Are you ready to go on your next trip? When travelling abroad, it’s a great idea to prepare your travel budget before you go! Travelling includes flights, accommodation, meals and more. If you want to save time on planning and free yourself from stress so you can enjoy your travels to the fullest, keep reading to learn how to create your travel budget!
This blog post will help you prepare your travel budget so you know how much to save and how much you’ll be allocating to spend on your next travel adventure!
How to Make Your Travel Budget for Your Next Trip
We’re getting straight into it in this blog post!
Buy the Living Her Way Digital Travel Budget Planner to jump straight into planning your travel budget!
1. Choose Your Destination and the Time Length of Your Stay
Firstly, when making your travel budget, you will need choose how long you want your travels to be, and of course, your destination.
Tips for choosing your travel destination:
It’s a great tip to decide on the intention of your travels. Is your trip for business, play and fun or for rest and relaxation? Overall, when you know the intention behind your trip, this can help you lock in your destination!
Which country have you always wanted to go to? Additionally, which country do you feel most excited, passionate and called to visit?
How do to decide on the time length of your travels:
Once you are clear on your intention for your travels, this will give you a good estimate of how long you may want to stay. Furthermore, the currency conversion and the costs of travel essentials like your accommodation, food and activities will help you decide on how long you want to stay.
Take these travel budget planning action steps:
- Convert the local currency to your local currency to compare the difference. For example, USD to AUD
- What would you like to do on your travels? How many days will this approximately take?
- Research the cost of food, activities and accommodation
- Keep in mind the intention of your travels
To sum it all up, taking into account the local currency, the cost of goods and services, and what you want to do on your trip, this helps you decide on the time length of your stay.
2. Research Your Major Travel Costs
To prepare your travel budget you will need to research the price of the major expenses for your adventure!
Overall, research the estimated price that you expect to pay. Use my travel budget planner to fill this in!
Here’s a compilation of websites and the major expenses you may need to pay for your travels. ⬇️
Flights
Use these two websites to research the cheapest flights and then book directly through the airline.
Accommodation
Research the cost of accommodation in the destinations/destinations you are staying.
These are my favourite ways to book my travel accommodation:
- Airbnb
- Agoda
- Coliving and digital nomad accommodation such as Outsite
- Tiktok is also amazing for completing your accommodation research to find the best accommodation for your travel budget.
- Local hotels
Travel Insurance
There’s the question if travel insurance is worth it or not? I recommend it, and I know it’s also a risk to not purchase it.
Most travel insurance covers you from:
- Stolen or lost passports
- Overseas accidents
- Delayed baggage
- Trip cancellation
- Medical evacuation
- Stolen or lost credit cards
- Stolen or damaged baggage
- and more
World Nomads is my go-to travel insurance to use when travelling overseas.
Considering travel insurance for your trip? World Nomads offers coverage for more than 150 adventure activities as well as emergency medical, lost luggage, trip cancellation and more.
Passport
Is your current passport valid? Or maybe you don’t have one yet? When travelling abroad, you need a valid passport for the entire duration of your trip. Unfortunately, here in Australia, passports are becoming more and more expensive.
So be sure to put the cost of a new passport in your travel budget if you need a new one.
Food
Food. The sustenance that we need to have daily! Not only that. but trying new delicious food can be sooo enjoyable!
To prepare your food travel budget, have a look at the price for eating meals out in your chosen country.
Now, taking into consideration the length of your stay and the price of food converted to your currency,
how often do you intend to eat out? Can you buy food from the local grocery store to save on travel costs?
Lastly, you can estimate your travel food budget by calculating how many times a day and each week you would like to eat out and spend on groceries if you are planning on doing grocery shopping.
Action: Pop your approximate calculated food budget in your travel budget planner.
Must-Visit Destinations & Activities
Which activities and must-visit destinations are on your travel bucket list for your trip?
Complete your research and write them all down on a list. Or save them on Pinterest too!
Put the cost of each activity in your travel budget planner. Don’t forget to include the free activities so you have them written down and can refer to your planner.
Tip: Research the best free things to do on your trip such as walks, sight seeing, public parks and free museums.
Local Transportation
This is the section of preparing your travel budget where you allocate money for transportation.
Google the cost of Uber, taxis and public transportation e.g. trains and buses.
When choosing to use public transportation, some major cities have unlimited weekly/monthly train tickets.
Don’t forget to research the cost of the transportation from the airport to your accommodation.
Lastly, pop all your estimated transportation costs in your travel budget planner.
Shopping, souvenirs, gifts
Of course, when travelling abroad it can be so enjoyable to put money to spend on new clothes, souvenirs and gifts in your budget.
Write in your travel budget planner the:
- Shopping allowance for yourself and the items you want to buy
- Budget for gifts
- Budget for souvenirs
3. Create an Emergency Fund
Your travel budget is of course an estimate of how much you will spend on your travels. However, when you arrive at your destination you may want or need to spend less or more money on things you didn’t prepare for.
Therefore, it’s always a great idea to add an extra $300 ‘just in case dollars‘ to your travel budget.
Tips to save money for travel
- Pick up extra shifts at your job
- Rent out your room or apartment while you travel
- Spend less. Monitor your spending ask yourself- do I really need to buy this/
- Limit your living costs such as subscriptions, memberships and bills
From flights to meals and buying travel insurance, there can be a lot that goes into preparing for your travels abroad. I trust that this travel budget guide has been just the tool to support you in preparing your travel budget so you can live in the moment and have some of the best times of your life!
My final tips are to decide and commit to your journey! Take it one step at a time.
And, cherish the moment and all the steps along the way! Live life your way!
Don’t forget to buy your Living Her Way comprehensive Travel Budget Planner to go all in on making your travel budget today! I am certainly using the Living Her Way Travel Budget Planner to plan my travel budget for my upcoming adventure!
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Author: Lana
Welcome! Lana is the founder of Living Her Way. She's passionate about all things Travel and Self-Empowerment. Lana's mission is to inspire you to live a more happy and fulfilling life your way each day.
