The Latest Travel Numbers

Looking at the photo above, I sometimes wonder why we left our beautiful little island, but then I think back to all the special places we have been since then and have no regrets.  On June 30 we reached a milestone of 18 months being home free and it seems a good time to look at our travel stats for the first 6 months of 2019 compared to all of 2018.

A few things I noticed:

• We have been much more focused on fitness this year joining 17 gyms in the first 6 months alone.  This was a resolution we made after what felt like an inactive 2018.
• We have flown more in the first half of 2019 than all of 2018.
• Based on the number of countries and cities lived in we have moved around more often in 2019.  This was mostly due to the Schengen time limits forcing us to drop in and out of the Schengen Zone more often than we would have liked.
• We traveled by train and bus more in this first half of 2019, this was mostly in Croatia where we did not rent a car, and Germany before we picked up our car.

When we made the decision to travel the world living in other peoples homes, we estimated spending the same amount of money if we retired in one place, and so far this is holding true.  We are slightly under our budget and have kept our accommodation cost per night under 80 USD over the past 18 months.  This number includes free nights with friends and family as well as some house sitting, which has helped the bottom line.  Still, accommodation is our number one expense taking up approx 30% of our budget.  The next biggest expense is transportation, being close to 20% of our budget.  This is probably higher than other nomads we know due to the fact we prefer to stay outside large cities and have a car at our disposal to explore more of the countryside.  Balancing the budget also means that we must offset our time in expensive places, such as Dubai, with less expensive countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey.  We will not exclude an expensive country or excursion, like a cruise, just limit our time there and recover costs in other locations.  By being budget conscious during our travels we can maintain this lifestyle for as many years as we continue to enjoy ourselves 🙂

Reviewing the numbers, our posts and Instagram photos of where we have been over the past 18 months I am amazed, grateful and outrageously happy with the lifestyle we have chosen to embrace.  Some days I cannot believe we are fortunate enough to travel full time and explore this fascinating world, discovering the history and culture of each country we temporarily call home.  The longer we travel the more we lighten our load, shedding possessions but gaining lifelong memories.  We hope you, our family and friends, join us in our upcoming travels to new and interesting places as the world beckons…..