Brazil while renting home addition vs. life in Austin, Texas: $2384
Now, of course, some of this savings must be offset by our cost of traveling to our destination and back.
Cost of round trip airflight: U.S./Sao Paolo/Florianopolis for 4 passengers: $2966
Cost of visa applications 4 people: $600
Total travel cost: $3566
Projection over time:
Our current plan is to remain in Brazil for 6 months. However, if we can figure out how to extend our time to one year, we will. Let’s see how the numbers will play out for our current plan or for an extension.
Monthly savings x 6 months: $14,304
Subtracting travel expense of $3566: $10,783 total savings for 6 months
Monthly savings x 12 months: $28,608
Subtracting travel expense of $3566: $25,042 total savings for 12 month stay
Of course, some of these numbers will change over time. For instance, one of our children is begging to start back to strings lessons. On the other hand, beginning January, we will leverage a larger portion of our house for rental and plan to bring in an additional $600 per month this way.
While I have reviewed the numbers in terms of our savings in comparison to our U.S. lifestyle, another way to look at this is that it is costing us approximately $2052 per month to live as a family of 4 in Brazil (1 adult, 2 teens, and one 9 year old) with all 3 children attending private school. This is a grand total of $24,624 per year!
So, once again, for those of you on the fence about whether you can afford to travel, I ask – what is it costing you NOT to?
