Brian and Jackie Cross: Our trip costs

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 19 - India, Sri Lanka & the Maldives 1st February to 15th April 2024

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

Brians Cotswold Way hike 26th September to 3rd October 2023

Hadrians Wall Hike 3rd to 12th May 2023

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

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