On the Road Expenses and Statistics, Month Ten

How much a RTW trip cost? How much would you spend while backpacking around the world? This series of posts is aimed at helping travelers plan their budgets before hitting the road. When we started traveling we were always worrying about how much money we would need, so we decided to share our expenses, as this might help other travelers.If you liked that so far, follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook Page.

The backstreets of Bernay

Our tenth month in our ongoing journey around the world was all about family reunions. We spent all 30 days of this month visiting friends and family and recovering from our adventurous travel in Baños, Ecuador.

Since we are in France—home of my wife—we have decided to enjoy the delicious French cuisine and the various types of famous French cheeses, as we missed good cheese while we were visiting South America. We’ve had the opportunity to taste different dishes from different regions of the country, and had the chance to visit the Mont Saint Michel, a 1300-year-old village on a tidal island.

Side from Mont Saint Michel

Have you read the book A Year in the Merde for Stephen Clarke?

The port of Arzon

When we finally got a good Internet connection (for our digital nomadic lifestyle), we took the opportunity to finish a lot of delayed work, including updating our social networks and our blog and running our marketing campaign. Speaking of which, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook page! We also did some shopping to re-outfit ourselves with travel gear, which we will talk about in a different post.

We enjoyed being in France and explored a few cities, and were lucky enough to attend two major events in Normandy. The first one was the Euro Cup Tractor pulling Contest in Bernay and the other was the Sail of Freedom in Rouen

When in France, you can’t help but visit the various historical sites the country is rich in. We had a visit to Bernay and its museum, we saw some old buildings that date back to the 17th century. This was especially impressive since Bernay is one of the few cities that was not hit during the Second World War. We also went on a visit to Mont Saint Michel, the old village

The Tractor Pulling in Bernay

We also spent a few days in Arzon, a city by the Atlantic Ocean, to visit some friends, and attended a Shakespeare play in Le Havre.

We were lucky enough to end the month by visiting the old city of Honfleur on a day tour with friends. We had a wonderful tiny lunch and played guitar on the shores of the channel before returning to Bernay for a late dinner.

Since we’ve been traveling for so long, we needed to renew my wife’s passport. We also decided to set up a permanent residency in France for me so I can apply for future visas for our travels. The admission work of passport renewal and residency paperwork and fees resulted in our spending a lot more than we had budgeted for. On the other hand, we had the opportunity to save on our accommodation costs, as we stayed with family members during almost all of our stay in France this month.

The cost of living in France is considerably high compared to other parts of the world. It reminded us of when we were living in Toronto.

Travel Statistics:

• Cities visited: 4

Accommodation:

• Paid Accommodation: 4 days
• Free Accommodation: 26 days

Spending by City:

• Bernay: 24 days on an average of $46/day and that will be $27/day excluding the admission for the new passport and residency card.
• Arzon: 4 days on an average of $98/day.
• Le Havre: 1 days on an average of $29/day.
• Honfleur: 1 days on an average of $27/day.

Money Spent: We ended up spending $$1,554.

Our major spending for this month went to Admission (Passport & Residency Fees) at 28% of our spending, followed by shopping (at 22.5% of our spending) and finally accommodation at 21% due to Arzon vacation rental.

Next month…

We will stay (in accordance with our travel plans) in France for another month or two, I’m considering learning the French language finally!

How can we help you budget for your vacation in France?