Last Updated on March 5, 2025
On December 30th, 2023, Luke and I kissed our darling cat Crumpet goodbye, and nervously hopped in a cab to Pearson International Airport.
We had $40,000 CAD between us, a rough travel plan, carry-on backpacks, and a goal to spend our entire budget on a 5 month trip.
Spoiler alert: we ended up traveling longer than that! We returned to Canada in mid-June, after 165 days of travel across 7 countries.
Now that we’re back, I have crunched the numbers! In this email I’m sharing how much we spent on 165 days of travel, what we spent in each category (flights, accommodations, etc), and what we spent in each country.
I’ve also shared some important takeaways about planning a budget for a 5 month trip (and longer). If numbers don’t interest you, skip to the end for those tips.
Before I get into the budget breakdown for our 5 month trip, let’s answer a common question. How did Luke and I know what kind of budget we needed for our trip?
We based our travel budget on prior experience and research. Luke and I have traveled to nearly 40 countries, and we have both done multi-month trips before, so we had a general idea of what things cost in various regions.
Along with prior experience, we did research. We used booking platforms to do sample searches for the cost of accommodations in all the countries we planned to visit. We read trip reports from bloggers, and we check TikTok and Instagram for trip cost breakdowns.
We synthesized all these sources to come up with an estimated daily spend for each region we intended to visit, and then we tacked a little bit extra onto that for a financial buffer.
What We Spent On a 5 Month Trip Around the World
Our total spend on 165 days in east Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and Europe, for 2 people, was $41,501.69 CAD.
Our average daily spend (this includes all costs, including flights, and is for 2 people) was $251.52 CAD per day. Our monthly spend was approximately $7,530 CAD.
Here’s a breakdown of what we spent in each category:
| Category | Total | Per Day |
| Accommodations (homestays, hotels, guesthouses, hostels) | $5,801.09 | $35 |
| Activities (safari, trekking, day tours, entrance fees, bike / boat rentals, and tips for guides) | $7,922.38 | $48 |
| Flights | $12,162.00 | |
| Food & Drink (this includes alcohol) | $5,516.53 | $33 |
| Visa Fees | $426.00 | |
| Travel Insurance & Vaccines | $2,768.00 | |
| Transport (all overland transport) | $3,874.55 | $23 |
| Souvenirs | $1,291.15 | |
| Random (haircuts, toiletries, gifts etc.) | $1,739.99 | |
| TOTAL SPEND | $41,501.69 CAD |
Important Notes About Our 5-Month Travel Budget
Travel is unpredictable and personal, and so every person’s travel budget will have its nuances. Here are some of the nuances of our budget that I want to share, for context.
We are mid-range travelers.
We tend to book budget private rooms, eat a lot of street food, and always opt for budget transport (ex. taking a bus in Japan versus a train). But we don’t skimp on experiences. We are happy to spend money on the experiences that matter, like homestays and tours.
There was a 2 week break in the middle of our trip.
In the middle of our trip, we flew home to Canada for an emergency. We stayed with family and so our costs were very low. We didn’t spend anything on accommodation and barely anything on food. Our emergency trip home cost nearly $8,000 CAD in flights. Half of this was reimbursed by our travel insurance.
Our spend on souvenirs is high.
We shopped for souvenirs responsibly, only buying items that we will use for years to come (versus trinkets). For example, I bought a gold ring and gold necklace in Sri Lanka, and Luke purchased shoes from a higher end Japanese brand while in Japan.
We had a couple free stays.
We stayed 3 nights in Nepal with our trekking guide’s family, and we had 12 free nights in Sicily and London. While on multi-day tours, our accommodations were included. In total we had 24 free nights on the trip, and the 14 free nights when we were in Canada. This brings down our average daily spend on accommodation.
We were gifted free tours and given media discounts.
We were gifted around $1500 CAD worth of GetYourGuide credit, which we used to book several of the tours we took with local operators. We were also given a media discount on our G Adventures Camping Safari, which saved us $2,200 CAD.
We were gifted $500 of e-sim mobile coverage.
We partnered with aloSIM this trip. We were gifted $500 of credit to spend on eSIMs in exchange for one Instagram reel, one tiktok, and occasional mentions in Instagram stories. We spent about $450 of our $500 of credit on mobile data on this trip, but since the money wasn’t out of our pockets, I haven’t included it in our trip report.
How Much We Spent in Each Country
This breakdown of our spend in each country does not include the cost of international flights, insurance, or vaccines. It does include domestic flights.
I’ve ordered the list from most expensive, to least expensive.
| Country | Days Spent | Total Spend | Avg. Daily Spend |
| Tanzania | 21 days | $6661.18 | $317 |
| Greece | 7 days | $1400.46 | $200 |
| Japan | 24 days | $4804.90 | $200 |
| South Korea | 13 days | $2497.81 | $192 |
| Nepal | 28 days | $4975.40 | $177 |
| Georgia | 18 days | $2766.60 | $153 |
| Sri Lanka | 29 days | $3022.62 | $104 |
Tanzania was the most expensive country we visited, which is surprising because day-to-day costs in Tanzania aren’t high. What brought up the price of this leg of the trip was our safari.
We spent $4,048.00 on our 5-day camping safari, and gave nearly $300 in tips for our safari guides (they deserved these tips!).
Where Could We Have Saved
As mid-range travelers, I think we did a great job with our budget. The reasons we went over budget were out of our control: We didn’t expect a rejected visa application, and we didn’t foresee a trip home in the middle of our travels.
However, there are two things I think we could have done that would have helped to save a bit: Spent longer in countries to reduce flying, and planning a route after the visa rejection that was more regionally focused.
Final Thoughts: Our 5-Month Travel Budget Takeaways
Before leaving on this trip, we were confident that our $40,000 CAD budget would last. Actually, we were sure that we would come home with leftover money.
But two major events happened on our trip which impacted our budget significantly: My visa to India was denied, and we went home for a family emergency.
Why did these events impact our budget?
Our original travel plan was to head to South Asia after Tanzania, and spend 4 months traveling through Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. This meant mainly overland travel (which saves on flights) and a low daily spend.
Because my visa to India was denied, we had to adjust our plans. India was replaced with the 6 weeks we spent in South Korea and Japan – which meant much more money spent on flights, and a higher daily spend (since East Asia is more expensive to travel than South Asia).
Our trip home for a family emergency cost us, after reimbursement from our travel insurance, around $4,000. Because we had the financial buffer built into our travel budget, booking flights back to Canada wasn’t something we debated. We knew we had the budget for it, and we knew it was worth every penny, and so we booked the flights.
The biggest takeaway from our travel experience is how important it is to have a financial buffer.
By building a buffer into our travel budget, we had the freedom to adjust our plans and respond to emergencies, without any stress.
Another major takeaway is how important it is to plan for your return home.
With the unpredictable job market in Canada, we knew we could face months of unemployment when we returned home. And so, along with our travel budget of $40,000, Luke and I set aside a “coming home fund” of $20,000 CAD.
When I went traveling for 9 months on $10,000 CAD at 26 years old, I had no financial buffer and no coming home fund. And it was stressful. Coming home was terrifying and difficult because I came home to complete insecurity.
Coming home from Luke and I’s 165 day trip has been significantly less stressful because of the financial planning we did not just for the trip, but for our return to Canada. The best part is, we ended up not having to touch our return home fund, because we landed jobs quickly!
According to my girl math, we can now spend that untouched fund on a BIG EXCITING TRIP in early 2025, right!? Any guesses about where we might go!?
If you’ve kept reading right to the end, thank you! I hope this budget breakdown is helpful for your own travel planning. Hit reply if you have any questions!
And a HUGE thank you to all of you that followed Luke and I’s trip on Instagram, TikTok, and my blog. It was really fun to share our adventures with all of you! We hope you will stick around, because there are many more adventures in our future ?
Want to read blogs covering some of the places we traveled on our 165 day trip? Here’s a few to get you started:
