Cost Of Travel
Update: January 2019.
We’re guessing that some curious minds might like to know: Just how much did we spend on this little adventure so far? We wanted to provide a somewhat detailed breakdown of what we’ve spent in 2017 since embarking on August 1st, 2017. As a recap, we spent August in Colorado and September road tripping across the US visiting family and friends (freeloading some accommodations). October saw us in Guatemala, November in Costa Rica, December in Panama and Colombia.
All of our costs are included with the exception of health insurance since that varies individually and we’ve provided those costs here. Note that we included costs when they were consumed not necessarily when we paid for them. We’ve included Colorado on the country breakdown as a baseline.
A couple could travel, and certainly live, for less but our travel included some tourist splurges and we tended to eat lunch out quite a few days. Our accommodations are higher because we were using short term rentals. In all of the countries we visited, long term accommodations were available for less than $1000 per month, sometimes for much less. We provided specific details in individual posts. A further way to reduce accommodation costs would be to house/pet sit.
Locations are presented in the order we traveled.
Update: 1/26/2019. The expenses from August 2017 through April 2018 were originally part of out Latin America Roundup. Because we have now posted our 2018 expenses here, we’ve broken out the 2017 expenses into a separate post.
Summary by Month
| Month | Total Cost |
|---|---|
| August | $4,053 |
| September | $2,880 |
| October | $3,302 |
| November | $3,476 |
| December | $2,819 |
| Total | $16,529 |
| Average Per Month | $3,306 |
As a point of reference, when living in San Diego and supporting the house, we had trouble keeping our monthly outflow below $6000 a month. So we really have almost cut our costs in half by travelling which was one of our original goals. Part of the saving is by embracing the minimalist lifestyle, and part is traveling in less expensive countries.
Summary by Country
| Location | Total Cost | # of Days | Cost Per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | $4,053 | 31 | $131 |
| US Road Trip | $2,183 | 30 | $73 |
| Guatemala | $2,838 | 32 | $89 |
| Costa Rica | $3,763 | 31 | $121 |
| Panama | $1,281 | 12 | $107 |
| Colombia | $1,240 | 21 | $59 |
| International Transport | $1,170 | ||
| Total | $16,529 | 157 | $105 |
Costs Breakdown per Location
Colorado – 31 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations | $1,994.25 | $64.33 | 49.21% |
| Transport | $127.90 | $4.13 | 3.16% |
| Groceries | $510.86 | $16.48 | 12.61% |
| Eating Out | $608.97 | $19.64 | 15.03% |
| Entertainment | $541.50 | $17.47 | 13.36% |
| Miscellaneous | $5.00 | $0.16 | 0.12% |
| Medical | $264.25 | $8.52 | 6.52% |
US Road Trip – 31 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations | $591.84 | $19.73 | 27% |
| Transport | $610.51 | $20.35 | 28% |
| Groceries | $236.64 | $7.89 | 11% |
| Eating Out | $618.65 | $20.62 | 28% |
| Entertainment | $17.00 | $0.57 | 1% |
| Miscellaneous | $42.94 | $1.43 | 2% |
| Medical | $66.01 | $2.20 | 3% |
Guatemala – 32 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations* | $1,771.05 | $55.35 | 62.40% |
| Transport | $227.13 | $7.10 | 8.00% |
| Groceries | $69.13 | $2.16 | 2.44% |
| Eating Out | $368.54 | $11.52 | 12.98% |
| Entertainment | $0.55 | $0.02 | 0.02% |
| Miscellaneous | $301.47 | $9.42 | 10.62% |
| Medical | $100.42 | $3.14 | 3.54% |
* Language lessons and eating with our home stay family are included with accommodations
Costa Rica – 31 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations | $1,628.22 | $52.52 | 43.27% |
| Transport | $688.28 | $22.20 | 18.29% |
| Groceries | $513.09 | $16.55 | 13.64% |
| Eating Out | $468.00 | $15.10 | 12.44% |
| Entertainment | $159.05 | $5.13 | 4.23% |
| Miscellaneous | $14.50 | $0.47 | 0.39% |
| Medical | $291.72 | $9.41 | 7.75% |
Panama – 12 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations | $335.44 | $27.95 | 26.18% |
| Transport | $115.35 | $9.61 | 9.00% |
| Groceries | $80.84 | $6.74 | 6.31% |
| Eating Out | $407.50 | $33.96 | 31.81% |
| Entertainment | $320.00 | $26.67 | 24.98% |
| Miscellaneous | $1.34 | $0.11 | 0.10% |
| Medical | $20.61 | $1.72 | 1.61% |
Colombia – 42 Days
| Category | Total Cost | Cost Per day | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodations | $552.99 | $26.33 | 44.61% |
| Transport | $164.48 | $7.83 | 13.27% |
| Groceries | $229.34 | $10.92 | 18.50% |
| Eating Out | $159.51 | $7.60 | 12.87% |
| Entertainment | $54.19 | $2.58 | 4.37% |
| Miscellaneous | $30.81 | $1.47 | 2.49% |
| Medical | $48.42 | $2.31 | 3.91% |
Next Up: Cartagena
Ian & Ann