A New Year generally starts with a reflection of the previous year and in our case this was no different. What was surprising to us though were the “figures” that accompanied that review. To be frank – they were quite staggering.
We never imagined that over the course of 2018 we would have visted 16 countries and travelled (according to our TripIt account) a ridiculous 502,931 kilometers 🌎🌎!!! We took 20 flights ✈️, 13 bus trips 🚌, 5 train trips 🚉 and rented a car 🚗 for 45 days.
We did 18 house sits (in 9 countries) that covered 275 nights and we paid for 84 nights accommodation. We stayed with friends and family for just 6 nights.
And the amazing thing is that it all cost about $40,000 Australian Dollars (that’s around $110 per day)!!!!!
I am going to publish 12 posts (one for each month) with a quick review of what we did, where we were and what the costs were.
You’ll see in the above graph that some months were WAY more expensive than others. The reasons why will become apparent as we review each month.
Hopefully, this will prove useful to some of our readers to show that it is possible to travel full time without spending a fortune.
It will also provide a nice record for us to look back on in the future. So let’s get started.
Monthly reviews
Here’s the links to each month:
February – Ancient Kingdoms and Modern Metropolises
March – Australia
April – Weddings, Flying Business Class, Frankfurt and Valencia
January – Thailand and Laos
We celebrated the start of a New Year in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There was a sense of deja vu about this as we’d been here for New Years Eve 2015 and 2017. On both our previous visits we had spent October to February here in a rented condo. The cost of living is so low that it is easy to get ‘comfortable’ and just enjoy the Northern Thailand city and all it has to offer. On this occasion we had arrived in early October 2017 to do a house sit for our friends Steve and Mary. This was closely followed by a 3 week sit for another expat couple. We then rented a condo for 2 months and so started 2018.
We spent the majority of January in our condo in Chiang Mai before doing a one week house sit to conclude the month. Glenn had read about, what sounded like, a great 2 day trip down the Mekong River through Laos to Luang Prabang. After researching it he headed off in early January for the round trip from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang. It was a great trip and you can read all about it here – 5 day trip to Luang Prabang in Laos.
We left Thailand on the 30th January and prepared for a busy February. We would spend a few weeks travelling through Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore before arriving in Australia. But that is for the next post!!!
JANUARY expenses
General expenditure – $1003
Laos trip – $772
Rent – $800
NOTE: General expenditure includes groceries, eating out, tourist attractions, entertainment, public transport, parking fees, fuel, local SIM, etc. It does include alcohol (though Jacqueline doesn’t drink) and we eat out perhaps once or twice a week.
Total costs for January were $2575 (Australian dollars)
Other information
We did an article back in August that covered our first full year of travelling for the period April 2017 to April 2018. If you’re interested in reading that then click here – Travel the World full time for less than $100 per day
If you’re retired (or not) there is a way to have an exciting life with the world as your oyster. We’re proof that it can be done.
If you want to learn more about how we achieve this feel free to contact us or take a look at our Introduction to House Sitting page.
If you’ve found this post useful or interesting then please leave a comment or give us a like.
Feel free to share this post too so more people can be aware that there are alternative ways to spend your retirement. Glenn & Jacqueline
Lambies Travels 