What 6 Months of Travel to 18 Countries Cost Us

Are you thinking about embarking on 6 months of travel and taking a break from it all?

In 2021, we decided to take all of our savings and travel until our money ran out. We lasted for just about 6 months and managed to visit 18 countries during our trip. 

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We, my husband Colton and I, spent about a year and a half saving up for this trip, and we managed to save 30k in that time. I go into more detail about how we did this in my post about how we save money for travel. 

The purpose of this blog post is to go into detail about how we planned and executed our trip, show you some of the numbers, and go into the thought process for making our itinerary. Hopefully this helps you if you are planning to or are interested in doing something similar.

Even though I’m mentioning 6 months of travel, a lot of these principles can apply to any duration of long-term travel, be it 1 month or 10.

We saved $30k for both of us, or $15k per person.

There are plenty of people who have traveled even longer with even less. There are also people who have traveled for a shorter amount of time with more.

For us, $30k was a comfortable amount of money for us to enjoy where we were visiting but also be frugal in our choices of hotels, food, etc.

In addition to the money we saved, we also accumulated about 300k credit card and airline points to use for flights around the world. We booked our initial one-way flight from the U.S. to Turkey for 30k points each and $11. (the flight was $2000 each for the itinerary we chose).

If a long term trip, or even just a longer vacation that the typical 2 weeks of PTO, is something you’re interested in doing yourself, take out your notebook and write this sh*t down!

Here we go!

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Disclaimer: this is entirely our own experience, so please take it with a grain of salt. We recognize that what we did might seem unattainable to some or easily achieved by others. All of the numbers we share are real, but they could be different for you based on your own needs. 

The 18 Countries We Visited During 6 Months of Travel

I’ve listed the countries we traveled to below so you can get an idea of how far our money would go during our 6 months of travel. If we had traveled solely in Southeast Asia, our budget would likely have been much lower (or we would have traveled much longer!)

We were still able to travel on a decent budget while in Europe while enjoying so much of what the continent has to offer.

You can read more about our itinerary here.

We spent anywhere from 6 hours (like Vatican City) to 3 weeks (as we did in Italy) in a country depending on just how much we wanted to see and how much time we needed to see it.

Note: the faster you move around and the more places you go, the more expensive it will be. Transportation is usually one of the biggest costs while traveling. Fast travel vs. slow travel can make a big difference in your budget. 

Our Daily Budget While Traveling

What we set our daily spending budget to was based on where we were. In Switzerland, it was much higher than Thailand, because those two countries are vastly different as far as daily costs.

Our daily budget was anywhere between $100/day to $200/day.

Sometimes we spent less and sometimes we spent more. This number includes expenses for both of us.

We just knew we had $30k and wanted to travel as long as we could while enjoying ourselves. 

So, even in Thailand, we could have spent less but we felt like treating ourselves! Which meant still staying under $100/day but staying in nice hotels and getting massages every day. 

In Switzerland, we practically rationed food because everything was so expensive (dramatic, I know).

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Understanding our travel style will also help you understand how $30k lasted us for 6 months of traveling. We usually stayed in 3 star hotels, ate picnic lunches, walked almost everywhere, and passed up on popular tourist attractions that we didn’t think were worth the money (I’m looking at you €90 gondola ride in Venice).

But, we also booked rental cars in some places and chose to stay in nicer hotels some nights. It’s all about balance!

To help you get a general idea of what it cost us per day in various places, here are some examples of our average daily cost in 7 countries we visited.

All of these numbers are for 2 people, sharing a hotel room, and may include rental cars.

Italy: $150

Croatia: $115

Thailand: $80

Scotland: $160 (we had a rental car)

Hungary: $125

Spain: $115

Czechia: $110

Turkey: $85

The Cost Of Traveling

What it will cost you to visit a country is going to be different for every destination. 

There are a few factors that affect the cost of goods and services where you’ll be visiting.

Currency Exchange

The first factor is currency. 

Is the currency of the country you are visiting stronger or weaker than that of your home country? 

For example, as an American, I’m privileged to be from a country with a very strong currency. The U.S. dollar can go very far in a lot of countries. But, sometimes it can be the opposite, like an American visiting Switzerland and a kid’s meal at McDonalds is $10!  

Or, maybe your home country’s currency won’t go quite as far as the U.S. dollar. It’s wise to choose a country to visit where your money will go farther if you’re trying to get the most bang for your buck. 

Southeast Asia, most of Africa, and much of South America tend to be more affordable places to visit, depending on your home currency, of course. 

You can visit a website like x-rates.com to see what the exchange rate is for your home currency and that of the country you’re visiting. This will give you an idea of how far your money will go while you travel. 

The Economy

The second factor is the economy of the country you’re visiting. 

Economies are constantly changing, as well as supply and demand in the tourism industry. 

There are destinations that are expensive to visit simply because they are popular with tourists. Maybe it’s entirely different 2 hours down the road in a smaller and lesser visited country or city. 

An example of this is Greece and Albania. The two countries share a coast line but one has a massive tourist presence and the other does not. Because of this, Albania is significantly cheaper to visit than Greece.

The Time of Year

The third factor is what time of year you are visiting. 

Every country’s tourism sector has a high season and a low season. High season is when the most tourists are around and prices get higher. Low season is exactly the opposite. 

High season tends to be that way for a reason, ie. good weather, vacation time, etc. Low season on the other hand is usually less expensive because the weather might not be as good. Summer is the high season in lots of places, especially Europe, while in Asia, they deal more with a wet season and a dry season. 

In my opinion, the best time to visit is a destinations ‘shoulder season.’ Basically, just before or just after the busy season.

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Our Once In A Lifetime 6 Month Trip Itinerary

Planning A 6 Month Travel Itinerary

To be totally honest with you, I recommend you don’t plan your entire trip ahead of time. 

This is especially true if it’s a long trip. So much can change while you travel, and instead of being stuck to a rigid schedule, you can have the freedom to change things at the last minute or flex when something goes wrong.

We only planned 2 weeks of our 6 month trip.

It was the first two weeks, in Turkey, that we planned before we even left the U.S. We decided that we did not want the stress of having to stick to a plan for 6 months of traveling that we planned before we were even on the road. 

What if something changed? What if we got sick? If we really liked a destination and wanted to stay longer? What if we didn’t like a city and we wanted to leave sooner?

So, we only planned 2 weeks ahead at any given time in order to allow for maximum flexibility in our itinerary. 

But, we weren’t completely without a plan. We at least had an exhaustive list of countries we would like to visit that we could reference when it was time to plan the next stop. We also did a lot of research ahead of time of experiences or activities that we wanted to prioritize on our trip. 

Most of the time, where we went next was based on either geographical location (what was nearby) or meeting up with our family that came to visit us.

If you do want to plan your itinerary, I recommend that you just do so with the knowledge that something is bound to change along the way, so be flexible!

Maybe decided the order of continents to visit or the direction of travel to help you plan without committing to too much ahead of time.

Saving 30k For Our World Trip

There really is a lot I could say about how we saved up $30k in a year and a half for 6 months of travel. But the very basic principle that will help you do something similar is simple…

Time is money.

Saving money really is about steadily committing to saving over time.

Most likely you aren’t able to save $30k in one month! It took us a year and a half of consistently making choices that were going to save us moolah to get to that point.

We used a high yield savings account with Ally Bank and sent every bit of extra money we had that way. Bonuses from work? Straight to the savings account. A little bit of money from birthdays or holidays? Right to the savings account. 

I wrote a previous post about how to save money for travel where I go into much more detail about how we saved each month, what ways we cut out unnecessary expenses, and the small changes we made to maximize our monthly savings. 

We knew this trip was our priority and that any small and frivolous thing we bought before the trip wasn’t worth losing a potential day of travel. 

$25 on a shirt from Target is equivalent to an entire day of food in Turkey. $100 on a new pair of shoes is an entire day of travel in Thailand that we would miss out on!

For about 6 months, I did not buy one thing that I would not also be bringing on our trip with us (not including food and other necessities of course).

If you really want to save money and you have expendable income after your important expenses are handled, you will be able to save. It’s about mindset and priority!

Of course, I recognize that not everyone is in a financial situation where saving money is a possibility. Please hear me when I say I know it is a privilege to have expendable income!

Preparing To Leave Home For 6 Months of Travel

I thought that there would be a lot to do to feel prepared to leave for 6 months of travel, and I was right. 

But, it wasn’t nearly as much as I thought and I think that had to do with our situation at the time. 

We were renting an apartment, so we didn’t need to sell a home. Plus, we don’t have children, so we only had the two of us to be responsible for. We both wanted to transition in our jobs, so quitting was easy. And, we didn’t have a lot of monthly expenses because we lived a pretty simple, minimal lifestyle. 

It certainly helped that we weren’t entrenched in a lifestyle that was too difficult to leave. Our monthly expenses were pretty minimal.

But, that being said, I have heard many stories of people that have left so much more than we did and still did something very similar in traveling long-term. Like The Bucketlist Family, for example. They have 3 children and have learned how to travel full-time with them so well!

While it might not be easy to leave it all behind for a time, it is possible, if it’s what you truly want. Everyone’s situation is different!

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What We Did Before Leaving For 6 Months of Travel

• Sold furniture, home decor, kitchen gadgets, clothes, and really anything we owned that we hardly used or didn’t want once we came back.
• Sold our motorcycle & one of our cars (it was time for it to go)
• Canceled monthly memberships that we would not use while abroad (we kept Netflix and Spotify).
• Dove into the world of travel credit cards and accumulated 300k credit card points.
• Ended our lease, moved out of our apartment, and canceled renters insurance.
• Opened a Charles Schwab Checking account to use while abroad. 
• Purchased travelers health insurance from Safety Wing.
• Purchased new suitcases and travel essentials
• Put away some money into a ‘when we return home’ savings account
• Booked one-way flights and accommodations for 2 weeks out on Booking.com