Budget

Budget: Self-Drive Safari

enjean2013 2 Comments

We wanted to give you an idea (and figure it out for ourselves) of how much our self-drive safari cost. We knew that it would take us above our $100/day budget, but we figured that it would be worth it.

Total Cost of 25 day self-drive safari: $5,599.36

Throughout the safari, we used South African Rand, Botswana Pula, Namibian Dollars and US Dollars. We used the current exchange rates.

We divided this cost down into the following categories:

 

Transportation: $3785.89

 

The transportation includes the cost of our Bushlore Truck Rental ($3001.00), gas ($685.99), various road fees, and a ferry.

 

Accommodation: $860.25

We were actually quite shocked at the expense of our accommodation. We used our truck company to help us pre-book many of our campsites because we knew it would be high season for safari. We decided that it was a good choice for some of the parks in Botswana, but was probably a bit unnecessary for Namibia. We also found that the parks in Botswana were outrageously expensive, even though we were just camping. For example, there were park fees of about $28 per day. In addition to the park fees, we paid for camping. The camp grounds within the national parks are all private and they are amazingly expensive. You pay per person and they cost $50 per person, per night.

 

Activities (This includes all park and entrance fees): $448.73

These are the park fees mentioned above. They were much more expensive in Botswana than they were in Namibia.

 

Alcohol: $55.97

We purchased 2 boxes of wine for our camping and also purchased a couple of beers here and there in the lodges.

 

Food: $261.35

This mostly consisted of groceries for camping. However, we did end up breaking down and buying a few meals along the way.

 

Miscellaneous: $42.51

We purchased maps for all of the major parks. Again, the Botswana prices were much more expensive than Namibia. We also had to pay for the bathroom in a couple of places.

 

Souvenirs: $17.53

Our safari was 25 days, so this cost averages $223.97 per day. That definitely blows our budget. However, the good news is that because it was at the beginning of our trip, we did pay our deposits for the truck and accommodation prior to leaving. Therefore we feel as if we didn’t actually pay it now… Or at least that is what we are going to tell ourselves.

How Can You Afford to go Around the World?

globegazers 1 Comment

This is another one of the questions that we get quite often when we tell people about our trip plans.  The answer is both really easy and really difficult. Traveling like this will definitely require a significant amount of cash.

The first answer is that this trip is a priority for us, so we have been saving money. We are extremely fortunate to be debt-free (except for the house) so we can afford to put money towards savings.

The rest of the answer is not as clear-cut. We believe that traveling in the way that we want to may be significantly cheaper than living a year in our normal manner here in the U.S.

In our initial effort to think about the budget for the trip, we gave ourselves a daily limit. We plan to spend no more than $100/day for the two of us. This would be an average of course, because naturally there will be bigger expenses on some days and less on others. We hope to get several of our large flights covered by airline miles, which will help keep the costs down. We also know as we move through different areas of the world, the cost of living will change drastically. We believe that there are places where we can spend much less than our $100/day and some places where the $100/day limit will be a struggle. In addition, we know that there will be certain “adventures” we want to experience that may cost more. But, based on our experiences traveling in the past, we think that the limit is reasonable.

Using the $100/day plan, we can assume we will spend approximately $3000/month. $3000 times our potential trip length of 10-12 months would get us up to ~$35,000 for the two of us. With our savings, as well as perhaps a little income from renting our house, this seems doable. It is quite a bit less than what it costs to live here in Denver for a year!

As for traveling cheaply, stay tuned to the blog for our budget posts. We’ll let you know how easy or difficult it turns out to be to stay within our budget. Also, we might give you some ideas about how to travel more economically and where in the world you can visit without breaking the bank.

Belize/Guatemala Trip Overview

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In the end, our Summer 2013 trip to Belize and Guatemala was a success. As we anticipated, Belize was a relatively easy country to travel in: they speak English, prices are low and there is a good tourist infrastructure. We also enjoyed the ability to experience the Mayan ruins and the ocean adventures within such a short distance.

Budget

The Belizean dollar is pegged to the US dollar at an exact rate of 2 to 1, so it was pretty easy to calculate how much we spent. Guatemala was a little bit tougher – for purposes of estimation we are using the rate of 7 quetzales to 1 US dollar. The numbers below are rounded up to reflect the uncertainty.

  • Lodging: $240
  • Transportation: $390
  • Food and Drink: $585
  • Activities: $395
  • Border Fees: $45

Our total for the 15 days was $1655, so our per-day average was $110. A little higher than we would have liked, but we learned some lessons about how to cut costs that could help in the future.

Some other observations from the budget:

    • The transportation costs include plane flights. You may not think that’s possible, but it is! We used American Airlines miles for our flights. We got these miles by signing up for the American Airlines credit card and getting the nice sign up bonus. We will talk more about these strategies in later posts.
    • Buying a bottle of rum in the store was definitely cheaper than getting drinks out at a bar. We will try to do this more often in the future. We also could have saved money by eating out at restaurants less and cooking for ourselves more.
    • The most expensive activity was definitely the ATM cave tour. This was definitely worth it though!

Our cheapest days were the days in Caye Caulker where we did nothing but hang out by the beach. Goes to show you that sometimes it’s good to just do nothing for a day to recharge your spirits and your wallet.