What we spent: Ireland and Croatia

Brian and I debated this post for awhile: should we share our spending as we travel? On the one hand, I theoretically favor more frank discussion about financial topics; I suspect eroding the taboo around talking about money would benefit everyone. On the other hand, travel spending is so idiosyncratic that I’m not sure seeing our particular expenses will be useful to anyone. On the other-other hand, before our trip, I read quite a few travel blogs with spending tabulated; generally these tallies were for single adults or couples and so weren’t exactly comparable to our situation but still, it was reassuring to see the ballpark figures. I’d like to pay the favor forward; hopefully some readers of this blog will take our experience as encouragement to head out into the world as a family. It’s not as expensive as it might appear. And of course you don’t have to do a whole year! A month or three is feasible with some planning.

So, in that spirit, here’s our numbers for the past couple of months. I’ve included airfare separately, since that cost is often covered by points and is easy to look up. I’ve also left off the expenses related to our house in California. Fortunately the house is now rented for a sum that roughly approximates our monthly outlay, so even if I had included it here, it wouldn’t change the picture much. And of course, the major cost of this trip, for us, is the giant sucking sound that resulted from both of us quitting our jobs in the same month. Still, I think it’s exhilarating to see that, for the cost of a single week at Disney World, a family can spend a month or more in Ireland or Croatia. And so far, it seems Greece is quite a lot cheaper still.

Final disclaimer, Squarespace doesn’t support tables (best I can tell), so this is formatted a little strangely.

41 days in Ireland:

41 days in Ireland

37 days in Croatia:

37 days in Croatia

Airfare cost an additional $2443 (Portland to Dublin), $338 (Dublin to Split), and $572 (Zagreb to Athens). We also have tickets to fly from Athens to Istanbul coming up, $278. So, about four months of flights comes out to $3636 or another $900/month. But we also have a buncha travel points; hopefully our Istanbul to Capetown tickets will be close to free.