UKC

Hi,

I would love to travel the world, out of my budget, I probably have 25k for my partner and I. We would like to go for 12 months. We would ideally camp, and will eat as cheaply as possible. We would not be eating out or staying in hotels etc. Has anyone done this on a similar budget? Was it possible? Just to add, we will not be working on our way around.

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

In reply to drink_more_tea:
Ditch the camping idea. Travelling with that much gear every single day for a year would be horrific. For me at least anyway!

I did the same thing with my wife a few years ago for 13 months on the same budget. We were prettt frivolous except for the odd thing, a load of diving in Asia and hiring a van in NZ. Cheap hotels all through most of Asia and hostels in more developed countries.

If you stick to Asia it is certainly possible. I wouldn't be sure if you could do 'the world'!

We started in Russia, Moscow hopped on trans siberian to Vladivostok, into China, flew to Nepal, then bus to India, flew to Thailand and bussed around Laos, Cambodia, motorbike through Vietnam, bus/train back Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, flew over to Borneo, pelni ferry around Indonesia, flew to Australia and then NZ. 13 months in total, about 25k. Came home with a tenner in need of a holiday

In reply to drink_more_tea:
Am I reading this wrong 25k as in Twenty five thousand GBP? or do you mean 2.5K for the 2 of you?

Obviously depends on what you want to do in that period of time i.e. if you are thinking about throwing in a cruise down to the South Pole probably not but you can certainly travel around for 12 months on that budget. Forget the camping though that would be horrendous carrying camping gear every day!! I know plenty of people including couples who have travelled around for 12 months or more on way less than your budget. One guy I know went from London to Australia overland over 15 months on a fraction of that budget.

That is a huge budget, think about it it's nearly the UK before tax average wage!!

In reply to drink_more_tea:

Hi there, I've been meaning to respond on this but haven't had much time. I've done shorter length trips but also used to plan and sell these kinds of trips as an agent. I'm not saying that makes me know it all, but the pointers I normally suggest are -

- there's a lot of world out there. Grab a big wall map and some stickers and go nuts. Both pick out where you MUST go and where you'd like to include if you can. Dont' do bags of research here, just let your imagination go. You can easily spend 12 months in once place you like or can find 3 days is too long in another, so getting an idea of where you actually want to go can help narrow down the route. If you find for example neither of you are interested in North America this can help the next stage.

- Familiarise youreselves with the main Round The World or multi continent airline fares that are available. It's been some years since I was an expert, but the big two are BA One World (using the One World Alliance carriers) and the Star Alliance one. There's also another which is a very good deal but rather restrictive called The Great Escapade which is Virgin, Air Newzealand and Singapore Airlines (while restrictive it may do exactly what you're looking at). While you can do add on sectors either by flying or going overland, the biggest single cost is that round the world fare. Don't worry they allow changes as they're built for this kind of trip.
Now based on the prices (there's a few different mileage options on some) you can decide which one is most likely to fit your needs (is it worth adding on £1500 to your far so you can see Rio for a few days if all the other places are in Asia and and the US? etc).
Don't worry about exact matches, as I said you can add on short haul sectors often quite cheap.

- Now build up a rough route. You can change the route after buying even, but now it will just allow you to start to work out the possibilities and options and tricks. For example Bangkok to Singapore is really cheap on Bangkok air (which is a lovely airline to fly with too and certainly used to have a free exclusive lounge in a number of airports) but could knock off 900 miles which allow you to complete your route without going up to the next bracket and so saving money. Also you'll start finding routes overland potentially that you would like to do and those you wouldn't. The train from Bangkok through Laos to Vietnam is quite popular and you'll see a lot along the way. Perth to Sydney by car is often considered but it's a lot of desert to see and covers 3000+ km.)

This is a starting point. There are so many options and so much to do and it's not worth trying to explain it all here, but once you start playing with the above you'll be on the way to a plan.

so one more point on planning. Don't plan too much!
Don't set it stone, don't have tight schedules, don't try and fill up the whole time. You are going to find somewhere where you decide to stay longer, you are going to find somewhere you can't stand and want to leave early, you may run in to people you get on with and put a leg in somewhere you'd not thought of to do together, you may decide you can't do X and Y so you split up and do one each as you prefer and meet up at Z. It's all changeable within reason and you're going to learn a lot about travelling once you get underway. Get a loose plan that has some leeway on budget and time and then go explore.

As for budget, this is a tough one. I'd say don't camp - as above have said carrying all that gear is going to be hellish. Either pick up cheap gear on one leg you know you'll get use for it and flog it at the end, or just take sleeping bags and a kettle and that's it (for example) for the odd rough camp. Do stay in hostels - not only are they often very cheap, they're where you are most like tomeet lots of amazing people. Do sometimes splash out, but know where and when to do it. A cheap motel in the US might cost you £50 for the night, but a 5* hotel in Kuala Lumper cost you £20, and the 5* hotel will wash your clothes and have a bath which you'll be very thankful for!

'Roughing it' can mean many things so an actual figure is hard to point to, but you can both live pretty well in most of the world for £1000 between you for a month, and shave quite a bit off if you're clever and don't mind missing luxuries. In Far East/South America/Africa in most places you could feasibly cut that in half. But with your budget I'd say thnk of it as £1000 a month to start and see how you get on. You do have quite a lot more than many people travel on.
Oh another thing, are you planning to work at all? If so then you'll need less anyway, but if you're going to hard plan anyhting I'd say it' where you're going to work and get some arranged (especially work visas , but if possible a place to) before you go. You can always change but at least then you have one firm fall back and it's less scary.

In reply to drink_more_tea:

Thanks for everyone's replies All been very helpful.

With New Zealand and Australia, we were looking at hiring a car and then camping throughout. This looks to be pretty cheap with car rental compared to staying in hostel - we would only really consider private 2 bed rooms. However, in places like Asia, after much thought, we will look at hostels/hotels as yeah, don't want to be carrying around all that camping gear!

I don't think we will stick to Asia a huge amount, our plan would look something like this:

- 2 months New Zealand
- 1 month Australia
- 1 month SE Asia
- 1 month Himalayas
- 2 months Europe
- some time in Alaska and Hawaii
- some time in South America and Africa (budget depending)

Our budget would be around £25,000 and we just do not see the point in working. Ideally we would not want to spend more than the 25k. Just to add, we did spend £12,000 travelling in America for 2 months (we felt this was as cheap as we could get it doing all the things we wanted to do).

Food for thought regarding the round the world fares. Lots to digest so we will take a look into this on their websites - thanks for this tip!

Yeah I think we will just need to look at it as £1,000 pppm and then as you said some places will be more expensive and some places less expensive and hopefully it will just work itself out in the end.

I think we will struggle if we don't plan a lot as we would be worried that we would miss things out. For example, with America, we planned everything, from the campsite we were going to stay in to the hike that we were going to do on X day. To be fair though, it did change a little in the 2 months but nothing major and it felt that the trip was complete and we did everything we wanted. But I am not sure how a trip like this would be with such detailed planning. So definitely something to consider.

We are still at the very early stages yet, so got lots to look at etc but thanks for everyone's replies. All been very helpful and given us lots to think about!

In reply to drink_more_tea:

In New Zealand I found the buses really cheap, probably cheaper than car hire. You might want to reconsider having to have couple rooms in hostels - I've shared dormitories with couples, one with a couple, the wife's sister and a random man recently out of the Israeli army. I get the need to have some alone time, which maybe is where the tent comes in. When I went I used the tent maybe four days total - the hostels were cheaper and there were so many more of them than campsites, a lot easier. I lived cheaply. Big fan of NZ muesli, use by date sandwiches and various noodle & pasta combinations ...