No more views of Caribbean beaches, no more signs in Spanish, no more bans against flushing toilet paper down the toilet, and free water at every meal.

We are home. 

As our plane lifted off the runway in Bogota, Colombia a few weeks ago, I looked out my window and watched the giant peaks of the Andes that had become such a familiar sight over the last year turn into nothing but tiny anthills. The clouds eventually enveloped the plane and I knew that the next time I touched down, it would be on American soil.

My heart felt heavy, excited, torn, melancholy, scared, happy, and blessed all at the same time. To be honest, I don't know what I was feeling because I had never felt it before.

I decided to take a little break this week, so Tom is doing the blog post for a change. He has done a stellar job tracking our budget for us and his post is all about our expenses so far. Take it away Tom!

Enter Tom:

We often get asked how we can afford this year of travel? It has been a combination of saving, paying off debt, creating passive income sources, and budgeting. I will spend the remaining portion of this post on the latter – budgeting.

When we originally started planning this trip, I aggressively searched the Internet for expected costs of a trip of this magnitude, looking to learn from others that have done something similar. It varied immensely from person to person, and when the trip required many intercontinental flights, the costs skyrocketed. Hence, our plan right now is to spend our time on just two continents, Europe and South America.

I also discovered that our first stop, Western Europe, would probably be the most expensive spot in the world to travel. I knew going into the first 3 months of our trip, that our overall travel budget would take a beating right out of the gate. So here we are, one month into our travels, and our first monthly travel budget complete. 

We found it extremely helpful when other travel blogs posted their expenses, so we are doing the same. We hope it can benefit you as you plan future trips to Europe.

People continually ask Tom and I how we can afford to travel for a year. But maybe the better question is how we can afford not to? 

We jotted down a quick list of annual and monthly expenses that we won’t have to pay while traveling.

We know the nomadic life comes with its own price tag and some new extra expenses (which we will track and share in future blog posts), but it also gives us reprieve from having to spend money on maintaining life at home. Just imagine your checkbook if you didn’t have any expenses related to rent, mortgage, or cars.

Below is a list of some actual post-tax annual expenses we paid in the past 12 months that we won’t have to pay in the next 12 while traveling: