I’ve been thinking a lot lately…well, let’s be honest….I’ve been worrying a lot lately about my travel budget and whether or not it will be enough to get me where I need to go next year. It’s looking like I will have around $8k in savings by the time I am ready to go, and I’ve already resigned myself to taking out a loan to cover the remainder. But how much will that remainder be?
I’ve been lucky enough in my life not to accrue much debt. My mortgage and a small credit card balance (on a 0% APR) about sums it up, and I am hoping to rid myself of both before I leave. So, it goes without saying that I am not psyched about taking out a loan and owing interest on that loan. It’s going to happen, but I’d like to do my best to limit it. This brings me to the the main topic of this post, and my biggest travel expense by far…flights.
I may not have my whole trip planned quite yet, and am really not looking to have a fully baked itinerary every step of the way, (A little spontaneity will make it all the more exciting!) but what I have been trying to do is plan a basic course and see where I will have to fly and about when….see my fun little illustration below
NYC > Nepal > Thailand (travel by land to) Singapore > Bali > Australia > India > Italy > Morocco > Back to NYC
I’ve been lucky enough in my life not to accrue much debt. My mortgage and a small credit card balance (on a 0% APR) about sums it up, and I am hoping to rid myself of both before I leave. So, it goes without saying that I am not psyched about taking out a loan and owing interest on that loan. It’s going to happen, but I’d like to do my best to limit it. This brings me to the the main topic of this post, and my biggest travel expense by far…flights.
I may not have my whole trip planned quite yet, and am really not looking to have a fully baked itinerary every step of the way, (A little spontaneity will make it all the more exciting!) but what I have been trying to do is plan a basic course and see where I will have to fly and about when….see my fun little illustration below
NYC > Nepal > Thailand (travel by land to) Singapore > Bali > Australia > India > Italy > Morocco > Back to NYC
I checked out a few different sites starting with the Bing Flight Tool, using the multi-city search option and then AirTreks, which is another great multi-city search engine, which unlike Bing has personalized service agents which allows you to customize your trip a little easier. I would also like to get a rate from Orbitz.com because they are my favorite travel site - due mainly to their price insurance checks (I got $109 back on a trip to Vegas last year), but they will not predict prices more than a year out, so I’ll have to wait for them. Basically I found that the total flight cost will be somewhere between $2600-$4000. So at worse case scenario, that 1/2 of my budget already gone. Now on to all of my other expenses…shelter (hostels mainly), and there’s travel insurance, land travel, food….lots to think about!
To be continued…
To be continued…
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