Budgeting for travel can be so hard because everyone spends there money differently. If you’re a foodie you will most likely spend more money on food then someone who likes to shop. It also depends on what country you come from, as the exchange rate could be good or bad or no exchange rate. So my budget is going to be different so anyone else. Please use this as a guide to you.
I always like to break up my budget in two. The first half of the budget is things that I pay for before I get to my destination, so things like flights or any other major travel (trains, buses, ferries etc), accommodation (not including bonds or resort fees), visas, major attractions and things that are cheaper to buy before and online (Disneyland, universal, helicopter flights, broadway etc). The second half of my budget is for things while I’m on my holiday, such as food, shopping money, attraction passes, small travel (uber’s, taxis, trains, buses etc) and anything else.
This year (2020) in January I went to America for 5 weeks (and Canada for 4 days) and this is the break down of the first half of my budget.
Flights- We flew from Melbourne to San Francisco to Toronto to Boston, Washington to Las Vegas, and Los Angeles back to Melbourne. For 5 flights (3 international) we paid $1630AUD.
Other big travel- We got the amtrak from Boston to New York to Philidelphia to Washington and a greyhound bus from Las Vegas to Anaheim. We paid $160USD ($200AUD).
Visa- For an America ESTA we paid $14USD ($22AUD) and for a Canadian ETA we paid $7CAD ($9AUD). Total of $31AUD.
Hotels- We stayed in 3-4 star hotels and for all 35 nights we paid $2760AUD (not including resort fees or bonds)
Insurance- I have a heart condition so my insurance was higher than normal and I always purchase full comp, so I paid $367AUD.
Major attractions- We paid for several attractions before we left, including Wicked, “O” cirque, a 3 day Disney pass, 1-day Universal pass, 1 day Niagra falls tour, Alcatraz, an ice hockey game and a Grand Canyon helicopter tour. The total came to $1162USD ($1700AUD), keep in mind these were the biggest and most expensive activities we would pay for.
The first half of my budget came to a total of $6688AUD.
This is the break down of the second half of my budget.
Food- I tried to stick to the budget of $35USD a day. Some days we would just buy food from the supermarket so it was less than the budget. Other days like when we were at Disneyland one meal would cost $35USD plus your two other meals and snacks for the day. I didn’t really drink too much alcohol while I was there so it didn’t change the budget too much. It all averaged out to the budget so a paid a total of $1295USD for 37 days ($1600AUD).
Shopping- I like to do a bit of shopping while I’m on holidays, and bring back things for everyone. My friend and I did so much shopping we had to buy another bag to share. I spent around $500USD ($700AUD).
Resort fees- In New York and Las Vegas, we had to pay resort fees. It was $80USD for Vegas and $140USD for New York. It came to a total of $220USD ($300AUD).
Travel- We would get uber’s if the places we wanted to see where far away and we made sure we planned what we wanted to do that day roughly to keep additional travel costs low. New York was a big one where we had to plan what we were going to do. We would spend one day in the upperside, another in Brooklyn, midtown, central park, lower side and so on. This meant we would pay for one train in the morning and one train back instead of 3-4 train trips a day jumping all over the place. We walked a lot mainly in Vegas cause our hotel was in the middle of the strip so we would be walking 10km plus a day. Which is why we didn’t need extra transport, just uber’s to and from the airport which was all split by 3. I roughly paid a total of $350USD ($500AUD).
Attractions- Our days were filled with attractions, most days we did two in one day. These attraction prices differed from free, to cheap, to mid-range to expensive. I paid for all the big expensive attractions before I left so didn’t need to worry too much about the big stuff. I roughly paid around $2300AUD for all the attraction passes.
The total of the second half of my budget came to roughly $5400.
I roughly spent a total of $12,000AUD. For me, this holiday was a hotel holiday, by that I mean a fancy one for me, where I stay in hotels, do lots of shopping and do a lot of tourist things. I was very happy with the cost of everything individually. Just a bit of a shock when you add everything up.
Again please remember this was how much I paid and your budget will be very different. When planning I stuck to my food and shopping budgets but paid a lot more in attractions than I thought, I also forgot about resort fees and visas.
