World Trip Costs & Financial Tips

You think that a big trip or even a World trip costs a lot of money? This is not the case at all.
I was myself 11 months on a world tour on the road and have in this time less than 20'000 francs needed. So converted, only about 1,800 francs per month for all my expenses.
How I went about traveling the world to experience as much as possible with little money?

This and how to manage your finances intelligently when abroad or travelingI share with you in this post.

Reduce airfare when traveling

On my 11-month trip around the world, one of the largest cost items the subject Flights. Therefore, the decision was quickly made to always stay in one place for at least a month.
This Reduces flight costs drastically. Furthermore, it has the advantage that you travel slower and can thus gain more local impressions and not constantly only sit at airports or in a tour bus.

Flights are a very specific topic anyway when it comes to their cost. You can work with platforms like skyscanner.ch or with kayak.ch very find cheap flights and then observe them in the long term.
It is advantageous to observe the flight costs over a longer period of time and then to favorable time to wait with the booking.
At Google Flights, for example, you can see historical data and whether airfares are currently rather expensive or cheap.

VPN to book flights

Furthermore, it is known that Airfares adjusted if a user frequently displays a certain route. This means, for example, that if Google recognizes that you regularly Google the flight Zurich - Rome, then the prices will be increased for you personally.
On the other hand, if your neighbor will research the same flight once, he may get a cheaper airfare displayed. Crazy, isn't it?

Fortunately, this is not yet the case everywhere, but to avoid this cost trap, I recommend you to get a VPN to use. Personally I use ExpressVPN * and am very satisfied with it.

With a VPN, you can connect online to your Protect identity and thus protect you from tracking and an increased airfare.

Book flight weekdays or weekends?

Flights, by the way, are a topic that can be optimized quite a bit. For example, airfares tend to be cheaper during the week than at the weekend. Furthermore, there are tendencies that you can see on a mobile deviceThis means that you will see lower prices on your cell phone or tablet than on a computer.

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Hotel or AirBnB? There is more!

Also a very high cost when traveling is the Theme overnight stay. If you're going to be abroad for several weeks or months, overnight stays can be very much on the money.
Should you therefore only use Couchsurfing stay overnight in any cheap accommodation? Personally, I would not like that.

Depending on the country and region, it is recommended to check different platforms. In some countries it is cheaper and more attractive to rent via AirBnB. private accommodations to book. Especially if you want to cook yourself, this is in a AirBnB thanks to kitchen often possible (and partly saves money, of course).

In other countries, however, you will not really find on AirBnB, then it can make sense about booking.com or other local platforms Accommodation to find.

Stay overnight free of charge

A platform that allows you to free of charge to stay overnight is for example trustedhousesitteres.com. Here you can help homeowners herd their animals and in return stay in their home for free while the owners themselves are traveling.

Paying abroad with cash or credit card?

Whether booking a flight or making a payment abroad, you need money on a regular basis and have to make payments all the time.
It is therefore advisable to use a very inexpensive provider, which will give you the following benefits abroad favorable exchange rates and no penalties are charged for cash withdrawals in foreign currencies.

Revolut should not be missing in your wallet, because with this card you can pay or withdraw cash at very good rates every month.
From Switzerland I can give you the map of Neon recommend. This also offers very favorable foreign conditions an.

Personally, I would advise you anyway, Several credit cards to have at your disposal. You should also make sure to have a Mastercard and one Visa card to have with you, as in some places only one of the two cards is accepted.

Furthermore, a card can quickly be blocked or not work. A Backup credit card is therefore always important to me personally. Also a smaller amount of cash you should always have with you for emergencies.

Avoid credit card scams

By the way, the topic Credit card scamming Depending on the country, this is a point you should be aware of. That is, if you use your card in an unsafe place, your card may be copied and then misused. As a result, you will have to block it and you will be left without money.

My tip is therefore to pay with mobile payment to be executed. This is because with mobile payment, the stored card is used for each payment with a unique ID provided. If someone copies your credit card, they can no longer use it. This is because the ID expires after each mobile payment and a new ID (in simple terms, a new virtual credit card) is created.

Accordingly, I would recommend, for security reasons Mobile Payment to use.

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Travel insurance necessary?

On a trip, something can come up at any time. Either you get sick and have to take a cancel major tripor your luggage gets lost. A flight is canceled or other incidents may occur.

If you want to protect yourself against such relapses, we recommend a good travel insurance. However, you should always look carefully here.

In our Travel insurance comparison switzerland has Smile particularly well completed. The online direct insurer from Switzerland is very inexpensive and absolutely transparent.

Credit cards with insurance

While many credit cards offer included travel insurances but unfortunately they always have special requirements. For example, every single transaction you want to insure must also be paid for with this (usually expensive) credit card.

For me personally, this is not a fair deal. I prefer to use as fair and cheap credit cardas mentioned above. And if I want to insure something, I take out insurance separately. So I can always clearly separate what I pay for and what I get in return. Without this knowledge, you can not accurately check your world travel costs.

Smile for example, is a direct Swiss online insurer, which is very Low cost travel insurance offers.

Telephony and Internet as a Swiss abroad

One question that was also asked about travel was the Communication topic respectively, cell phone and Internet.
Personally, I had my (not quite up to date) cell phone with me on the long world trip. And have in each case on the spot and directly on arrival a local sim card purchased

Uber instead of cab

Since, as mentioned above, I was always in a country for at least several weeks, the local sim card was very worthwhile and often paid off after just a few days.

Paid off? Yes, because even if a sim card at the airport is a little more expensive than in a store in the city, you have directly the Internet connection advantage.
Often the cab from the airport to the accommodation is very overpriced. Depending on the country, thanks to the Internet data you can then directly order an Uber / Grab / Bolt / ... and save a lot of money for the ride.

By the way, you can find more of these insider tips here from Sebastian Canaves from Off the Path he travelled around the world for several years as a digital nomad.

Local sim card

Especially in Asia or in South America, for example local sim cards with internet offers very cheap. To be more precise, I have yet to see a country where Internet rates were more expensive than Switzerland.

If you buy a local SIM card abroad, you can use WhatsApp to send your Keep original phone number. So you can still write with your friends and make calls via WhatsApp, for example.

If you need to be reachable via your phone number, you will of course need either a Dual Sim cell phone or a second cell phone. Alternatively, just keep switching to the other SIM card if you want to reduce your world travel costs.

eSim instead of physical sim card

By the way, by now there are apps that allow you to create a virtual SIM card to buy. Therefore, you don't always have to buy a physical SIM card. However, according to our experience, it was cheaper to buy a physical SIM card at that time.

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What world travel costs should I expect?

So what does a trip around the world cost? If you want to go abroad for a longer period of time, you don't have to be deterred by the cost.

When I was on the road for a total of 11 months from 2018 to 2019, I had a budget of about 20'000 francs needed.

As said have Flights certainly accounted for a large part of the costs, furthermore of course local event, events, tickets and experiences.

Subsequently came Overnight stays and Food to bear. For me personally Experiences very important, which is why I was happy to spend money on boat trips, national parks or other experiences, for example.

Especially when it comes to accommodation, you can reduce your world trip costs if you stay longer on site. For example, in Bali you can find a really nice accommodation with pool and with a beautiful view of the rice fields for under $600 per month book

Furthermore you can check the prices directly Negotiate on site. I had booked in each case in new places first one or two nights and explored the area.

If I then liked another or the current accommodation, I negotiated the price for a longer stay with the owner. Since this then does not have to pay fees for the platform (eg AirBnB), you can get a Get discount.

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World trip cost per month example

My typical expenses in one month in Asia/South America looked something like the following on a monthly basis:

CHF 400 for the flight (averaged over all flights / months)
CHF 400 for the overnight stay (50% cheaper if there are two of you)
CHF 500 for meals, snacks, occasional drinks, cooking classes
CHF 300 for experiences like national parks, guides, entrance fees
CHF 50 for transportation (cab, Uber or rent for a scooter)
CHF 100 for living expenses (laundry service, gym entrance, sim card, ...)

The cost vary strongly per country. My journey took me through the following countries:

Sri Lanka
Nepal
Thailand
Indonesia
Singapore
Argentina
Peru
Mexico
Costa Rica
Panama
Colombia

Conclusion on the topic of world travel costs and sabbatical planning

There are some Tricksthat you can take into account when traveling or living abroad. safe and cheap with your money.
Insurance you should in my opinion Separate from credit cards select, if they are necessary for you at all.

If you're wondering which of the countries I liked best, my answer would be relatively clear. In Asia was my favorite Nepal (especially if you like hiking and trekking in the Himalayas) and in South America it was Colombia.

Of course, the other countries were also unforgettably beautiful and besides the world trip, I have already made other trips and have thus found other favorites in Asia or South America.

I would be interested to know which your best financial tips for traveling or for abroad. And feel free to share which country has impressed you the most so far!

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4 responses

Joe says:

15. September 2022 at 20:30

Well...the costs do not include the rent for living in Switzerland for 11 months😉...at (only) CHF 1,500 p.m., this would add at least 16,500 to the rent....therefore the world trip costs around CHF 40,000, unless you still live in mum and dad's house😉

Reply
1. Eric says:
  
  18. September 2022 at 12:39
  
  Hello Joe
  Fortunately, you can also sublet a flat. For example, I did this fully furnished including a small surcharge (so legitimate - for the wear and tear of the furniture) and therefore didn't even have to "move out" much. In fact, I didn't sublet the basement room and stored everything personal there.
  
  Reply
Davide says:

24. August 2022 at 8:08

I find it very exciting. Would have interested me even more detailed. Especially also your itinerary 😉
Mfg

Reply
1. Eric says:
  
  25. August 2022 at 6:52
  
  Hello Davide 🙂
  Thanks for your feedback. Thematically I did not want to deviate too far from the finance blog 🙂 Are you in the Wealth Letter? Then I'll gladly put a few more details in there.
  Kind regards
  Eric
  
  Reply

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