(East) Europe - Roadtrip Germany to Ukraine to Belgium - Italy
Note, roadtrip: This time I traveled differently. My family came to visit me in Germany to celebrate my birthday. Afterwards I continued with Kristine by car. So I started my trip with Kristine, and she will also bring me back to Belgium. So in total I spent 612,13 euros, including gasoline. Less then half my budget went to fuel for the car. I have spent €16, 54 per day. Of course Germany is more expensive then the other countries. I also celebrated my birthday over there. We did not so many expensive activities. Sometimes we would sneak in too, But since tourism is not that big in most those countries we could do activities like speleology for as little as €3 (included in Others). An expensive trip that I did not include in this budget is a visit to Chernobyl by a tourist tour. The price of this tour: €77,5. We also went to the country Transnistria that is not recognised by all countries. Although not an official country, it did have a separate currency named Transnistria Ruble. I did not make a separate budget for this country because we only went for one day. The costs are included in Moldova.
Note, Italy: Also here a different story then my low budgeting in my first year. Here I travelled with my sister and her family. With 5 people in total and also by car. Most of the time we slept in campings, of course not for free (But sometimes we payed less by lying about the amount of people we were). And we slept in yurt in San Marino, I had a couch surfing host who gave me this opportunity. Since this trip was with a family with 2 teenagers, we did a lot of touristy stuff and the trip was more a vacation.
One year traveling - Total
My budget for 365 days abroad, including visas, entrance fees, extra's, does not include my flight from Belgium to Kazachstan, Kyrgyzstan to Nepal, India to Thailand and Thailand to China. It does include things I bought as clothes, and other things I needed to buy. Oezbekistan includes a very expensive trip to the Aral sea (others). The visa for Oezbekistan is also very expensive. As well as for Tajikistan and China. I have also visited the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. My total budget is €5191, with a day budget of €14,22. My 365 days traveling fell in my visit to China, after this big day I still stayed in China. My general day budget in China is a little lower: €18,3. You can see my budget per country by scrolling down. (Japan and Hong Kong is not included in this one year of traveling.)
East Asia
Note, China: The visa is very expensive. I did not do many tourist attractions where I needed to pay for, I was not interested since everything in China is fake and rebuild. For other tourists this would be a big budget, attractions are expensive. Transportation is expensive.
Note, Japan: The visa is free if I stay less then 3 months. I have been working in Japan for one month in a hostel in Osaka, food and accommodation was included. I stayed in total almost 3 months. Japan is an expensive country in Asia. I saved a lot of money Couch surfing and hitchhiking. Within the cities I have spent money on transportation. I did a lot of free activities. Since I saved a lot of money on accommodation and transportation, my main cost was food. My flight from China to Japan costed 149 dollars.
Note, Hong Kong: The visa is free. I also couch surfed here for a few days. And hitchhiked to the city from the airport.
South East Asia
Note, Thailand: I went 4 times, but I combined the last two times. Thailand was for me mainly a place to meet up with people, my uncle, my mom, Jeff. The last time is more expensive but also includes New Year and my taxi's to get my Chinese visa and a lot of beers. The second time is a combination of zero budgeting with Andrii and Oleg and traveling with my mom. If I would split that up my days with the boys would be much cheaper and inc my Sak Yant tattoos, the time with my mom is more expensive than this. The first time I spend with my uncle, I bought some clothing and spend mainly money on others. My uncle brought me to Laos on the back of his motorcycle. The second time I always hitchhiked. The last time I was with Jeff and took trains and public transport. As a total average I spend €9,3 per day.
Note, Laos: I went twice to Laos. One time I went to south of Laos and did zero budgetting. That means I slept in a Church and temples, ate at the temples or cooked myself and also ate street food. A few times we slept in our tent. We hitchhiked and did not spent any money on transport and accomodation. Without imcluding my visa, I only spend €2,3. The second time I went with my mom and did sleep in hostels, but still hitchhiked all the big distances. We did low budgetting, but went to restaurants a lot.
Note, Vietnam: I did not hitchhike in Vietnam since it was not easy on a highway. We took bus, all the way. We tried to low budget with saving money on overnight buses when possible and couchsurfing until we had enough to compensate our open bus ticket. It is cheaper to do the open bus ticket, but with tourist buses you end up in tourist areas, I hated that. We ate lots of seafood and did not safe so much on that. To save money we took bicycles or walked a lot. Others includes a boat trip in Halong Bay and other entrances.
Note, Cambodia: Again I went two times. First time I did zero budgetting. Second time I went with my mom and did hostels. I also did Angkor Wat the second time, as well as the prison museum in Phnom Penh and the dolphins in Kratie. The second was a lot shorter, but I stayed in hostels for as little as $1,5 and hitchhiked most of the time. I also lost a little moneny the second time because the Euro rate was worse then before.
Note, Malaysia; Although I did not had to pay for a visa, I still spend so much money per day. The food in Malaysia is good and can be cheap. But I did spend my time in Malaysia as if I was on a holiday within my travelings. Accomodation is also not that crazy expensive, but we where in Penang during high season since all the locals where on holidays themselves. So the dorm was expensive and I had a lot of expensive beers to enjoy myself. We also payed a few activities in Taman Negara, the oldest rainforest of at least Malaysia, it claimes to be the oldest in the world. We did a night safari and a night walk. I also took a lot of buses and did a weird loop in the country that made the distances bigger and transportation more expensive. So conclusion: Malaysia is cheap.
South Asia
Note, Nepal; Others contains also taking out money and having to pay 500 roepies for that every single time. And buying some other small stuff like a head lamp, a tent and sleeping bag. Accommodation is not a high budget, because I couch surfed and stayed in a tent during Bacheck project. Transportation I took where always local buses, no tourist bus or any luxury, but very cheap. My flight from Kyrgyzstan to Nepal costs me €372,69. Without this included my budget in Nepal is only €9,38.
Note, India; Others contains a few big entrance fees as well as a 2 day trip with camels in Jaisalmer. Also taking money out of the ATM costs money. The visa was cheap because i applied for it in Nepal. We could do cheaper with accommodation by couch surfing, only did this a few days in Delhi. There are not a lot of dormitories and hostels (upcoming concepts), you save a lot of money if you travel with a companion to share a room. Mumbai is 2-3 x expensive as Delhi (same prices as rest in India). Tuk tuts are cheap if you can bargain, know your distance and ask for around 15 roepies per KM. (100 roepies for 8-10KM)
Central Asia
De category Others contains activities such as: performances, excursions (organised), musea, exchange rate effects, commissions, etc This cost is always possible to reduce to a minimum.
Note, Kazachstan: During the calculation half the price of the train ticket to Uzbekistan is added to this budget, the other half is added to the budget of Uzbekistan!
Others can also be an activity as a haircut, buying underwear or others things...
Note, Oezbekistan: A visit to the Aral Sea was decisive for our budget. But it was worth it for us, an amazing experience! This cost is in others. The budget without this trip is €17,7 per person per day.
Note, Tadjikistan: The visa is the biggest cost in our budget. Prices are low because we did not pay for accomodation, only couchsurfing. Also transport is a low cost because we hitch hiked, free.
Note, Kyrgyzstan; We did a lot of couchsurfing and hitch hiking to save money. And walk around broke for days with 3 of us because we were too lazy to change money.