15 Months. The Budget.

Hola! Since the last budget post we visited Namibia, South Africa and Argentina.

Here is the bad news on the budget ~ we have already blasted through a pile of money that could have bought us a brand new super fancy car. Well, maybe a fancy car and a half. The good news is that budget wise we are doing better than I projected and we could keep traveling past the initial year we planned on. And just because I am superstitious, I will wait on writing in detail about the whole financial picture until we make it home.

Instead, I hope to inspire you to travel to Namibia, because this country will blow your socks, to use phrase I typed excitedly about Namibia the first time I got to internet there and wrote without thinking. Without a doubt Namibia is a great introduction for those of you who want to visit Africa, but are little bit uneasy about all the unknowns travel in this continent holds. How expensive was Namibia and how challenging was it to travel there with children? I liked this country so much that I went out of my way and wrote a detailed post about the nitty-gritty of our month there and hopefully some of you will be encouraged to visit given that Namibia can be done on a budget. Our daily average of $131/ day/ 4 people. We managed to not break the bank only because we camped everywhere and we cooked our own meals. Namibia after all was the perfect camping destination and camping only brought us closer to its unbelievable nature. Would I have wanted a little more luxury? I would lie if I say no. We we kept looking jealously at all the 4×4 wheel drive campers who had an easy pop up tent on the roofs of their vehicles BUT traveling with that easy setup would have added at least $100/day to our budget, so … we looked the other way and patiently pitched our tent on the ground day after day.

Lessons learned: Bring your own camping gear! Buy a cook top when you arrive as you can easily get gas refills. Rent a car as this is the only way to travel. Buy a sim card and use your mobile to make reservations as you go, especially in the busy season. You will also need a phone in case of an emergency. If you have dreams of visiting Africa, just go! You will never regret it!

South Africa. Our South Africa daily average is half of that of Namibia. We kept checking the number and rechecking it, but we always came up with the amazing $69/ day/ 4 people. How is it possible? After all, we rented a car for 37 days and we drove and explored without limiting ourselves much?!

In a nutshell South Africa is extremely affordable if you are willing to camp and cook yourself and the extensive network of hostels makes this incredibly easy. South Africa is the country with the best budget accommodations on our trip so far. Most of the hostels offer cheap camping and they all have bathrooms with hot water, cozy common areas and kitchens to be used by all.

South Africa spoiled us in terms of food. The country has the best grocery stores and good, healthy and cheap food is everywhere (coming from US, I can’t believe that I am putting healthy and cheap in the same sentence in regards to food:)

Lessons learned: Make sure you have a mobile phone. It is useful in making reservations on the road. Renting a car is more affordable than I thought. 

Argentina. Argentina is expensive BUT it can be done on a budget, especially outside of Buenos Aires, in the North West. We heard from other travelers that Patagonia is expensive as well, especially in high season. Our daily budget hit $137/ day/ 4 people on condition that we budgeted carefully daily, camped and didn’t splurge at all:( There are plenty of blog posts out there on how to travel in Argentina on a budget, but the problem is that I didn’t read any of them prior to touching down in Buenos Aires.

Lessons learned: RESEARCH prior to traveling in Argentina! Check if bringing $ in cash with you is still a good idea at the time you plan to travel. I know carrying cash sounds like the craziest advice BUT trust me on this one. If we had cash our daily average would have been 1/3 less. Black market, baby:)

Additional Expenses: $10,804 on airplane tickets: (Asheville – San Francisco; San Francisco – Tokyo, Osaka – Phuket, Thailand; Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Denpasar, Bali – Kathmandu, Nepal; Madurai, India – Colombo, Sri Lanka; Colombo, Sri Lanka – Istanbul, Turkey; Sofia – Windhoek, Namibia; Johanesburg, SA – Buenos Aires, Argentina). $1,291 on travel insurance for a year.

To be honest these types of blog posts are boring for me to write and I procrastinated catching up on the money page for a long time. I keep going at it just because I am curious as to how much the whole trip would eventually cost us and blogging about it motivates me to keep track.

Drop me a comment below if you find the budget posts useful or if you suggestions on how to make them more worthwhile to you as a reader.

Cheers,

~M