On the Road Expenses and Statistics, Month Five

Is it expensive to travel around the world? How much would you spend while traveling? 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.

Our 5th month of travel around the world was by far the best month of our trip so far.

We have enjoyed and relaxed and gotten to meet some amazing people and do some amazing things.

After few weeks of doing almost nothing but working and eating in Cochabamba, it was time for us to hit the road again and search for our next location. This is when we decided to visit Oruro at the end of last month. In Oruro we learned about Sajama National Park, and about the opportunity to live side by side with llamas and other wild animals in Bolivia’s oldest national park.

The trip to Sajama National Park was slow but rewarding. We found a place to stay, but unfortunately had no Internet, so we started exploring the town minutes after our arrival. It is a sleepy town, very quite and peaceful, so we decided to continue exploring the surrounding place and found herds of llamas!

Baby llama we saw on our first night

Our arrival to Sajama was just before New Year 2013, and we met some incredible and funny people whom we spent hours talking to. (We later traveled together to La Paz, where we had to separate.)

View of Sajama National Park

After a few days in Sajama, I had to renew my visa. So we had to go back to La Paz, where we stayed for a couple of nights before flying to Rurrenabaque, the Amazon basin and the pampas of Bolivia.

View from Rurrenabaque

With a couple from our group in Sajama, we did the pampas tour for three days and two nights and saw some of Bolivia’s most beautiful wildlife.

Alligator trying to hide

On our return, we spent a few days recovering from thousands of mosquito bites—the drawback of wildlife watching! Then we decided to climb the Mirador because we didn’t have anything better to do.

View from the Mirador in Rurrenabaque

It was an active month, which we’ll go into in detail below.

Travel Statistics:

• Countries: 1 (We are still in Bolivia).
• Cities visited: 4: Oruro, Sajama, La Paz and Rurrenabaque.

Accommodation:

• Paid accommodation: 30 days
• Free accommodation: 0

Transportation:

Number of buses: 4

• Oruro to Patacamaya
• Patacamaya to Sajama (round trip)
• Patacamaya to La Paz

Number of planes: 1 (from La Paz to Rurrenabaque)

Money spent: $1,475

Our major spending for this month went towards accommodation (35% of our spending), followed by transportation (24% of our spending, including round trip plane tickets from La Paz – Rurre – La Paz for $350).

Spending by City:

• Oruro: 9 days on an average of $30/day
• Sajama: 4 days on an average of $28/day
• La Paz: 3 days on an average of $120/day (This includes the plane ticket to Rurre.
  Otherwise, we spent $57/day excluding the tickets.)
• Rurrenabaque: 14 days so far, on an average of $52/day

The Next Month Travel Plans:

We are in Rurrenabaque for another week recovering from typhoid—another drawback of travel! Then we are planning to go back to La Paz to catch our flight the next day to Guayaquil, and from there to the Galapagos islands, where we plan to stay for the whole month. And you can always check our travel plans for our winter plans.