Creating Your Around-the-World Travel Budget

In Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg bets his friends at London’s posh Reform Club that he can circumnavigate the globe in under three months. His fictional expenses were £20,000, and for nearly a century and a half, that number somehow stuck as the price for seeing the world.

Despite the fact that author Jules Verne actually budgeted the equivalent of £2,242,900 in today’s money, some experienced world travelers will still tell you that $20,000 USD is the baseline cost for a single person on a year-long around-the-world adventure. While that comes out to just under $55 per day, other globetrotters will insist that you’ll need at least $100 or more per day to travel comfortably.

So how do you figure out what figure is right for you?

My husband and I spent 12 months visiting over 100 countries on all seven continents, and our day-to-day budget covered a huge range of expenditures.

In Southeast Asia, it was easy to travel like royalty for next to nothing. Comfortable hotel stays that included a lavish breakfast for two could be found for around $30 a night. Huge bowls of savory dumplings were just $2 apiece, and centuries-old temples and gardens could be toured for as little as $1 a ticket.

Eastern Europe was equally affordable, with bed-and-breakfast accommodations for under $30 a night, rental cars with unlimited mileage for just $17 a day, country-to-country bus passes for $19 or less, and numerous ancient castles and cathedrals open to the public for free.

At the other end of the spending spectrum, our daily budget flared to $820 per person for an 11-day expedition to Antarctica. The cruise included three extravagant meals a day, a private cabin with a large ocean-view window and en suite bathroom, and all transportation and excursions. But for $18,000, shouldn’t it be all-inclusive?

Top Questions for Your Around-the-World Budget

There are limitless ways to see the world, from luxury hotels to couch surfing, so before you begin crunching numbers, you need to make some decisions. Here are the top questions to ponder as you start to create your around-the-world budget.

Are you planning the trip yourself?

My husband loves trip planning; it is arguably his favorite hobby, aside from the travel itself. He will pore over flight schedules, train timetables, and bus routes while keeping endless spreadsheets of costs and combinations.

We typically travel in one direction (either moving continually eastward or westward) and book only one-way flights. This approach helps us avoid wasting time and money by retracing our steps, but this kind of detailed planning is not for the faint of heart. It took him a year and a half to plan our adventure.

Ready-made trips

If a package deal is more your style, then you’ll find plenty of ready-made options. Several cruise lines will sail you to multiple countries in a month starting around $7,000, or you can spend half a year at sea and visit three dozen countries or more for upwards of $65,000 per person. We’re talking interior cabins without all the extras, but all you have to do is show up.

Prefer the air over the sea? You can often find cheap flights with long layovers in two or three cities for around $1,500 round trip. For example, one recent multi-airline itinerary featured travel from London to San Francisco, Honolulu, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, and Athens before returning to the UK five weeks later, all for $1,253 (£950).

How fancy are you feeling?

The level of luxury you expect from your around-the-world experience has a direct effect on your budget. Do you imagine yourself in glittering cities like Paris, Rome, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, Los Angeles, and New York? Be prepared to spend significantly, even for a short trip. Are countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Morocco, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Colombia, and Peru more your style? You could travel for several weeks on the same budget.

Once you’ve narrowed down potential destinations, consider places you can visit without paying for a visa. Many countries have reciprocal agreements that allow visitors holding certain passports to enter for free. You can also find regional deals that bundle countries, like the European Schengen Visa or the KAZA UniVisa that offers discounts to travelers visiting both Zambia and Zimbabwe. Also, keep in mind the required vaccinations for some destinations, as they can be costly and often aren’t covered by regular health insurance.

Can you save money along the way?

Establishing a travel budget ahead of time is crucial, but once you leave home, it’s easy to lose sight of the numbers and convince yourself that you should indulge because you only live once. Therefore, we incorporate money-saving strategies throughout our travels to maintain balance.

Many travelers prefer the safety of bottled water, but the costs (along with environmental impact) can accumulate over time. We carry a lightweight, reusable water bottle and an ultraviolet light purifying pen wherever we go, which saved us over $1,000 during our year-long trip while keeping our stomachs settled across all seven continents.

Additionally, we will often go to great lengths to avoid checking bags and the associated fees on planes and trains. Traveling with only carry-on luggage saved us nearly $3,000 and ensured we never missed a connection while waiting at the baggage carousel.

The bottom line

There is no one-size-fits-all figure for an around-the-world adventure. Your travel budget is as personal as your budget at home. Therefore, you can approach it in one of two ways: either start with the destination in mind and plan accordingly, or begin with your budget and see how far it will take you.