Retirement Travel School: How Much Does It COST to Travel the World Full Time in 2024?

welcome to travel School today's lesson is how to figure the cost of World Travel now this is probably the number one question we get how much does it cost to travel the world full-time and what is your budget now this is a tricky one but it's an important one and it matters to people who are trying to plan a big nomadic Journey now we've been traveling AB broad now for about two and a half years and in that time we have been to 67 countries so we're not talking today about slow Trav where you go to a few countries a year or even expat living where you just go to one country we're talking about around the world nomadic travel we like to call it active travel where you're you know seeing the sites paying for excursions you know eating out and experiencing all the world has to offer now all of that while doing it as economically as possible today we're going to give you some tips for figuring this up and share with you our travel cost but more than that we want to talk about the differences in travel Styles and alert you to a big hidden cost and help you figure out what is realistic and what is not so whether you're traveling for two months or 12 months we want to give you some guidance on what you should expect to spend now stay to the end and we're going to give you 10 strategies that can help you achieve your travel budget goals we're JN and Beth and we are the retirement Travelers if you're just finding us we are a senior travel couple who retired early and travel full-time we got so many questions about the logistics of travel that we've created a series called travel School each of these lessons will be on our website retirement travelers.com so head over there for easy reference we would have loved to have had someone share with us their lessons of travel before we started and we hope this series will help you think of it as a free master class in World Travel this is lesson number two if you're wondering where in the world we're at right now you can always see our current location on Instagram we keep it updated we're currently in India at the Golden Triangle but we have plans to go south over the next few weeks really South really South really South after Shir Lanka we're heading to Africa so hit subscribe and come along today's topic is travel budgeting now like we said earlier we get ask on a weekly basis how much does it cost to travel the world fulltime of of course there is a wide range you know but the biggest predictor of expense is how fast you travel and where you go you know for us we like moving locations about once a week you know that that just feels right for us now this is really fast for many people but we've said in a previous video the beev has lived with an MS diagnosis for about 25 years and we're trying to see the world while she is very healthy the other part of this equation is that we are building a website of travel guides so we are trying to do many experiences we can't do a travel guide well without trying things going to museums visiting historical sites eating great restaurants and great food you know doing popular excursions so our objective isn't to travel as cheap as possible but to experience a city so that we can give recommendations from a wide variety of perspectives I mean we're pretty particular about what goes into our guide and what doesn't we call ourselves bargain Travelers but not budget Travelers so let's talk about two types of budget Travelers that we see the most on the road now the first one we see and meet many many Backpackers these are usually the young traveler you know kind of like us just out of high school or in college you know we admire so much about these kids especially their enthusiasm for where they've been and what they've experienced you know they travel on a very tight budget you know we've met a few trust fund babies but for the most part these young kids have saved their money from work and they love doing what they're doing the other type of budget traveler that we see and meet are slow Travelers now most of these are retirees that simply want to live abroad they might stay for one or three months in a place before moving on they too are on a tight budget and because they are trying to stretch their money as far as they can make it go they oftentimes don't think of themselves as tourists but rather Flex pads or part-time expats many of these people are trying to live a life in a lowcost country now it's called geoarbitrage and what that means is that you make your money in a high-paying country and you spend it in a lowcost country we've had many viewers tell us that they can live on $40,000 or less for a couple now we can learn a lot from these types of Travelers and we incorporate many of their strategies into our travel for instance our style of active travel is taken from the backpacking meth method move around soaking in many experiences and places you know the slow traveler has taught us not to skip the lowcost countries the truth is low cost does not equate to low fund now these countries have been some of our very favorite places you know we say all this to show you that there are many ways to travel the truth is that the most common type of traveler we meet and know are people who are traveling for just a couple of weeks or a couple months a year they are actually the biggest sector of retirement Travelers and we gear our website for them you know we're writing travel guides to the places that we've been and hopes that it will you know help you have a great experience by following you know one of our free guides so let's talk money we did a lot of research to determine if our numbers are accurate and are reflective of other people's experiences we've examined many blogs who post their travel expenses we're pretty confident that our numbers line up with other retirement Travelers now these are estimates that are adjusted for inflation because let's face it it's happening on a global scale now our numbers do not include health care or insurance we we'll be doing a video on this in the coming weeks one very expensive item that we want to be upfront about and mentioned before we start and that's travel vaccinations you know most bloggers never even add this to their budgets you know they get them before they leave and they rarely mention it once they are on the road or or they don't take them at all okay but if you're going to go plan a trip around the world we really think you should talk to your doctor or visit a Travel Clinic you know to consult them on exactly what you need yeah we took everything that was recommended because we are proactive about our health and we don't want to leave anything to chance I mean this has taken us many visits and a couple of years of boosters together we probably spent $88,000 on these so it's not something that you can ignore when planning a trip you know the alternative was to get Japanese and sephtis and that just did not sound any fun to us yes no fun at all you know so with all that said let's go back to the original question what does it cost to travel the world like we do you know we found a website where people actually post their expenses you know this site calculates the numbers and develops a low mid-range and luxury for each country we thought these numbers were pretty spoton you know we'll leave a link in the description below it's called budget your.com you can look up individual countries for reference so once we gathered these numbers and looked at blogs from other active Travelers not slow Travelers we came up with a couple of estimates we also ask our family and friends what they spent we believe that there are two numbers that make the most sense cost per couple in a high cost country and cost per couple in a lowcost country for high cost we believe that number is $10,000 a month for low cost we believe that number is $5,000 ,000 now this includes lodging food transportation and entertainment now these are mid-range figures because our style of travel includes movement and activities each week so let's compare these numbers to our type of Journey if you take these numbers and you multiply them out and you stayed in only high cost countries you would spend about $120,000 a year if you only stayed in lowcost countries you'd probably spend about $60,000 a year now for the most part we're traveling about a third of the time in high cost countries and twoth thirds of the time in low cost you know but we do add in a few luxury excursions or tours and you know we aim for the middle ground so our goal was about the Midway point of 84,000 for a full year of travel or $7,000 a month for some of you you might think wow how do you afford that I mean the first and most important thing that you have to remember is that we have no home we aren't spending money on property taxes or rent or insurance or upkeep cars you know Club dues we made the choice to rid ourselves of all of those expenses because we really just couldn't afford to do both travel and keep a home so we are also investing the money we make on this channel towards our travels and because we work and travel we can afford a little more we also know that we're in our go go years right now where we have this small window of opportunity very small window short of a time actually we will spend this time now because we know that there's going to be years ahead where our no-o years will slow us down and we will spend less now when figuring your own cost you must remember that both of these figures are for bargain travel even though we call them mid-range if you did a luxury experience you would spend over $200,000 our estimate a full-time travel for a year in a high cost country is with a budget in mind it's not the lowest amount but it's still staying within a fairly tight budget for us we must incorporate many cost-saving measures so we get that number down to about $330 a day in high cost countries the same goes for lowc cost you can spend more if you're not careful so what are the 10 strategies that we use to stay within our budget number one lower overhead first like we said we have no stuff eliminating the high cost of home ownership was the key for us we'll buy some stuff one day when we stop traveling but our life is full of experiences and we don't need stuff I mean a week's worth of close does the trick for us our message here is that you don't have to sell your home but you should think about lowering your cost if you plan to travel a lot number two limit high cost countries so what strategies do we use to keep our cost contained once we're on the road let's start with the high cost and lowcost countries if you want to save more money you can adjust your costs by the amount of time you spend in high cost countries you know you could lower it to say 20% or even 0% spending a year traveling in only lowcost countries is fabulous you'll have a great time we were in Norway this year and while it's a wonderful country for us to afford it we needed to go in and spend a couple of weeks and to move on we feel like we know what the country is all about we didn't skip it because it was high cost but we didn't camp out for a couple of months number three take public transportation you know one of our biggest cost Savers is public transportation you know we're not in a hurry so the bus ride across Sydney was no problem and the subway in New Deli you know it was safe and efficient don't take taxis if there's a public transportation especially in cities like Paris you know it's a crime it is number four travel regionally the one way way we cut our transportation costs is that we travel regionally when we can when we were in Northern Italy we stayed in six different cities over the course of 6 weeks while we moved fast our travel between the cities was usually no more than two hours apart the train tickets were cheaper than flights and we just mosied around now in Asia the flights were so economical and the distances so wide without good trains and such that flying made the most sense number five eat less yes now we've heard from other Travelers that this is something they incorporate as well they eat two meals a day you know it's a pretty well-known Backpacker trick to eat breakfast you know maybe pop into a bakery or a cheese shop for a snack and then eat dinner you know we are excellent snackers by the way and this saves US money you know you get used to it and we don't even think twice about eating less now yeah if you have a rental that has a kitchen you can always cook for yourself but you can also use grocery stores for r tisserie chickens and pre-made salads convenience stores are a great way to get an ice cream stick rather than a scooped cone number six DIY all you can now one of the biggest budget Busters is guided tours you know we'll pay for a local guide when it makes sense but many times doing a little research before you arrive can help keep these costs low A good rule of thumb is that you can go two and 1 half times longer by planning yourself rather than using a package tour you know you have to study but we're looking for bargains and package tours are not Bargains you know the biggest expense we had in 2023 was the rocky Mountaineer Railroad and to us the $100 flam Railroad in Norway was the most beautiful train journey we've ever had so even though one was guided and expensive and one was DIY the DIY won the award hands down number seven is Pack Light now carryon only is a big cost savings for us we don't pay to ship our bags we carry backpacks and they fit in the overhead with a zip off day pack for our personal item we also carry everything in it and it helps us avoid the temptation to buy anything I mean we buy nothing because we simply don't have room for it number eight maximize your travel credit card a good travel credit card is a must for full-time travel we do pay a high fee each year for this but we get so much benefit we get many weeks of free Hotel nights each year we eat every airport meal for free in the lounge we earn three times the points on travel restaurants and lodging we get $350 back in travel credit plus a whole lot more the high cost of this card pays for itself when you're traveling full-time be sure you put everything on this card but also be sure that you pay it off each month MH number nine sleep smart now as you know we switch from Airbnb to hotels you know for a variety of reasons and in today's market and for the length of time that we stay in a city hotels just make more sense now we've also said that if you invite us to your house we might just show up a few of our very brave viewers have ventured out and invited us and we had the best time not only does it save us money but we make dear friends and we see their town from a Local's perspective so if you have an opportunity to stay with someone's friend or relative take them up on it if you do stay in a hotel choose one that rewards you with loyalty points and perks number 10 shoulder season travel to high touristy places in the shoulder season now we'd much rather see Venice in October or November than in July same goes for St arini or London we save a lot of money by traveling in the shoulder season because hotels discount their rates we'd rather have less crowds than be to be packed into a museum where we are fighting to see that Masterpiece we hope this discussion today has taught you something about budgeting and how much money you should expect to spend on a Year's worth of travel go to our earlier figures you know write out your wish list and add it up if it's in your budget you're on the right track if not just those high and low countries and try again yeah everyone travels differently and everyone has different priorities let us know if you have any questions and we'll try to answer them in the comments in next week's video we're going to share with you one little Splurge we do if we can find a great deal and that's business class tickets for cheap you know we go to Great Links to find these bargain because we want the Comfort on Long Haul flights and next week we're going to tell you some of our trips hopefully you can incorporate them into your travel occasionally yes we'll see you next week be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world

Channel: Retirement Travelers

Views: 76,044

Keywords: Cost to travel, Retirement travel, World travel cost, retirement travel on a budget, How to afford world travel in 2024, full time world travel costs, retirement travel 2024, travel the world 2024, How much does it cost to travel the world in 2024, cost of world travel in 2024, cost of travel in 2024, cost of traveling the world, Cost of travel around the world, affording world travel in 2024, budgeting travel in 2024, cost to travel world, world travel costs, travel budget

Id: nKoG6bPV9YQ

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2024