Our trip costs

What has it cost us to travel since October 2012?


We've included this section to give other people planning early retirement or similar trips some idea of what it may cost. Searching the internet and reading travel books such as Lonely Planet are good at giving an indication of accommodation, tour and meal costs separately, but putting it all together to try to give an overall cost of a trip is hard to do as there are often incidental costs that are difficult to account for.

The costs detailed in the links below are our real and complete costs for all the trips we have done. On each page accessed from the links the first figure, the 'Overall total cost' is really everything we spent for that entire trip but, to be relevant to other readers, a comparison has to be made between our expectations and requirements and those of the readers, so this is our summary.

We are a 'middle aged' couple, happy in our own company but willing to meet and interact with others. We're daytime, relatively adventurous outdoor people, preferring quiet nights in, home cooking (where possible) and modest drinking rather than rowdy nights out at expensive restaurants, clubs and bars, they just don't register on our list! When we do go out for meals we are careful on our selection of restaurants and prefer local food and places where 'normal folk' would go rather than 'chic' places, as these not only keep the cost down but give us a more authentic feel for a place.

Our travels for the first six years (to early 2018) were, what could be described as backpacking, where we flew to distant destinations with one bag or rucksack each and travelled around by public transport. During this time our hotel choice was for hotel rooms with private bathrooms, clean, with breakfast and wifi where possible, but not luxury. We are happy in budget hotels as long as it is clean and everything works as it should. We will stay in more basic hotels/campsites if the need arises and we are not afraid of this, but just prefer a bit more luxury these days. Hostels with mixed dorms we would do at a push but this would be very much the exception and only in very remote places with no alternative.

In 2018 we bought a motorhome, 'Big Ted', with it's own bathroom, separate shower and full kitchen and dining/lounge facilities so for these trips we had our own accommodation either in Big Ted or staying in houses during our housesitting assignments. These are marked as motorhome trips to differentiate.

Overall, we don't spend money without justifying it, so if it's something we really want to do and it's expensive we will do it, but not very often. Most things we want to see and do cost little: rock climbing, hiking in mountains or amazing wild areas and sightseeing, but occasionally we may want to go whale watching or scuba diving, we balance the costly things against less costly or free things, always keeping in mind our overall cost and budget.

Have a look at each of our cost sheets below (starting with latest trip first, working down to the earliest in 2012), but first is a graph of our travel costs per country:

Click on each of the trips below to open a separate cost sheet with full details:

Trip 18 - Cruise to Seychelles via Suez Canal & India 19th November to 23rd December 2023



Trip 15 - Norwegian Fjord Cruise  5th to 11th February 2023

Trip 14 - USA South West 25th September to 20th December 2022

Trip 13 - Egypt & Jordan 25th March to 17th April 2022

Trip 12 Motorhome tour of UK, Spain & Portugal

Trip 11 Motorhome tour of UK

Trip 10 South Africa & Zimbabwe 22nd December 2019 to 22nd February 2020

Trip 9 Our third motorhome trip through Belgium and Germany - 6th October 2019 to date

Trip 8 Our first motorhome trip through France and Spain - 2nd October 2018 to 19th April 2019

Trip 7 - 18th June to 2nd August 2018. We haven't done a cost analysis of this, our very first motorhome trip in Scotland as it was so short and therefore of little relevance

Trip 6 - Third ski season + trip to Spain 18th October 2017 to 18th April 2018 

Trip 5 - South & Central America + cruise back to Europe 14th September 2016 to 26th May 2017 

Trip 4 - Second ski season + trip to Spain 25th October 2015 to 1st May 2016 

Trip 3 - USA, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Sumatra 6th August 2014 to 31st March 2015 

Trip 2 - First ski season + trip to Spain 4th January 2014 to 22nd May 2014 

Trip 1 North Thailand, New Zealand, East coast Australia, South Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore 29th October 2012 to 28th October 2013 

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