It's been a while since I've written a proper blog post. I don't have my phone still, which means I don't have any photos of beautiful Rio de Janeiro to share yet, but to be honest, I wasn't doing anything worth taking photos of or writing stories about for the first few days anyhow. Things are starting to pick up, though:
- I had Thanksgiving dinner last night at a Brazilian steakhouse -- Churrascaria Palace -- which was INCREDIBLE. So much delicious food. I was seated next to another solo diner, Dennis (in his 50s I think, from Paris, in Rio just for a one-day business trip), and we ended up talking throughout the entire meal, so I didn't have to eat alone after all.
- I got tickets to the symphony at the gorgeous Theatro Municipal for Friday night for only $8, although now I need to buy symphony-appropriate shoes and figure out how to fancy-up my one dress....
- On Saturday, I might be going to Rio Water Park with a group of Couchsurfers, and the backup plan is to hang out at Copacabana beach
- My soccer guy (that's right - I have a soccer guy now), Sergio, is hooking me up with tickets to a game at the Maracana mega stadium in town for Sunday
- I'll explore the local parks and viewpoints (i.e. Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer) more on Monday and Tuesday.
Fingers crossed I'll have a phone for at least some of those events. Evidently, the iPhone my mom mailed to me is being held at Customs in Sao Paolo because Brazil is very strict about imported electronics; I need to pay a tax for it before they'll ship it from Customs to the house I'm at in Rio. Oy. To be fair, a person is bound to encounter unanticipated problems when traveling, and if my biggest challenges at the end of this have been getting my Brazil visa and replacing a phone, that will have been incredibly fortunate.
In the meantime, I want to take this opportunity to talk about travel budgeting -- a topic I feel somewhat of an expert on now. It took me a while to figure out what I should be keeping track of between ATM withdrawals, credit card charges, cash spending, and how much money is going into which types of expenses, to make sure I'm staying "on track" (i.e. that I won't run out of money before I get home). Fortunately, I've been able to put together a relatively simple budget tracking system that works really well for me. It probably seems complicated and tedious at first, but I think it becomes intuitive (and maybe even enjoyable) to use after a little while.
I'm hoping this will help some of you realize how affordable traveling can be, so long as you aren't thinking about going places for just pleasure purposes, like viewing exotic landscapes from hotel balconies, eating at high-end restaurants, drinking at those bars that you can just swim right up to in the pool, and experiencing other such luxurious treatment... because I don't know much about any of that. That's vacation-travel. I'm talking about adventure-travel/journey-travel. Much of this advice will apply more specifically to long-term journey-travel. However, I hope some of it is relevant also to those of you who do your trips in 1-week to 4-week stints (which, of course, is the recommended way to do it if you want to hold onto your job and your apartment).
There are basically two ways to do travel budgeting.
1) You figure out where you want to go, and what you're going to do, and then you add up the estimated costs for all that, and then you wait until you have saved up enough money and then you go enjoy that trip.
2) You say, "okay -- this is how much money I can reasonably save/afford to spend on a trip if I want to travel at least once in the next decade," and then you figure out the estimated costs of things and prioritize where you MOST want to go and the things you MOST want to do that are affordable within that budget...and then you go enjoy that trip.
As I'm sure most of you know, the nature of the Bonderman Fellowship places it in the second category. I get a set amount of money ($20,000) to fund my travels for 8 months, and I had to figure out where I could go, what to do, and for how long, that would be affordable with that amount. I chose to fit 10 different countries into the itinerary, but was careful to spend more of my time in inexpensive places. The more countries you go to, the more expensive it gets because you have more visas, more flights, and you always lose some money when doing a currency exchange.
So 20,000 divided by 10 = an average of $2000 per country, or divided by 8 = an average of $2500 per month, which yields a daily budget of about $80. Holy cow, a person can live pretty large on that, right? Well, yes... but no, because it's more complicated than that.
PRE-DEPARTURE EXPENSES
When you factor in the things that need purchased before you even get on the first flight, the overall budget per month/country goes down a bit. For example, you have to subtract the cost of:
- health insurance
- vaccinations
- gear (travel backpack, sandals, boots, quick-dry towel, mosquito-repellant sheets, etc.)
- passport photos
- living will
- ISIC student card
- big expense items that don't fit into the transportation or lodging categories (e.g. retreats, visas, multi-day excursions)
And then, if you're traveling for a month or more -- and especially if you've had to quit your job to do so -- you have to consider any ongoing monthly payments you're still obligated to make, such as:
- car insurance
- auto loan payments
- student loan payments
- Hulu/Netflix/HBO GO account payments
- cell phone bill
- monthly donations
- rent/utilities if you're keeping your place
I'm not using Bonderman money to pay for these personal expenses, but I did have to figure out how much of my savings I can expect to still be there after 8 months of paying these without any additional income. More accurately, I had to determine whether I had enough savings to cover these expenses while I'm gone. Which, thankfully, I do. I think. I should probably double check, actually...
Before you can figure out what your day-to-day spending limit should be, you need to subtract estimates from the big expense categories -- transportation (e.g. flights and intercity buses) and lodging -- from your overall budget.
COST OF TRANSPORTATION
The cost of transportation between and within the countries can range from $3 (which is how much it cost to take the bus from Copacabana to La Paz in Bolivia) to over $800 (from Okinawa, Japan back to Seattle). So this part gets tricky in terms of estimations. However, I just use Skyscanner.com to get estimates of flights between countries, and after taking a few buses, I realized that $10-20 is a reasonable range to expect, at least in South America. You can use BusBud or other online resources to check out the price range for these things. In Colombia, I was advised to NOT take the bus between cities due to risk of being hijacked in the rural areas in between, but flights with VivaColombia were only $30-50 anyhow, so that didn't set me back too much.
COST OF LODGING
Surprisingly, you can get similar prices between AirBNB and hostels in most places (you'd assume an AirBNB would be consistently more expensive but that isn't the case). I set my lodging budget for $3,000 for the entire 8 months, which means that on average, I need to aim for $12.50 a night. This has been working out fairly easily -- I think the cheapest place I stayed at was actually a hotel in Uyuni ($7 a night), and the most expensive so far was $14 a night. I'm definitely not staying at any luxurious resorts, but aside from the occasional shoddy wifi and the general lack of hot showers, I have been very comfortable with the lodging conditions in this price range.
Here are some things to consider when choosing between a hostel vs. an AirBNB:
In favor of AirBNB:
1) AirBNBs are more likely to have a kitchen you can use (good for 4-day+ stays when you can take advantage of grocery shopping/ cooking most of your own meals)
2) If the AirBNB host actually lives there as well, it is an opportunity to get to know a local from the area; not only is this a more culturally immersive experience, but they are also SUPER helpful in terms of helping you find your way around and assisting you with getting tickets or giving other advice for what to do in the area, where the best food is, etc.
3) Private residences are more likely to have hot showers and reliable wifi. Try living without these for a week or so and you will never underestimate their value again.
4) Peace and quiet. Your own room. A queen size bed, maybe. These are luxuries that can go unappreciated until you've been sleeping on a bunk in a room shared with 4+ other travelers for weeks on end.
If you haven't booked lodging through AirBNB before / you do not have an AirBNB account yet, please let me know so that I can "invite" you to AirBNB and then you and I will both get $$ credit for our accounts. WIN-WIN!!
In favor of Hostels:
1) Hostels are prepared for travelers: they'll have staff that speak English, most likely, and will be able to connect you easily with maps, tours, day-trips, tickets, activities, etc. in the area. A lot of hostels include breakfast every morning, and some will offer classes or other activities on-site, such as language or dance classes.
2) Finding people to hang out with is MUCH easier at a hostel. If you are traveling alone and staying at an AirBNB, it can really hard to meet anyone just wandering around the street, especially if you're in a country whose language you do not speak. If you stay at a hostel, you're much more likely to find someone who speaks English and is down to hang out. (On the flip side, if you are trying to learn the local language, staying in a hostel is going to present a constant temptation to resort back to English, because it's likely to be the common language spoken among the travelers. If that's the case, you should think about staying at an AirBNB instead).
I have mostly been using www.hostelworld.com to find hostels in the cities I'm traveling to, but it's also really easy to find hostels upon arrival to a new city that are cheaper than the ones you can find online. Reservations are not usually necessary, but using the website at least allows you to compare prices, amenities, and reviews before booking.
CALCULATING A DAILY BUDGET
As you're doing your preliminary cost-estimate research online -- perhaps using Skyscanner, Cheapoair, and BusBud for transportation, and AirBNB and HostelWorld for lodging (remember to be date-specific with your searches since prices vary depending on the season) -- be sure plug in the numbers that you find into an excel sheet like the one below. Note that there are two sections: one for Transportation (on the left) and one for Lodging (on the right). Always use the HIGH estimates -- this will ensure that your daily budget is more conservative and you'll be more likely to be under-budget as you near the end of your trip.
In the spreadsheet below, purchased items / confirmed expenses are black, and "need-to-purchase" items / estimated costs are in red. When calculating totals, there's no distinction between the confirmed expenses and estimated expenses; this sheet is uses estimated TOTAL spending in each category for the length of the trip (calculated automatically at the bottom of the spreadsheet) for the purposes of determining a general daily budget. Sometimes when you confirm a flight or lodging, the cost will be greater than the estimate you had; sometimes it will be lower. What matters is that your total estimated budget is not exceeding the budget goal you set for yourself in each category (budget goals are noted at the top and bottom of the sheet as reminders). If you notice that your estimated costs for lodging are starting to exceed the budget goal, but you're under-budget for transportation, just move some money from one budget goal to the either. This system is wonderfully flexible in that way.
After subtracting pre-travel costs ($1000), transportation cost estimates ($5500), lodging cost estimates ($3,000), miscellaneous big-budget items such as visas, multi-day tours, retreats, and scuba diving certification ($2,000), as well as the amount I would like to have leftover to help with moving/transition expenses when I get back ($1000), the new budget for day to day spending is actually $8,000 for the entire trip, which means I should aiming to spend no more than $30/day on average. For the poorer countries like Peru and Bolivia, I aimed for a daily budget of $20 a day, so that I can roll over the savings and increase the daily budget limit for the more expensive countries like Brazil and Japan.
Now I've got a metric for what it means to be "on track" -- if I'm spending less than $30 a day on average, and if the actual costs of transportation and lodging do not exceed my estimated costs, I'm good to go.
TRACKING YOUR AVERAGE DAILY SPENDING
This daily budget is meant to cover the miscellaneous things I spend money on every day: food, drinks, entry fees to museums and parks, public transit, taxis, day-trips, and miscellaneous as-needed items (shampoo/conditions, toothpaste, soap, sunscreen, batteries, a camera when I lose my phone), etc.
For tracking daily spending, I cannot recommend the Trail Wallet app highly enough (it costs $5 but i guarantee you will save that much money in the first day or two of using it). You just plug in the cost of anything you spend money on throughout the day -- entered in the local currency or in USD -- and it automatically generates the total amount you have spent that day, as well as the daily spending average for the "trip" (I usually create different "trips" for each country since my daily budget changes slightly depending on the country). Knowing whether I am under or over my daily spending goal is incredibly useful for helping me figure out how many excursions/day trips I can afford to do. I am pretty sure I'll continue to use Trail Wallet even when I get back to the States -- it is a VERY handy tool for tracking all the little things a person spends money on throughout the day and knowing when you can afford to splurge a little.
At the end of the month or the end of whatever time frame makes sense (i.e. when you transition from one place to another), you just subtract the actual average daily spending from the daily budget goal for that period (i.e. on average in Peru I spent $17.50 per day and my budget daily spending goal was $20 so that's a difference of $2.50), and multiply the difference by how many days you were there (i.e. I was in Peru 30 days, and 2.50 x 30 = $75). This gives you the amount that you can roll over into the budget for the next leg of the trip, or use to splurge on something you otherwise hadn't budgeted for. If you've gone OVER budget, then you just lower your average spending goal for the next leg of the trip to make up the difference.
MONEY SAVING TIPS
- Take overnight buses when possible. Every time you take an overnight bus, you aren't paying for lodging that night.
- Eat at places with a set, daily menu. Granted, these restaurants aren't going to have the best ambiance, and if you're a picky eater this may not be good advice for you. However, if you eat pretty much whatever (which I do) and your main goal is to save money while you fill up your belly, you can get plenty of food for about $2-4 a plate this way (speaking from experience in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia)
- If the place you are staying has a kitchen, prepare your own meals, and be deliberate with the local restaurants/foods you try. I think trying local food regularly adds a lot to the travel experience, but you don't need to have an empanada every day to get a sense of what life in Colombia is like, ya know?
- Pack your bags so tightly that you don't have room for souvenirs of any kind. This will force you to control unnecessary spending on miscellaneous items.
...I will update this post as I think of more....
OMG, DID YOU REALLY READ THIS WHOLE THING?
If you made it to the end of this post, I'm not sure whether to be impressed by your attention span and ability to concentrate on such a tedious topic, or a little bit concerned about how bored you must be.
Honestly, budget tracking is really similar to calorie-counting in the sense that they are both time consuming and tedious and run the risk of sucking the joy and sponteneity right out of being a consumer. At the same time, there comes a point when a long term goal becomes important enough that you're willing to track and manage daily details so that you can have peace of mind knowing that you're doing what you can to reach that long term goal. The downside to being free and spontaneous and just doing whatever you want without tracking the costs is that you end up bearing the burden of anxiety down the road, because you either don't know what the consequences will be or you are anticipating having to deal with them. My preference is to crunch the numbers now, get accustomed to a $20-30/day lifestyle, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing I have nothing (financially) to worry about.
(...until I get back to the States, anyway. DAMN YOU, STUDENT LOANS!)