Traveling vs Vacationing - Our $65/day budget

When you tell people that you are traveling 6 months many people think that you're living on a beach resort. It's a pretty popular misconception, at least what I've experienced and read out on the world wide web. That isn't to say I won't have a great time. Trust me. I will be. While we certainly will be getting in some beach time we won't have the luxury of living a resort life sipping on pina coladas everyday.

Vacationing is a lot easier. For starters, you typically have a job and incoming money while you are vacationing. That affords you to be a little less frugal with your money. Take that expensive excursion you really wanted to do and come back to the resort to relax.

Traveling, on the other hand, requires a bit more constraint in terms of budget and things to see. We really wanted to go to Patagonia and Easter Island, but it just didn't fit in our timeline or budget. You don't need to be a millionaire to travel the world or even a job for that matter just need to build some structure. If you have the money to do it all, by all means, go nuts. We don't have that type of dough so we need to be a bit more strict. We fully anticipate having to buy groceries, drink less, stay in a few nights to binge watch Stranger Things (yes Netflix, I'm still here!) all to cut costs. Our goal is to immerse ourselves in new cultures, experience new foods, and see amazing landscapes while stretching our dollar as far as it can go. $65 per day (each) before airfare is how I've budgeted the trip.

How the hell can anyone afford $65/day when traveling you might ask? Pretty easily. You just need to choose the right countries. For us, it's fall time in Chicago. We wanted to travel 6 months in the summer. So that left us with options south of the equator. When we started looking at South America, we could not believe just how cheap lodging and food (at the right places) was going to be. If you don't believe me, take a look at this Airbnb. At the time, $26/night with a rooftop pool overlooking the ocean in Lima, Peru. That's $13/person with $52 for the rest of the day to spend!

It's a little more difficult to extend our dollar in New Zealand and Australia, but if we keep to our budget we will be just fine.

I found that this budget was possible by reading the blog Nomadic Matt. I'm sure I will bring up his site multiple times as he has been the voice of reason when researching countries and how to keep on budget. He has a ton of great information and is really an excellent source. Lexi has even bought two of his books for us to read. I highly recommend this site if anyone is interested in traveling for cheap or looking for travel information.

While it's great that we are able to find such affordable places in South America, we also know how fortunate we are. Some of these countries have living conditions that don't exist in the US. While we will be in nicer areas while in South America, we are always respectful and remain cognizant how lucky we are to do this trip.

#world #budget #65day #Travelling