Budget Recap–Breaking Down 2 Years On The Road

I’ve always been very open about our finances for our adventure because I believe a trip/2-year-lifestyle like ours is something ANYONE can do.

We worked normal paying jobs (we were both State of Florida employees so not making bank) and saved. Yes, we took vacations and had cars and bought things, but we are not extravagant spenders. Pre-trip, our credit card bills would total around $4,000 a month, plus $2,000 for rent, utilities, cable and all that stuff. We put a portion aside every month to use for this trip, budgeting $100 a day and anticipating a year of travel with plenty to come home to because we knew we’d be starting fresh–without an apartment or furniture or job. Well, the year turned into almost 2 years, with a total spending of…

$62,969

for 680 days on the road, nearly 9 months in the US and 14 months south of the border. That’s $2,798.62 a month and $92.60 a day. We were slightly under our daily budget and cut our pre-trip spending more than HALF!

That figure includes every dime that was spent while traveling–from ferry rides and fuel to copies at the border and camping. So let’s break it down.

**Disclosure: this is just what WE spent and not what is typical of travelers. If we felt like eating dinner out, we ate dinner out. If Hani wanted a really cool handmade knife in Alaska, he got it. I definitely kept our expenses in mind but did not let our budget control our every move, knowing that I’d regret not zip lining in Costa Rica even though we already did it 5 years earlier.

The most expensive places for us were Alaska, where we spent an average of $143.93 a day (Skyhorse needed a new starter, fuel was expensive and we were doing LOTS of driving and the ferry trip), Canada averaged $113 a day (because it’s Canada and things are crazy expensive) and Panama was $110.10 a day (because we went to a fancy doctor and got a pricey repair on the truck). The cheapest countries for us were Costa Rica spending $56.23 a day and El Salvador at $57.87 a day. The funny thing about Costa Rica is that it’s pretty expensive, on par to American prices for groceries, restaurants and tourist attractions. But during our 90 days there, we camped for free, didn’t pay for laundry at all, rented a super cheap house, cooked a lot and relied heavily on the motorcycle, which cut our fuel costs.

 

FOOD: $21,829.51

We are some good eaters! I am actually really surprised by this number, as I thought for sure our biggest expense would be fuel. But oh no, our bellies spoke louder than Skyhorse’s engine, I guess. Of that total, $10,608.20 was spent on groceries (bottles of booze and beer included), $2,341.87 going out to bars (where we just drank), and $8,879.44 at restaurants, cafes, snacks, and anything that was not home cooked (ummm, tacos…). I cooked the vast majority of the time and I am proud that our costs reflect that.

 

FUEL: $14,200

Pretty self explanatory. We average 8-10 miles to the gallon and cruise at 50 mph. The most expensive diesel we came across was in Canada at $5.50 a gallon. The cheapest diesel was when we returned back to the States. Weird.

 

TRUCK AND MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE: $8,436

This includes the brand new tires we bought at the start of the trip down to the oil filters needed for the motorcycle. Hani did our oil changes and regular maintenance but we had our fair share of trips to the mechanic while on the road. The only earth shattering maintenance expense was a new U-joint for $1,462. Everything else was pretty standard wear and tear on our big beastly vehicle.

 

CLOTHES, GIFTS AND SOUVENIRS: $3,251.83

We did replace a lot of t-shirts and undies (if we are being honest), as our clothes took some serious beatings over the years. As for souvenirs, we didn’t buy a lot of things to bring home though couldn’t resist some beautiful art and textiles (our friends and families were the main beneficiaries of what we brought back). The little things here and there added up but I realized that when I saw something I loved, I bought it, knowing I would most likely never see anything similar again. And when I look down at my wrist and see my bead from Alaska and handwoven Guatemalan bracelet, the feeling of being in that moment when I bought those items comes back to me and makes me smile. I’m fortunate that we had that ability to spend money on non-necessary objects.

 

LODGING: $2,743.19

I’m very proud of this number since it’s the result of LOADS of bargaining on my part (big pat on the back). Plus, how many people can say that they lived in a comfortable home for 2 years paying only this as “rent”? We always try to camp for free but sometime it just isn’t practical or entirely safe. Like when we were in the National Parks in the States, we often opted to camp inside the park even though we didn’t need the services they offered us, instead of driving out for the night and coming back in the next day. Also, in a lot of the major cities in Mexico, it’s completely impossible for us to drive Skyhorse into town so we would park at an overpriced campground outside of town and use the motorcycle to drive in and explore the city. This figure includes everything we paid to park at campgrounds, the “tips” we paid the hired nighttime policemen at Pemex gas stations in Mexico, our few hotel stays and our rentals in Costa Rica and Mexico.

 

TRANSPORTATION: $2,603

So yes, we were our own source of transportation, but there were times we took a tuk tuk or cab or bus or lancha/boat or a ferry (in Alaska, Baja and Costa Rica). This biggest chunk of this was $1,400 for the Alaska Ferry from Haines to Juneau to Sitka to Ketchikan dropping us off in Prince Rupert, Canada. Totally worth it and an extraordinary way to explore the Alaskan seas, cities and wildlife!

 

ENTERTAINMENT: $2,262.75

This is our Jazz Fest, museums, tours, movies, zip lining, volcano boarding, park and zoo entrance category. Lots of free stuff to entertain ourselves along the way but these were the special things that we just wanted to do.

 

MEDICAL: $2,071.13

Our doctor visits (big and small) and medicine. I don’t even want to begin to figure out how much these visits and medicine would have cost us if we were in the US. We didn’t see any doctors during our time in the States. South of the border the medical care was fabulous and cheap, and since health insurance didn’t matter, we didn’t have any.

 

DOGS: $1,541

Shae and Olivia were very easy travelers and not very expensive to travel with. But honestly, even if it was expensive to travel with our dogs, we would have done it anyway because it made the trip that much better! When days took a shitty turn (as they usually did), a doggie kiss and cuddle did wonders for our attitudes. We brought the dogs to the vet under a handful times, only one time when Shae was actually sick. We paid a total of $46.33 at the borders of Guatemala (for b.s.) and Honduras for fees. The rest was dog food, treats and refills of their monthly heart worm and flea and tick medicines when I ran out the last 9 months. Dog food was insanely pricey south of the border, which was odd considering how many strays there were.

 

BORDER CROSSINGS: $1,161.96

16 borders in total–US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, times 2. That figure includes entrance and exit vistas, fumigation, vehicle permits, insurance, and copies (the dog permit fees I included in the above “dog” section). We only bought insurance when we were required to so we didn’t have vehicle insurance in Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras. Also keep in mind that permits and insurance was for 2 vehicles–Skyhorse and the motorcycle. The most expensive vehicle permit was for Honduras, probably because they know most people just drive through the country. The most ridiculous border fee we paid, aside from the dog fee, was the $30 exit fee leaving Costa Rica. Pay to leave?! Really??

 

LAUNDRY: $376

Laundry is one of those things I have always taken for granted. Except for my dorm years and one year in law school, I have always had a washer/dryer in my home. I never really paid attention to how much it cost to wash my clothes. On our trip, however, I hustled majorly when it came to laundry. When we were in cities when we knew someone, I had no shame in asking to use their washer and dryer. I would scout out the best laundry deals and avoid doing laundry in backpacker or tourist towns, as prices would inevitably be higher there. Coin operated laundromats ceased to exist outside the US so our wash was mostly hand or machine washed, line dried, and folded, waiting for us to pick it up and cost around .40 per pound. I always bargained for cheaper prices south of the border, hence why our cost to have clean clothes was so low…until we got back to Antigua, Guatemala, that is. It was there, after we had just had all of our clothes washed that we discovered we had mites and needed to have every item inside the truck washed again in hot water. EV-ERY-THING! $85 and 2 days later, our bedding and clothes were super clean and mite free.

 

BOOKS: $332.51

Hani is addicted to books. He will maybe read 1 of every 10 he purchases from cover to cover. So when he bought his first book of the trip in Texas for $2, I thought it would be funny to see how much he spent the whole time. This amount is totally nuts. We could have gone out to a few more nice dinners on this. Instead we have a large bookshelf of unread books. Damn Hani and his desire to learn! (Side note: I did buy a few books on my Kindle but didn’t include the cost on here. Many of my books I got for free. I highly recommend getting a Kindle or other eReader to save space.)

 

TOLLS: $327

We came across a random toll here and there in the US, but nothing prepared us for the tolls in Mexico. Not only are they excessively expensive, the quality of the toll roads are 1,000 times better–no speed bumps or cattle or craters–so the cost is minimal compared to the aggravation endured by taking the free roads. Just in Mexico, we spent $271 on tolls and it was worth every peso!

 

CELL SERVICE: $318.56

Cost of having cell service during the 14 months we were in Mexico and Central America only (we still had our US plan in the States and Canada). Both our iPhone were unlocked at the beginning of the trip so when we entered a new country, we bought a $2 local SIM card and a data package with a local company, which averaged about $18 for 3 weeks of internet. We only bought plans for one of our phones since we were always together and would add a few extra dollars on the phone for local calls and texts.

 

The remaining expenses were for water, parking and donations. We never paid foreign transaction fees on our credit card (we have Capital One Visa cards with cash back rewards) nor did we pay ATM fees (we bank with Charles Schwab and get all ATM fees reimbursed at the end of each month).

And that’s the cost to drive from Key West to Alaska to Panama City, Panama and back!   

Random thoughts/ month 17

To the end and now back! This month we:

+ explored the Panamanian beaches of Las Lajas, Albino Grande, Santa Catalina and surf haven Playa Venao. In Las Lajas, we had stretches of sand and surf and palapas to ourselves…until some jackass parked THISCLOSE to Skyhorse, blasted their horrible music and walked away. Fab. In Santa Catalina, beach front parking was limited and it was too hot not to park on the water so we parked here (next to the public garbage cans)

with a view of this:

And some local kids fell in love with our dogs (and our chairs)

+ kayaked in Santa Catalina out to an uninhabited wild jungle island and down an estuary rumored to be home to crocodiles.

 

+ found hoards of hermit crabs and this guy wearing a toothpaste cap. Fashion at its finest.

+ bought lobster and conch from fishermen as they were pulling their boats up to the town. $10 for 2 massive conch and 4 lobster, which became a raw conch app and a heavenly garlic-butter lobster pasta dinner.

+ visited the small mountain town of El Valle.

We relaxed in the hot springs with mud masks twice, saw multiple sloths booking it down trees in a rainstorm, visited the zoo/rescue center, and bought a ton of local produce at the market. The zoo was something else. It’s set in a botanical garden with immense mountains as the backdrop. The diverse range of animals in the zoo was pretty awesome– monkeys, parrots, golden frogs, and sheep with all different pitched voices (see our Facebook page for a hilarious video).

 

 

+ ate the most delicious meal at Casa de Lourdes. If you find yourself in El Valle, you must go! People drive the four hours round trip from Panama City just to eat there. The restaurant is inside a mansion decorated like a home. We dined on the patio overlooking the pool and gardens. I had the most spectacular salmon (it’s so hard to find in Central America and I’ve been missing it) and Hani had a perfect bacon wrapped fat steak. Martinis and dessert… Ahhhh!

+ really enjoyed Panama City. It’s one of the only major cities that was clean and easy to navigate, probably because we relied on taxis. We parked with all the other travelers on the street outside the Balboa Yacht Club and took $3 taxies around the city. Our first night in town, we connected with Hani’s friend Corina who gave us a driving tour of the major neighborhoods. We then walked around Casco Viejo, a cool cobblestone neighborhood with lots of restaurants and bars. Even on a Sunday night, the city was all lit up and lively. It’s been a long time since we’ve experienced real nightlife.

+ watched a massive cargo ship cross the Miraflores locks and enter the Panama Canal. From the beginning of our trip, I was most looking forward to visiting the Canal and seeing the locks in play. Panama City is situated on the Pacific Ocean, so huge tankers anchor at the entrance of the canal, waiting for their turn to go through. The ships are guided into the locks by “mules,” tiny trains on tracks that have cables running out to the ship. Once inside the lock, the gates are closed and water fills from underneath, lifting the ship up to the level of the next lock. The same thing happens in the second lock until the ship is at the same level as Canal. It doesn’t sound as impressive at it actually is but watching the ships pass truly was amazing, especially because all this technology has been unchanged and still efficient for the past 100 years.

   

+ toured Panama Viejo ruins. You can climb up all the ruins, which are right on the water, for spectacular views of the new city. The contrast between the old demolished city and new gleaming high rises was my favorite.

+ met up with my godmother and her husband in Panama City for a wonderful dinner. It was so nice to see family and catch up with them for a few hours. It’s funny, they live in south Florida and we finally get together miles and miles away from home in a city where both of us are vacationing.

+ had the leaf springs recurved and a reinforced shelf made for the battery bank at a mechanic outside of Panama City. The leaf springs were pretty much straight and needed curving for a more comfortable ride. And the bottom of the battery bank shelf was basically falling out. So a fix on both fronts was necessary.

+ celebrated our mechanic Fernando’s 35th birthday with him. His shop was behind his house so we parked in his driveway. At sunset, with half the job complete, a tire off and the truck on jacks, he announces that it’s his birthday and the party is at his house. Awkward. Guess we are invited. No but the family was super nice and dragged us out of the truck to join in the festivities. They kept pouring drinks, pushing overflowing plates of delicious food and included us in conversations, speaking slowly which became more and more difficult as everyone drank more. We walked the few steps back to the truck later that night with full bellies and a few new friends.

+ took the dogs to the vet. Shae was sick, of course on a Sunday, when everything is closed. We hung out in David where we found a vet with good online reviews. We camped in their driveway and both dogs were seen first thing Monday morning. Shae had a parasite, probably from something she sniffed or licked off the street. Nothing a bunch of medicines wouldn’t fix and was back to her old self several days later. We brought Olivia in to the vet to have a growth near her eye removed. As the vet did the blood test to make sure she was fine for the surgery, he found that her platelets were very low. After another test, he determined that she had a worm. Ultimately, Olivia was fine to proceed with the surgery, was a cone head for a few days, and had to take a round of deworming meds.

+ spent a total of 29 out of a possible 30 days in Panama.

+ arrived back in Costa Rica with 10 days left on our vehicle permit and ended up using 7 of them. But instead of heading toward the Nicaragua border, we back tracked around the Golfo Dulce across from the Osa peninsula, hugging the Panamanian border. We found the cool surfing village of Playa Pavones and parked our happy butts on a sweet spot at a point on the water.

+ continued down that peninsula instead of going north and hit the official end of Costa Rican road at Punta Banca.

We saw monkeys playing in the trees. The water was clear blue. The breeze was scrumptious. And we “borrowed” a wifi signal from the only thing out there, a small eco lodge. That night, I walked up and down the beach with a team out to rescue turtles. Apparently robbing turtles nests is a big problem in that area because the money is good and there is no police presence. There are a group of locals who rescue and a group who rob and each team paces up and down the beach all night hoping to be the first to lay claim to a turtle coming on land. Though we didn’t see any turtles coming to nest, it was a great experience and felt awesome showing the turtle robbing locals that the good guys are growing.

+ have been waking up at 6…and going to bed at 8. We are so lame.

+ bottle fed a 3 month old sloth. Other overlanding friends have been raving about Finca Canas Castillo, a working farm right at the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border that has cabinas and allows travelers to camp on their property. We spent our last night in Costa Rica there, admiring the jungley grounds, listening to howler monkeys and praying the baby sloth they rescued would wake up. It had fallen out of its tree and now the owners were caring for it to eventually release it back into the wild. In the mean time, this ridiculous creature sleeps and feeds on goat milk. She (they think it’s a she) is super light, feels like a muppet and kept falling asleep as I fed her. Hani barely touched her. He was afraid she was going to claw his face off. Seriously.

+ crossed back into Nicaragua on September 22.

And even thought we have done this particular border before and knew where we needed to go and what we needed to do, it was STILL unnecessarily long and annoying, sending us running around in circles.

+ beelined for San Juan del Sur. This town was a food Mecca for us so we had our list of “must hit” restaurants, pretty much the same places we ate at 4 months ago when we were there. All checked off, in case you were wondering, with a .40 chocolate covered frozen banana daily.

+spent much of our 4 days in San Juan del Sur doing this

and this

and this

+ celebrated Hani’s birthday early by buying a ukulele. Nica Tiki Ukulele in San Juan sells gorgeous handmade wooden ukes. Hani picked out a rosewood uke, his new pride and joy. We also bought a local handmade bag for our Hani’s new buddy. Now the only thing left is to learn to play it!