Author Topic: Travel Budget - Post-Fire  (Read 17118 times)

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #50 on: May 22, 2018, 12:48:27 PM »
WE see many people in their 80's on cruises and I think it is because everything is done for you and provided in one location.

DreamFIRE

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #51 on: May 22, 2018, 05:56:09 PM »
We lost 3 friends between the ages of 59-67 and know couples where one person is not healthy enough for travel. So we are doing what we want while we can.  Also by age 80 many people say that traveling is a hassle.

Yeah, I don't blame you.  I think I would do more of that when I FIRE if I could.  But after $20K/yr in expenses, that leave about $30K/yr discretionary (total), so I'll have to pick and choose my spots to make the $ go the furthest and otherwise limit my traveling, just like itchyfeet.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #52 on: May 22, 2018, 07:35:30 PM »
It might have been smarter for us to start traveling younger but we didn’t.  So now we are partying on😂

limeandpepper

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #53 on: May 22, 2018, 10:06:54 PM »
Expensive travelers on here I see.  Heck, that makes my $30K/yr discretionary budget (for me alone) seem inadequate for much traveling when I FIRE.  The $30K will have to cover everything beyond my necessary expenses (barebones) including local entertainment, so the entire $30K can't go to travel.  I think I'll stick to US and Canada, though, and drive.  I'm not too crazy about going to Mexico, South/Central America, or overseas.

Your budget sounds like a lot to me too. :p

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #54 on: May 23, 2018, 10:03:30 AM »
So I estimate this summers 6 week driving trip will cost about 5k.  With having 3 dogs and one a 80lb shedding machine we booked motels unless someone offered to put us up.  We will eat out one meal a day which will usually be dinner and use the cooler for the other meals.  Most places we are paying 50/night for motels. We are staying in 3 expensive places during the trip so it will be higher in those places. We also booked 3 airbnb’s Which are apartments attached to a house.  When people come to visit we always offer to put them up but with our current dog situation I don’t expect that of others.  We have talked about taking this trip for years so super excited that we are finally doing it.

DreamFIRE

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #55 on: May 23, 2018, 07:09:25 PM »
Expensive travelers on here I see.  Heck, that makes my $30K/yr discretionary budget (for me alone) seem inadequate for much traveling when I FIRE.  The $30K will have to cover everything beyond my necessary expenses (barebones) including local entertainment, so the entire $30K can't go to travel.  I think I'll stick to US and Canada, though, and drive.  I'm not too crazy about going to Mexico, South/Central America, or overseas.

Your budget sounds like a lot to me too. :p

LOL.  Yeah, everything is relative.  But if I divide that $30K discretionary out over a full year, that's only $82/day or $574/wk.  If I limit my traveling, then I can concentrate more spending within a shorter time period when I actually travel.  I thought about selling the house and doing some slow travel for a while, but that only gives me about $700/mo extra to spend, and then I lose my home base.

limeandpepper

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #56 on: May 23, 2018, 07:15:43 PM »
Expensive travelers on here I see.  Heck, that makes my $30K/yr discretionary budget (for me alone) seem inadequate for much traveling when I FIRE.  The $30K will have to cover everything beyond my necessary expenses (barebones) including local entertainment, so the entire $30K can't go to travel.  I think I'll stick to US and Canada, though, and drive.  I'm not too crazy about going to Mexico, South/Central America, or overseas.

Your budget sounds like a lot to me too. :p

LOL.  Yeah, everything is relative.  But if I divide that $30K discretionary out over a full year, that's only $82/day or $574/wk.  If I limit my traveling, then I can concentrate more spending within a shorter time period when I actually travel.  I thought about selling the house and doing some slow travel for a while, but that only gives me about $700/mo extra to spend, and then I lose my home base.

$82/day could go a long way but it depends what you like I guess. For example I don't really do camping, which I know can be very cheap. However I like to travel in Asia and it's easy to not spend very much there and I imagine it's similar for Mexico and Central and South America, but if you're not interested in those places then it is what it is.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #57 on: May 23, 2018, 08:02:46 PM »
I actually don’t like hot, humid countries and not interested in Asian countries. I love, love Europe.  We went to Thailand and although beautiful that cured me. My son is moving to Vietnam to teach English so we will go there only to see him. However, I recently found out through dna testing that I have a half  sister in Australia so will see her on the way. 

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #58 on: May 23, 2018, 08:04:48 PM »
Actually this summer trip is only costing 119/day.  I am a homebody so if I cannot take my dogs don’t want to be gone longer than 2 weeks.

limeandpepper

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #59 on: May 23, 2018, 08:07:58 PM »
I actually don’t like hot, humid countries and not interested in Asian countries. I love, love Europe.  We went to Thailand and although beautiful that cured me. My son is moving to Vietnam to teach English so we will go there only to see him. However, I recently found out through dna testing that I have a half  sister in Australia so will see her on the way. 

Not all Asian countries are hot and humid! But yes the SE Asia part tends to be. Still, I know mountainous regions in some parts of SE Asia that are quite nice and cool.

If you don't like hot, avoid Australia in summer (though it depends on the area also, Tasmania doesn't get too hot). My favourite season in Australia is autumn.

expatartist

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #60 on: May 23, 2018, 09:34:19 PM »
Since I don't stay in posh hotels, I find travel hacking is good for long distance flights. Asia is pretty amazing. Two thirds of the world lives on our continent http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm and the economies and cultures in the region have a pivotal role in the 21st century. To me, the west - particularly Europe - feels so old and stale after Asia's dynamism. To each their own of course! The world's a wonderful place, aren't we so lucky to have the time and technology to explore it.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #61 on: May 23, 2018, 09:41:37 PM »
Yes I went to Thailand in winter and the heat was horrible.  If we all liked the same thing it would be boring.

limeandpepper

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #62 on: May 23, 2018, 10:15:55 PM »
Yes I went to Thailand in winter and the heat was horrible.  If we all liked the same thing it would be boring.

You must have been to Bangkok or something like that. Mountain villages up north are different (in both climate and culture). Kind of like Alaska and Arizona are both in the same country but give you a different experience...

expatartist

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #63 on: May 24, 2018, 12:07:48 AM »
Thailand's divided into various regions, each with different climates and cultures: North (Lanna), Northeast (Lao culture), Central plains (including Bkk), the South (Muslim, with its most famous islands), and Southeast (coast near Cambodia). Generally, late Jan -> mid March is the hottest time of year, before the monsoon comes to cool things down. Northern Thailand can be nice from Oct-December, as is northern Vietnam (esp Sapa and other hill towns).

We all travel for different regions and different styles. Over the years mine have changed: from learning about the world via art study and internships in Europe my 20s, to exploring inspiration and possibilities of where to live and make art in my 30s (Asia/Sicily), to travel for artwork production and exhibition in my 40s (Asia, Europe, USA). I travel a lot, but the leisure aspect is a side benefit to the main purpose of the trip, like tacking on a couple days on an island between exhibitions. My career means life and work are inseparable and drive each other on. Not true for most who sensibly have more delineation between work and private life.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #64 on: May 24, 2018, 09:11:21 AM »
Yes we were in Bangkok.  My kids were in India and said the poverty was bad. We have traveled to the Caribbean many times and some of the poverty is awful in some of those countries too.

itchyfeet

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #65 on: May 24, 2018, 10:40:23 AM »
I once spent 3 months bumming around SE Asia and had an awesome and very, very cheap time.

But I also remember the first time I went to Bangkok when I was 19, 9 years before that extended trip.

I had a 4 day stopover there on my way home from hiking in Nepal. I managed to pick up a stomach virus and spent nearly the whole time in Bangkok lying on a dirty mattress in a concrete cell on Khao San Road (paying $2 a night for the “room”), sweating buckets in the searing heat and running back and forth from the toilet every 15mins. It was a lonely and very unpleasant experience.

The only other thing I recall from that first trip to BK was Patpong... but that’s a story for a different forum. Lol. A real eye opener for a young lad.

Since that first memorable trip, DW and I have always had a good time in Bangkok but wen no longer stay in concrete cells.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #66 on: May 24, 2018, 12:12:05 PM »
We stayed in a fancy hotel but they gave us bottled water and told us to use that to brush our teeth. We were careful not to drink anything unless it came in a sealed bottle. We did not use ice either. They had tons of fresh fruit but we didn't touch it because of worrying about getting sick. 

DreamFIRE

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #67 on: May 24, 2018, 04:08:09 PM »
Expensive travelers on here I see.  Heck, that makes my $30K/yr discretionary budget (for me alone) seem inadequate for much traveling when I FIRE.  The $30K will have to cover everything beyond my necessary expenses (barebones) including local entertainment, so the entire $30K can't go to travel.  I think I'll stick to US and Canada, though, and drive.  I'm not too crazy about going to Mexico, South/Central America, or overseas.

Your budget sounds like a lot to me too. :p

LOL.  Yeah, everything is relative.  But if I divide that $30K discretionary out over a full year, that's only $82/day or $574/wk.  If I limit my traveling, then I can concentrate more spending within a shorter time period when I actually travel.  I thought about selling the house and doing some slow travel for a while, but that only gives me about $700/mo extra to spend, and then I lose my home base.

$82/day could go a long way but it depends what you like I guess. For example I don't really do camping, which I know can be very cheap. However I like to travel in Asia and it's easy to not spend very much there and I imagine it's similar for Mexico and Central and South America, but if you're not interested in those places then it is what it is.

I think it would be interesting to go to those places, but they are high risk when it comes to safety and security.  Also, I don't speak the language and would stand out among the natives, which would make me a target.

expatartist

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #68 on: May 24, 2018, 11:24:04 PM »
We stayed in a fancy hotel but they gave us bottled water and told us to use that to brush our teeth. We were careful not to drink anything unless it came in a sealed bottle. We did not use ice either. They had tons of fresh fruit but we didn't touch it because of worrying about getting sick.

!!? They sound paranoid. Using tap water to brush teeth is perfectly fine throughout Thailand and pretty much anywhere in SE Asia (perhaps remote Burma an exception - only place I've used tap water was in Haiti). Re. the fruit etc if you have immune issues or are eating cut fruit from street vendors during a short trip sure but from a good hotel *should* be fine. Washing hands often goes a long way.

In a couple years of living/traveling through SE Asia (over a year in Thailand) I was ill just once in Thailand from an undercooked coconut dessert made by a street vendor. Thais lean toward extreme fastidiousness and the country is one of the more developed in the region. Cambodia and Burma were a different story entirely ;)

limeandpepper

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #69 on: May 25, 2018, 02:22:30 AM »
Yeah I've always used tap water to brush my teeth in Thailand! I also had plenty of iced drinks there - even from roadside stalls, and salads. The only country I've used purified water to brush my teeth so far is Nepal.

I think it would be interesting to go to those places, but they are high risk when it comes to safety and security.  Also, I don't speak the language and would stand out among the natives, which would make me a target.

I think there are some countries that are not so high-risk, or within the same country many areas are safe and you just need to steer clear of certain areas. Yes not speaking the language and standing out as a foreigner certainly can make you more of a target for scammers, pickpockets etc. Some reading up on potential things to avoid and being cautious can go a long way. But I can understand that you may find that stressful and just want to avoid it altogether.

itchyfeet

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #70 on: May 25, 2018, 05:20:21 AM »
These days the world is so heavily touristed that you really need to get well off the tourist trail to really stand out and be an oddity.

The only place where I felt people were really curious about me, or more accurately my DW, was in China... not in Shanghai or Beijing so much, but even on the Great Wall in Beijing, Chinese domestic tourists from regional China were quite fascinated by us.

Generally people are just not that interested in what I am doing.

Over the years I have been subject to a few minor scams, and some I prob didn’t even realized happened. It’s has never worried me. It’s part of the fun.

I have had friends robbed at knife point in Brazil but I have been lucky this far.

Currently I live in the Middle East which gives me great access to Africa and Eastern and Central Europe. We are Trying to see as much as we can whilst living here.

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #71 on: May 25, 2018, 12:13:13 PM »
A Thai women I met on the plane told me I had been smart to avoid the fruit. She said she eats it on a yearly basis when going home but got sick that year. This was 20 years ago.  It is not a place I wish to return to anyways.  Interesting when I said on another retirement site the amount of $ we spend on trips a year one person said I must only do domestic travel because you can't go to Europe for one trip what we spend on 2. I laughed as we do go to Europe.  Some people on that site spend between 25-50k/year traveling.

Bendigirl

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #72 on: May 25, 2018, 09:01:40 PM »
Cassie, I fully expect and want to spend 25,000 to 50,000 is travel every year TIL i can’t walk any more! 😉
Did Vietnam...but a tour.  It was great and really a good buy!  Ate fruit and raw veg, but in good hotels. We had iced coffee from small shops.  I had no gut issues, no one on our tour was sick.  We did eat off hotel too....
I have travelled cheap my whole life, and we saved and saved and saved...and now it’s time to reap the rewards!  I still look for great deals but...there are limits

Cassie

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #73 on: May 26, 2018, 03:00:54 PM »
BG, we look for deals too. Traveling is one of ours biggest pleasures but then I miss home if I am gone to long.  I booked a cruise 18 months in advance because I got it cheaper. I went on that trip with my sister and she gets diarrhea easily and then can’t get rid of it. For some reason we were only gone for a week so spent 2 days traveling and only had 5 days there. I can’t remember why we didn’t stay longer but it might have been that I didn’t have enough vacation time because we went less than a year after I started a new job.  It was definitely too far to go for such a short time.

jeroly

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #74 on: May 30, 2018, 04:31:50 PM »
Remember, every day that you are traveling is a day that you're not at home, so you're not buying food at the supermarket, not using your air conditioning, not spending from your entertainment budget, not driving around in your car, etc.  So, your travel budget is partly offest by reductions in those costs. 

In fact, my experience is that  I spend about the same whilst on holiday as when I'm at home, without factoring in the airfares.  That's based on a mix of mostly cheaper travel in Asia, Mexico, etc., with some US and Europe (maybe 30%) thrown in to the mix.

Hence, taking advantage of frequent flyer miles, airfare sales, discount airlines like Spirit and WOW, and off peak travel can make a huge difference.   For example, I wanted to visit my cousin in Seattle but I waited until I found a round trip flight on Spirit for $193.  Being FIRE gives one the flexibility to take advantage of that kind of opportunity.

The way that I budget for trips is to come up with a travel budget that includes all travel expenses (this year it'll be $11,000 for 12 weeks of travel in six trips - Kyrgyzstan, 2 weeks, $2500; Mexico, 1 week, $1,300; Dublin, 1 week, $1,200; Vietnam, 2.5 weeks, $2,000;  Indonesia, 4.5 weeks, $3,000; Zion/Bryce Canyon, 1 week, $1,000) but to do my other expense calculations on a weekly basis and to come up with my annual numbers for those categories based on the number of weeks I'll actually be at home (40). 


itchyfeet

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #75 on: May 30, 2018, 09:24:35 PM »
I agree with this approach, but in my budget there are also many expenses that do not reduce when I am traveling like land taxes and insurance. Also long term costs like car depreciation or home repairs are not reduced because I spend a month or 2 overseas. For this reason I think you need 3 pools of funds
1. Recurrent costs for the weeks you are at home
2. Travel costs for the weeks you are away
3. Annual costs that are not affected by you being at home or not.

jeroly

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #76 on: May 31, 2018, 02:04:47 AM »
I agree with this approach, but in my budget there are also many expenses that do not reduce when I am traveling like land taxes and insurance. Also long term costs like car depreciation or home repairs are not reduced because I spend a month or 2 overseas. For this reason I think you need 3 pools of funds
1. Recurrent costs for the weeks you are at home
2. Travel costs for the weeks you are away
3. Annual costs that are not affected by you being at home or not.

Of course.
In fact there are some expenses that may go up while you're away, such as kennel costs, house sitters, etc.

rocketpj

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #77 on: June 01, 2018, 08:01:02 PM »
If you like to travel for low cost and are in no rush, crewing sailboats is a fine way to travel.  You can get onto boats with no or minimal experience at many points around the world.

As an example, there are a great many sailboats moving from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean in the months of October to December, following the sun and the trade winds.  Similarly, many boats go from the Caribbean/Eastern Seaboard to Europe and the Med in the Spring  to get out of Hurricane country.

There are many locales where it is possible for a person or couple to hitch a ride on a wonderful sailboat for zero dollars, or sometimes the cost of food.  Some boats requests a contribution to expenses, but it is usually quite reasonable.

By way of example, a friend and I hung around Gibraltar for awhile in November looking to crew a trip to the Caribbean, and after a few days found a boat that took us to the Canaries, then on to Martinique for a grand total of $125 each (groceries).  It took a couple of months, but what a fantastic trip.

Check out www.crewseekers.net for more information, or the boards on Sailing Anarchy

Of course, women travelling along must be cautious about which boats they pick - most are fine or excellent, but the middle of an ocean is no time to unmask a jerk. 

DreamFIRE

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Re: Travel Budget - Post-Fire
« Reply #78 on: June 02, 2018, 09:33:08 AM »
I still have to eat, I still have to drive or use transportation, I would have to pay someone to mow my lawn, I would still have utility bills (albeit a little lower), I still have to pay for insurance and many other bills including expensive property tax and homeowner's insurance.  On balance, any offset by being away from home is insignificant.

Interesting when I said on another retirement site the amount of $ we spend on trips a year one person said I must only do domestic travel because you can't go to Europe for one trip what we spend on 2. I laughed as we do go to Europe.  Some people on that site spend between 25-50k/year traveling.

I could do $35K/yr max assuming I had little discretionary spending outside of traveling.   That's just for myself not a couple and assume I would be traveling alone.  I think a lot about relocating after I FIRE, and if I sell my house and do some interim full time slow travel, that would free up another $8K/yr., so $43/K yr total towards travel/entertainment, but it would be full time with no home base to retreat to, and I don't think I would keep that up for long.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!