The Budget Plan We Created Before Leaving for a Year of Travel

Before we left Brisbane for this trip, we spent a lot of time trying to answer one simple question.

How much would it realistically cost for our family to live overseas for a year?

Travel blogs often focus on destinations and adventures, but when you’re planning long-term travel with two kids, the numbers matter just as much as the itinerary.

So before booking anything, we sat down and started doing the research.

We looked at accommodation prices in Southeast Asia, Europe and South/ Central America. We looked at food costs, transport options, and the kinds of activities we thought we’d want to do along the way.

Eventually we landed on a number that felt achievable.

Our plan was to try and keep our average travel budget to around $10,000 AUD per month for our family of four.

For readers outside Australia, that roughly converts to:

• €6,000 per month

• $6,500 USD per month

Those numbers will obviously move around slightly with exchange rates, but they give a good sense of the scale of the budget we planned around.

That figure wasn’t random. It came from breaking the budget down into three main categories.

Accommodation: $3,000 per Month

The first and biggest part of the budget was accommodation.

After looking at hundreds of listings across multiple countries, we set ourselves a target of $100 AUD per night on average.

Over a typical 30-day month, that works out to roughly $3,000 AUD per month.

Some places would inevitably cost more than that. Europe in particular tends to be more expensive.

Other places, like Vietnam and parts of Southeast Asia, looked like they might come in well under that number.

The goal wasn’t to hit $100 exactly every night.

The goal was simply to average out around that figure over the course of the trip.

To help make that possible, our plan was to focus on:

• Longer stays rather than short hotel visits

• Apartments or houses instead of hotels

• Locations slightly outside major tourist areas

• Places with kitchens so we could cook meals

If accommodation happened to include breakfast within that price range, even better. That would reduce the need to buy breakfast food and help stretch the food budget a little further.

Food: $3,000 per Month

The next big category was food.

Our research suggested that $100 AUD per day for our family of four felt achievable across most of the places we planned to visit.

That’s two adults and two kids (currently 10 and 8).

Over a month, that also comes to roughly $3,000 AUD.

The key assumption behind that number was that we wouldn’t be eating out for every meal.

Instead, the plan was to do regular supermarket shops and cook most dinners ourselves.

We also planned to pack lunches and snacks when heading out for the day rather than buying food everywhere we went.

That approach keeps costs down and also helps maintain a bit of routine while travelling long term.

Of course, trying local food is a big part of travel, so we knew we’d still eat out regularly.

But cooking most meals was always part of the plan.

The Remaining $4,000

Once accommodation and food were accounted for, that left around $4,000 AUD per month.

This part of the budget needed to cover everything else involved in travelling.

Things like:

• Car hire

• Public transport

• Fuel

• Trains and ferries

• Flights between countries

• Activities and experiences

• Entrance fees and tours

• World schooling hubs

• Visas and administration costs

• Unexpected expenses

Before leaving Australia, we assumed flights would be one of the biggest costs.

And long international flights certainly can be.

But during our research we also discovered that once you’re already in Europe, flying between countries can actually be surprisingly affordable.

Budget airlines like Ryanair often have flights where, even after adding baggage and a few extras, we estimated they might cost around $500 AUD for the four of us.

That made moving around Europe feel far more achievable than we originally expected.

A Few Costs Sitting Outside the Travel Budget

Not every expense connected to the trip sits inside the $10,000 monthly figure.

Some things sit in a separate budget.

That includes things like SIM cards, connectivity and some ongoing financial commitments back home in Australia.

Travel insurance also falls slightly outside the main monthly travel spend.

When we looked at standalone travel insurance for a family of four for a year, the quotes were around $4,500 AUD.

Instead, we activated the travel insurance included with our Commonwealth Bank credit card before leaving Australia.

The card includes 12 months of travel insurance, provided certain conditions are met.

There is normally a $35 monthly card fee, but that fee is waived if we spend more than $3,000 per month on the card. When you’re travelling full time, reaching that spending threshold is fairly easy.

So in our case the card effectively allowed us to access travel insurance while also earning points on our everyday spending.

Funding the Trip

Another important part of the plan was how the trip itself would be funded.

The $10,000 monthly travel budget is coming from savings that we set aside specifically for this experience.

I am continuing to do some remote work for my employer while we travel, but that income isn’t part of the travel budget.

Instead, the goal with that work is to build savings for the future while we’re away.

That could be useful when we eventually return home, or simply provide flexibility for whatever comes next after this journey.

Working remotely also helps me stay connected to the industry and maintain professional momentum while travelling.

Separating the travel budget from any income earned along the way also gives us a clearer picture of what this lifestyle actually costs.

The Goal Was Slow Travel

Once we had these numbers, it influenced how we planned the entire trip.

Instead of trying to visit as many places as possible, we built the itinerary around slow travel.

Staying longer in one place means:

• Lower accommodation costs

• Less money spent on transport

• More time for the kids to settle into routines

• More opportunities to experience everyday life in each location

Some months would inevitably cost more than others.

Europe looked like it might stretch the budget a little.

Southeast Asia looked like it might come in well under.

But the overall goal was simple.

Try to average around $10,000 per month across the whole year.

That was the plan we left Brisbane with.

In future posts we’ll share how that plan actually played out once we started travelling.