Wanted to post a quick tally of my expenses since I started traveling on June 28th. This includes prepaid Airbnb in Prague. I don’t save all my receipts and some of this is off memory, so it’s not 100% to the T accurate, but close enough.
This includes my time in Prague, Poprad, Krakow, Czestochowa, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn.
Keep in mind, I almost always take the comfortable way out. If I want something, I pay for it. If I can take Uber vs public transportation I always go Uber. If I want the 4-course meal I get it.
Accommodations: $876
-Average $29.20 per night
-2 hostels, 1 hotel, and 5 Airbnb’s
Transportation: $320.66
-Spent $86.40 on Uber, 26 trips, with an average of $3.32 per trip
-Spent $132 on Flight from Helsinki to Berlin
-The rest on busses & trains
Food/alcohol/coffee: $568
-This is eating out most meals and getting coffee out most days
-I don’t drink much so I estimate maybe $25 of that was beer/wine/spirits
Tourist stuff: $76 (I’m dull like that)
Other expenses $177
-I lost $157 on my flight to Portugal that I ditched
-$20 in ATM fees
Total spent in 1st month of travel: $2017.66
I was surprised to see how much I spent on food. Food has been cheap so far and I had some breakfasts in hostels. There were a couple of big dinners the first couple of nights in Prague, but they were less than $10. But, if you spend $5 per meal, that’s $450 for the month right there, and I typically get a coffee somewhere so at $2 that’s another $60, so it does make sense.
I was also surprised I spent less than $1000 on accommodations. Traveling solo can sometimes escalate those prices, when you prefer being comfortable and having privacy like I do.
I was bummed to lose $157 on that flight to Lisbon. There was a way to transfer it to another flight with Ryan Air, but they weren’t going anywhere I wanted to go. Without that loss I would have easily been under $2k on expenses, but sometimes these things happen!
Here are a few interesting cost of living comparisons between San Diego and the places I’ve been: