Should I be spending $10,000 AUD (6500 USD) on my first ever solo trip? I have never done it before and I am spending 45 days in South America. 4.4k alone is flights, another 2k on accomodation, and then the rest is spending. Am I being autistic? I can't tell if this is normal, but it seems really high in cost. Do people usually spend large amounts of money on solo travel to other continents?
I've never been to South America, but I went to the USA for around the same amount of time (I think it was 2 months) and I spent 10K AUD altogether as well. I try not to think of money when I'm traveling, and just enjoy myself.
That's quite a privileged mindset
It's called having a job, you moronic homosexual. Go make more posts making fun of "wagecucks".
sure dude why not, it's your money you do what you want with it
chances are you've probably either under or over estimated how much you're going to spend anyway. you'll get better at working it out once you've done a few trips
just go and enjoy it, don't sweat it
and don't be a miser either, otherwise afterwards you'll just regret all the stuff you could have done if you'd spent a few extra $
>4.4k alone is flight
what in the goddamn?
I could circumnavigate the globe 3 times for that
let me say this though, you are making a terrible mistake by pre-booking all your accommodation
there is a VERY high chance you will not want to stay in the same place or take issue with the neighborhood
never pre-book out for that long, be flexible, scope out new hotels / apartments that are better/closer to where you would prefer to be at
the flights are total flights. there, back, and i think two within the continent itself. keep in mind this is from western australia, pretty much the furthest you can get from south america.
I haven't booked anything yet. these are prices I've seen on appealing airbnbs and hostels in the areas I'd like to stay in.
>there is a VERY high chance you will not want to stay in the same place or take issue with the neighborhood
What do you mean by this?
>What do you mean by this?
Australians, I stg cannot into the idea of a bad neighborhood. I met an Aussie guy at a car show here, ended up staying at my place for a few days. He told me he'd been robbed a couple times but liked the US anyway. I've never been robbed in my life. One was a homeless guy he chased off but the other time was a group of Black folk who took his backpack. He was walking around on foot in Oakland of all places. Worst city in California. Before he came to the US he thought crime was a meme and things weren't actually as shitty as they are there. I asked him if there's places like that in Australia, no-go zones, and he said there really aren't except like government abbo housing. He also said hotels and restaurants seemed much less clean to the point it would be illegal in Australia. And this was in the US. Latin America is ten times as sketchy. There will be places that once you get there, will just suck or seem unsafe despite how they're portrayed online.
Also latin america is a very very different culture from Australia. Businesses are run in a very informal way. When you get there will find places like restaurants and hotels that are a huge bargain and very nice but don't take cards and don't advertise online at all. This is very common there.
I have looked into this and have researched my cities in advance. For instance my place to stay in Buenos Aires would likely be Palermo or very close by. There are no go zones in my own city that I have gotten the feel for and understanding of. But yes, I understand that Latin America is very different from my own country and I must endeavour to be vigilant about things. Thank you
What you need to be isn't so much vigilant, you need to be flexible. I feel like you're struggling with this. Things in latin america are frequently late, sometimes don't happen at all. It's a place where plans aren't followed. There's good and bad sides to this. It can be frustrating to get things done in places like Mexico but it's a very interesting country.
For example, your hotel doesn't have working hot water or something. You ask when this will be fixed and they say "mañana." You think, cool, it'll be fixed tomorrow. Lmao no. That means they don't fricking know. If they say "ahorita" meaning "right now" that means it might be done today, hopefully. That's just how things are there. Be prepared for lots of last minute changes to your plans.
It's fine to have an idea of what you want to see and where you want to stay but if you go into latin america expecting things to go like you planned or follow the research you did you won't enjoy your time there.
Is this a universal trait across the continent? I'm planning on hitting Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, which I thought had better reputations.
I haven't been to the Atlantic side of south america but Chile is a step above Peru, which is a total dump by comparison. Chile is expensive for what you get compared to the others, like US prices minus 20-40%. Uruguay is supposed to be very developed and Argentina was but with their current economic problems I'd expect a lot of things to not be working from people not having money to fix them.
But its still latin america. These are the richer countries but people still have a very relaxed attitude towards punctuality and honesty and engage in a lot of superstitious and religious nonsense.
Don't let this scare you from somewhere like Bolivia or Peru though, way poorer but such an interesting place.
This is pretty good advice.
I just got back from south america
I spent 1.5k AUD per month total for an airbnb apartment, all my drugs/food and 2 quality prostitutes per week
https://www.budgetyourtrip.com/
I've traveled alone a lot all over the world but I've never spent so much in flights. Are you traveling business?
No. Here's the opening flight. About $1600. https://www.skyscanner.com.au/transport/flights/per/scl/231028/config/15283-2310280110--32166,-32115-1-16137-2310281120?adultsv2=1&cabinclass=economy&childrenv2=&inboundaltsenabled=false&outboundaltsenabled=false&preferdirects=false&rtn=0
Yeah air travel is REALLY expensive right now. If you can afford it go for it but it's certainly not what people would have spent 5 years ago.
I live in Europe and I remember when I was thinking that flying to the US or Asia for 600 euros was expensive.
bro do not book a Jetstar self connection
if your first flight is delayed you will lose your booking with no refund
Does that happen often?
The issue is if you book 2 airlines separately the 2nd won't help you if you don't make the flight because of the 1st. It's not their problem. If you book through 1 airline though they'll rebook you. This website says it has a rebooking guarantee though but I know an Aussie this happened to (this seems to be an Aussie thing to do this stuff, maybe because of the country's remoteness) and he got stranded for like 5 days before they booked him a new itinerary to complete his trip.
However, there's only 2 segments here, which is good, and you have a 4 hour layover which should be enough time even if the Perth flight is late to catch the LATAM flight so that sort of horror story is probably less likely an inter-australia Jetstar flight is probably less likely to be significantly delayed than an international route.
That’s what I was thinking. I can’t imagine it being too bad with a four hour layover
jetstar flights are delayed all the time, even people with legitimate connecting tickets get fricked over by their customer service
if you have separate tickets they will do nothing to help you
Just wait until your standards improve beyond staying in hostels
That gives you $3640 USD to spend over 45 days, which is not a large amount of money at all. But for Latin America, $80 USD/day is an ample budget for the middle-class travel experience. You will be able to afford tours and excursions, intercity bus trips, taxis instead of walking, a decent room in a great location, sit-down meals at restaurants (go off peak when tables are empty if you are a solo diner), plus some drinking and nightlife. You should look to spend $15-30 USD equivalent for your room, $20 USD equivalent per day for food, and the rest for transport and outings.
It gives me 3600 AUD, or 2300 USD. Still, not bad advice. I'll take another look at my expenses
six and a half grand can buy you a villa in some South American countries. I don't understand why you would spend that much, but if you've got it, go for it.
Is anyone going to post anything helpful or is it just lectures on safety as if I've never left my house and hand-wringing about missing flights? Maybe the guy with the two prostitutes a week could chime back in?
helpful what? your question has been answered.
I’m the op and this isn’t me. The info posted so far has been helpful to me even if I’m still deciding
Yooo another perth bro.
Just had a guy from work spent ~20k for a 7week euro trip, but he was doing alllll the tourist stuff and went to every western country.
Personally I prefer camping down south but I think 10k is fine for an over a month stay, but thats just putting you with what $80 bucks a day? Personally id want a lil more cash but if your the kinda guy who knows how to budget i think youll do fine, esp if accommodation $$ is saved or booked.
Thinking about it a few guys have solo'd overseas and spent sameish money, but less for flight ofc. Dont think too had, just think of how much you wanna spend everyday give or take and then budget with your flights etc
Damn I'm another Perth fella and I've been travelling for 6 months and have spent about $14k, how the frick do you spend so much in such a short time.
I've got my tent and have been camping all over, see pic related
What no go zones in Perth? I grew up in Balga and even that's nowhere near as bad as anywhere overseas, just some loud annoying abos
If you can afford it don't worry about how much you're spending. I always see people say "you paid too much for that hotel, you paid too much for that flight, I can't believe you paid $200 for a meal'. I'm single, no dependents, in my mid 30s with a good job. I literally don't give a frick if I'm overpaying for something when I'm on holiday. If I don't splurge now I never will.
Planning on something similar myself, just curious what are you looking at in terms of accomodation?
Airbnbs, hostels when cool and actually saving money. I've noticed that in this part of the world airbnbs are generally way cheaper than hotels and only marginally more expensive than hostels, but in first world areas some say hotels are now cheaper than airbnb.
true, i think i'm vastly overestimating how much i'll need to spend. if i give myself a budget for spending in each location i think a lot will roll over and i'll save
sounds awesome. what can you do? shits expensive. just keep to a budget so you know how fast you're burning through your wad
>Should I be spending $10,000 AUD (6500 USD) on my first ever solo trip?
“Should” according to whose rules? Do you have the money? Do you want to go on the trip? Then yes, you should.
The only reason I would say you “shouldn’t” do it is if the expense will make it impossible to do something else you really need to do. You probably shouldn’t, for example, use a student loan for the trip (and perhaps this isn’t even a thing in Australia), and then quit school and default on the loan, because that will probably frick your life up. You probably shouldn’t use money you were supposed to spend on livesaving surgery on the trip. You probably shouldn’t steal your grandmother’s pension for the trip, because that’s a bad thing to do.
But again, if you have the money and you want to take the trip, it’s probably money well-spent. If you’re worried that it’s too much, try to economize along the way. But in my many years of solo travel (and more recently family travel), I have never been on a trip that was made worse by spending more. I think the ideal situation for comfortable, enjoyable travel is to have access to more money than you actually expect to need, and to end up spending less than you have budgeted. Traveling while having to worry about every cent expended stresses me out, personally.