I want to travel the world: Here is how I made my travel dreams come true
For as long as I can remember I wanted to travel, maybe not the world but as much of it as I possibly could. It took me a long time to actually pluck up the courage to make my travel dreams come true. I hope that this blog will give you some insight on how you can make your travel dreams come true too.
If you’re wondering about visas, budgets and other important info then go no further. Here I will share ALL the details on the 10 countries I visited including exactly how much it all cost.
Where do I start?
I procrastinated for so long about travelling, I mostly kept it to myself as I thought if I say it out loud then I’ll have to follow through. The truth is, I wasn’t ready. It just wasn’t the right time for me. I was still learning how to deal with having anxiety and panic attacks so I started by working on myself. Fast forward a year and a half and I felt better than ever. I still had anxiety but I knew exactly how to cope with it. I started telling family and friends about my dreams of travelling. Before you know it I was planning my dream trip.
Fast forward a couple of months…I have travelled to 10 incredible countries with my amazing partner and now live in a van in Australia. This may seem cliché but my life has never been better. If you’d like to start making your travel dreams a reality then read ‘My complete guide to fulfilling travel dreams.’ All you need to do is subscribe to download your FREE guide. In the guide I share all the steps on how to fulfil YOUR travel dreams. It’s best to read the guide first to learn the initial steps 🙂
Here I’m sharing ALL the exact details of what I did such as breakdown of costs, my route, apps and websites I used etc…
Before I went
One of the things I mentioned in ‘My complete guide to fulfilling travel dreams’ is getting a travel card. A travel card is a specially created debit card that allows you to make transactions around the world without being charged excess fees. I read quite a bit on cards and, to be honest it’s a little over my head.
The one that stood out to me was Starling Bank UK. They have no fees which mean free ATM withdrawals (unless a specific ATM has their own charges which can be common in some places like, for example Thailand) and the best exchange rates. You can also lock the card in the app in case it went missing. What I really loved was how easy it was to navigate and to keep track of our budget. That’s how I could break down all of our costs in this blog post for you guys 😉
Disclaimer: This is not sponsored. Another good company to check out is Monzo.
The flights
I knew all the destinations I wished to travel to and started to plan my route. I did this by using Sky Scanner. What I did was work out the cheapest place to travel to from the UK and then from each country onwards. What I love about Sky Scanner is that if you’re open to ideas you can let it show you the cheapest places to travel from. For example, I put in flights from Sri Lanka to anywhere… The cheapest place to travel to from Sri Lanka was the Maldives. And that is how I ended up going to the Maldives…
Below is my exact route and cost of ALL my flights (doesn’t include any land travel costs and prices are based on time booked):
- London to Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka to Maldives
- Maldives to Singapore
- Singapore to Thailand
- Internal flights in Thailand- Krabi to Bangkok & Bangkok to Chiang Mai
- Chiang Mai to Laos via bus
- Laos to Cambodia (final cost doesn’t include this flight)
- Cambodia to Vietnam via bus
- Vietnam to Hong Kong
- Hong Kong to Fiji
- Fiji to Australia
The total cost for all of the flights (excluding where stated otherwise) came to £2,271.77 each.
The destinations
Here is a list of all the destinations I visited with information on wether you need a visa and the amount I spent in each country. The total spent in each country is per person and includes EVERYTHING, hotels, food, transport, activities etc…
Please note that the visa information provided is based on being a UK passport holder.
*All information correct at the time of publishing.
Sri Lanka
- How long– 3 weeks
- Did I need a visa? Yes
- How much I spent- £488.63 per person
Maldives
- How long- 1 week
- Did I need a visa? No. It’s visa free for up to 30 days and can be issued on arrival.
- How much I spent? £545.47 per person. Find out more info on budgeting in The Maldives here.
Singapore
- How long? 2.5 days. Here’s a 2 day guide.
- Did I need a visa? No. It’s visa free for up to 30 days.
- How much I spent? £128.75 per person.
Thailand
- How long? 3 weeks
- Did I need a visa? No. It’s visa free for up to 30 days. Please note that you may have to show proof of onward travel.
- How much I spent? £826.56 per person. (This included 2 private boat tours around Phi Phi Islands & a 2 night stay in Elephant Nature Park).
Laos
- How long? 10 days. Find things to do in Laos here.
- Did I need a visa? Yes. You will be issued a visa for a stay of up to 30 days. Visa on arrival costs $35. They accept dollars, Laos Kip and Thai Baht. You will also need 1 passport photo, if you don’t have one they charge a couple more dollars.
- How much I spent? £271.37 per person. (This includes my last minute flight to Cambodia which cost £96.99 each)
Cambodia
- How long? 1 week
- Did I need a visa? Yes. Can apply or get visa on arrival for up to 30 days. It costs $30 and you will need 1 passport photo.
- How much I spent? £257.28 per person. Please note that we did 2 hotel collaborations in Phnom Penh and Max was also sick so we didn’t do an awful lot. We did however visit Angkor Wat which cost £29.10 each and also a 1 day tour to the Killing Fields and Prison S21 which wasn’t expensive. Cambodia blog coming soon 🙂
Vietnam
- How long? 2 weeks. Find Vietnam guides here.
- Did I need a visa? No. It’s visa free for up to 15 days.
- How much I spent? £446.05 per person. This may be a tiny bit less so use it as a rough guide. We travelled from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi by land on this budget!
Hong Kong
- How long? 1 week. Looking for things to do in Hong Kong? Click here.
- Did I need a visa? No. UK nationals can stay for up to 180 days.
- How much I spent? £572.54 per person. We mostly ate McDonalds to keep our spend down and we still spent LOADS! Most activities we did in HK were free so I was pretty shocked when I worked out our spend. Hong Kong is EXPENSIVE but amazing!
Fiji
- How long? 2 weeks
- Did I need a visa? Visa on arrival and must provide an onward ticket and confirmation of accommodation on arrival.
- How much I spent? £282.32 per person. Plus £850 each on island hopping. Fiji guide coming soon!
Australia
- How long? 1 year
- Did I need a visa? Yes. If you are 18-30 years old you can apply for a working holiday visa which will grant you a 1 year stay in Australia and costs £270 per person. If you wish to stay a second year you must complete 90 days of specified work.
- How much I spent? We are currently still in Australia. If you plan to live and work in Australia I’d recommend having roughly £1000 for when you arrive to cover you until you find a job which will hopefully only take a few weeks. Australia is very expensive and jobs are not always easy to come by. It took us 6 weeks to find a job.
How much I spent in total?
So, 3.5 months of travelling to 9 different countries including 3 expensive destinations (Maldives, Hong Kong and Fiji), a private double room in mostly budget hotels, the odd private room in a luxury hotel and doing all the activities we wished cost us £3,817.20 each. That’s an average of £1,266 a month for 3 months of travel.
The ENTIRE cost of our trip cost £7,210.34 each. That includes our flights, spending money, island hopping in Fiji and our Australian visa. The only thing that isn’t included is our Australian budget. Lets just say for the first 6 weeks we spent an average of £1000-£1200 between us. Which brings our total spend to approx £8,500 each.
Stop dreaming and start fulfilling
I hope you found this guide insightful and hope you start to fulfil your travel dreams soon. Remember, we create our own happiness and if you want something bad enough, you CAN make it happen.
“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to
live the life of your dreams”
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