Where are we at ?

Day – 59

Already many of my friends and colleagues know about our exciting journey and they are also excited to know about how we are getting on, so I believe it is time to update how much progress we have made for the long trip. It has been quite busy/busier for us since we have started our preparation as we has added studying, searching and booking stuff on the top of our daily life. Most of evenings, we have spent discussing the journey, finding flights, booking hotels and organising next destinations. I can honestly tell you it is truly not easy to organise a trip for over 15 countries within 4.5 months especially trying to stay in our tight budget, so sometimes I feel already tired but as we all know there is nothing for free even for pleasure.  There are still long list of things we need to go through but I feel excellent to know we are heading towards to our dreamed destination. “ No Pain, No Gain!”

During the process of searching and finding suitable flights and hotels, I was amazed how much money we could save by searching hard and comparing prices between web-sites. Just today, I saved about $170 AUD by comparing two web-sites for the same airplane, same day and same time flights because one site offered no booking fees and credit card payment fees. We booked hotels that offered big discount, higher reviews with higher number of customers and good locations close to our set budget. I have found that once I start checking hotels,  I tempt to choose better and more expensive hotels so it is very important step to set up a maximum  price you wish to spend. I have also learnt that instead of buying each flight, better buy a flight which includes multi-stops. I book a flight from Prague to Sydney which includes stopover in Zurich and Seoul so we can visit and stay two more places with very little extra cost.

I am recording my travel expenses for our trip. I think it will help us to manage our budget better and also I can find out total amount we have spent after the journey. I know we are funny/weird couple. Anyway one morning we sat together and calculated how much we would spend for 6 months if we stay in Sydney instead of travelling and total was about $19,000 which includes all living cost and one time travel expenses which we would do anyway. It will be very interesting to know how much we will spend for this long trip and what will be difference between them. Don’t you think? Sure, I will let you know.

Here under is the excel spreadsheet that shows our progress and costs so far. These are for two people.

 

Travel Expenses 7/2013 to 11/2013
Date	Item	AUD
20/04/2013	Flight Ticket from SYD to Bali (4/7/2013)	$     788.00
22/04/2013	Flight Ticket from Bali to Ho Chi Mihn  (26/7/2013)	$     324.27
24/04/2013	Yulia Beach inn Hotel, Kuta for 7 nights  (4/7/2013 to 11/7/2013)	$     353.41
28/04/2013	Kuta Puri for 12 nights (14/7/2013 to 26/07/2013)	$     849.72
29/04/2013	Flights from Bangkok to Moscow, Moscow to Prague (12/08/2013 to 17/8/2013)	$  1,596.70
29/04/2013	Blue Dimond Hotel, Ho chi Minh for 4 nights (26/7/2013 to 30/7/2013)	$     129.12
29/04/2013	Green Hotel Vung Tau for 3 nights (30/7/2013 to 2/8/2013)	$     117.63
2/5/2013	Silver River Hotel, Phnom Penh for 3 nights (2/8/2013 to 5/8/2013)	$        92.45
2/5/2013	Tara Angkor Hotel, Siem Reap for 4 nights (5/8/2013 to 9/8/2013)	$     177.20
2/5/2013	Hope Land Executive Residence Sukhumvit 46/1, Bangkok for 3 nights (9/8/2013 to 12/8/2013)	$     152.94
3/5/2013	Flights from Prague to Zurich, Zurich to Seoul, Seoul to Sydney (20/09/2013 to 11/11/2013)	$  2,410.98
Total		$  6,992.42

Bali

 

 

Vietnam

 

 

Cambodia

Thailand

Russia

Czech

Switzerland

More to come...