My RTW Trip:

I’ve always loved travel and I never seem to get enough once I’m on the road. After taking short term trips most of my life, I went on my first Study Abroad to 5 countries in just under three months in 2015. This opened my eye to the idea of longer term travel where you can get more easily from place to place and save on money and time while seeing more of the world. Although in reality, when I tried planning my own trip I found my plans falling through as borders began to close and change daily in the 2020 Covid pandemic. I began to rework my ideas and decided to begin the trip with a built out van and a road trip through the U.S. Then as the world reopened Braggworthy Adventures found their way to Kenya, Thailand, Cambodia and South Korea. This page provides some overarching information on the main factors of this trip including: Where am I going and How much it will cost. For more specific information on my trip logistics and the destinations I’m heading to, check out the subpages also linked below:

Logistics going Abroad Abroad Destinations

Van Life Logistics Road Trip Destinations

Where am I going?

Van Life

The beginning of our travels will be on the road and will incorporate National Parks like Yosemite, Shenandoah Valley and Acadia. For this portion of our travel we are going to travel the route pictured below. Although we want this portion of our RTW trip to be more flexible, so this may be altered as we find new opportunities.

Abroad Travel

Michael and I started creating our list of where to go by rattling off any and all places that had a high priority on our travel wishlists. His included Korea and Switzerland, while mine included Thailand and Iceland. You’ll notice Iceland and Switzerland did not make it to the final list. This is because even though we still want to and plan to see these places in our lifetimes, we had to prioritize those places that could be grouped together for a better travel plan. We wanted to save money and time flying and have more money and time to spend in the places we would be visiting. This opened us up to adding new locations that were not originally on our mind, but have become highly anticipated. We also had to take into account which places did not require long quarantines so that we wouldn’t waste time looking at hotel walls. Here are the four countries we ended up visiting on our Round the World (RTW) trip:

How Much will it Cost?

Van Life Budget

Thankfully since Van life is a recent phenomenon the data on what people spend to enjoy this lifestyle is all over the internet. I easily found articles and videos that provided some insight on the incidentals I could expect. The relative range for these van life budgets went from $850 a month to $2,100 a month (however many had slip up months that passed those budgeted numbers). Looking at the sight Two Roaming Souls, they provided a spreadsheet and a breakdown of some of the yearly, monthly, fixed and variable costs for Van life. Then using their excel of their spending and the posted expenses for other Van lifers like Far Out Ride and Fun Life Crisis (among others) I established these ranges for average costs:

• Gas $300-$500

• Campsites $0-$100

• Laundry $0-$40

• Showers N/A since I will have a shower in the Van

• Groceries $300-$500

• Eating Out $200-$350

• Car Maintenance $0-$200 (a month - mostly $0 with random spikes up to $1,000)

• Miscellaneous $150-$400

And then their are some things that I know I will need to pay for like:

• Storage Unit (and the Storage Unit Insurance) $165

• Health Insurance $350 (for 2 people)

• Car Insurance $180

Making my estimated total ranger per month - $1,330 to $2,785

Abroad Budget

One of the first things I did once I knew I wanted to go on a RTW trip was research how much money I would need. I knew certain variables would be important to keep in mind, such as:

• Number of Travelers (2)

• Destination (12 different countries)

• Length of Stay (Around 2 weeks each)

• Activities (Adventure Activities)

• Travel Style (Mid-Range - not luxury, but not always budget)

​

With these factors in mind I used the site Budget Your Trip and I figured out what the average cost is for two week-stay for each of my intended countries with a mid-range travel style.

​County- each day (two weeks for a couple)

• Kenya- $110 ($3,078)

• China- $72 ($2,016)

• South Korea- $99 ($2,772)

• Japan- $117 ($3,274)

• Taiwan- $85 ($2,378)

• Bali- $67 ($1,875)

• Singapore- $116 ($3,265)

• Cambodia- $35 ($990)

• Laos- $28 ($798)

• Thailand- $65 ($1,820)

• Australia- $141 ($3,948)

• New Zealand- $122 ($3,416)

This totals $29,630. l​ also looked up budgets from seven fellow travelers who had already been on their trips in the past five years to see what they spent on average each month, which was around $1,500. Then I extrapolated that number into a total for two people for six months resulting in an average of $17,725. 

Using these the total from Budget my Trip and the total from fellow travelers, I decided that for my adventure I should save up $25,000.

However I did not end up being able to visit all of the places I originally planned and ended up staying in certain places longer than two week. I will caculate my actual costs for the four countries I ended up visiting and those time frames and will include that information below: