I’ve been on the road for one year now! One of the questions I get most often is how can I afford to just travel all the time? And I try to explain that it’s not as expensive as you might think. The person I’m talking to then usually nods and smiles… and completely doesn’t believe me. So to be fully transparent, I’m sharing my quarterly spending for my nomad life. With words like “recession” and “inflation” making daily headlines its particularly relevant to show that travel and cost of living in other parts of the world is much more manageable (for those of us privileged to have or have had American incomes). Back in May 2022 I shared my numbers for the 1st quarter of my travels, in August 2022 I showed you my 2nd quarter numbers, and in November 2022 I published my 3rd quarter spending. I realize annually Q4 is October-December, not November-January. But I did not leave until February 2022. So my Q1 started in February, my Q2 started in May, Q3 started in August, and Q4 started in November. Now that I have crossed the one-year mark, I will switch back to a calendar year, so my next quarterly report will repeat the January numbers included here. Here are the numbers from my 4th quarter of full time travel.
I was still in Buenos Aires, Argentina at the beginning of this 4th quarter. But at the end of December, I started moving more quickly than I have in the past, with shorter stays in each location, as you’re about to see. During this quarter of travel I spent 26 days in Buenos Aires, 7 days in Bariloche, Argentina, 16 days on an Antarctic cruise, 5 days in Ushuaia, Argentina, 4 days in Puerto Montt, Chile, 12 days road tripping and camping along the Carretera Austral in Chile, 17 days in Puerto Natales, Chile, one night camping in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, and 4 days in El Calafate, Argentina.
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Caveats and Addendums
A couple of caveats for how I am categorizing my spending:
- For housing, the amount is included in the month the housing was for, not when it was paid for, because I am booking my accommodations ahead of time. However during Q3, I booked an Airbnb for over two months and the payment was divided into three installments automatically. I attributed the first payment to October in Q3, and the next two to November and December this quarter.
- If an expense covers more than one month (housing/rent) it will go into the month when the spending starts. However, this month, I was road tripping with two companions over New Years. Most of our expenses were merged and divided evenly at the end of our trip, so that spending appears in January.
- Spending not related to travel will not go into total monthly travel spending (such as bar membership dues, charitable giving, and a few subscriptions like Adobe Creative Cloud).
Pretty Charts and Graphs
Quarter 4: November-January
Total Q4 Spending: $18,702.49
Avg. Monthly Spend: $6,234.16
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $2,893.52 | 15.47% |
| Travel/Transportation | $11,265.30 | 60.23% |
| ATM/Cash | $2,254.02 | 12.05% |
| Insurance | $236.22 | 1.26% |
| Restaurants | $532.48 | 2.85% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $146.22 | 0.78% |
| Streaming Services | $149.23 | 0.80% |
| Entertainment | $405.12 | 2.17% |
| Telephone | $111.50 | 0.60% |
| General Merchandise | $424.49 | 2.27% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $22.58 | 0.12% |
| Personal Care | $147.94 | 0.79% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $113.87 | 0.61% |
If you don’t think quarterly, here is the breakdown month-to-month:
November – Buenos Aires and Bariloche, Argentina; day trip to Colonia, Uruguay
Total Spending: $2,799.66
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,348.92 | 48.18% |
| Travel/Transportation | $0 | 0% |
| ATM/Cash | $850.00 | 30.36% |
| Insurance | $78.80 | 2.81% |
| Restaurants | $25.38 | 0.91% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $5.69 | 0.20% |
| Streaming Services | $106.27 | 3.80% |
| Entertainment | $8.50 | 0.30% |
| Telephone | $13.00 | 0.46% |
| General Merchandise | $308.02 | 11.00% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $22.58 | 0.81% |
| Personal Care | $32.50 | 1.16% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- You may have noted my lack of Travel/Transportation spending this month. This is misleading. As mentioned in my Q3 spending report, cash is king in Argentina, and thus a lot of my expenses are collected in the ATM/Cash category. In reality, I flew from Buenos Aires to Bariloche and back, and took a ferry to Uruguay and back for a day trip. I also used public transportation and Uber in Buenos Aires, and shared a rental car in Bariloche. All of this was paid for with cash.
- Also included in the ATM/Cash number is most of my restaurant spending; the small amount in that category is from the day trip to Uruguay. Same with groceries, except for a small amount when I tried a credit card to test Argentina’s new conversion rate for credit cards; I discovered it wasn’t in effect yet.
- Insurance includes my SafetyWing travel medical insurance, which renews monthly and covers my travel and health insurance needs abroad. I rely on my SafetyWing abroad and my ACA coverage in the U.S.
- I switched to a T-Mobile phone plan before I left in February 2022 because I thought it would be better for international travel than the Verizon plan I had had for so long. But I have had nothing but issues with T-Mobile since I started with them, and in July I switched to MintMobile just so I’d have some coverage in the U.S. and to keep my U.S. phone number. I use Airalo eSIMs for data in each country or region I visit, and this month I bought a card for Argentina.
- In November, one of my best friends came for a visit from the United States. It was great to see her and show her around Buenos Aires. We actually ate out more (and ate nicer meals) than I normally do, so my spending was probably somewhat higher than it would have been otherwise. I know it’s hidden in the cash number, but I’d be remiss not to mention her visit!
December – Buenos Aires, Argentina to Antarctica/Falkland Islands to Ushuaia, Argentina to Chile: Punta Arenas to Puerto Montt to Carretera Austral
Total Spending: $12,239.60
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $218.64 | 1.79% |
| Travel/Transportation | $10,724.48 | 87.62% |
| ATM/Cash | $855.98 | 6.99% |
| Insurance | $78.80 | 0.64% |
| Restaurants | $63.07 | 0.52% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $68.61 | 0.56% |
| Streaming Services | $21.48 | 0.18% |
| Entertainment | $0 | 0% |
| Telephone | $95.50 | 0.78% |
| General Merchandise | $113.04 | 0.92% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $0 | 0% |
| Personal Care | $0 | 0% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- Let’s start with the elephant in the room…the $10,000 elephant in my Travel/ Transportation category. This month I shelled out big money to go on this 16-day expedition to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands with my mother. Since it is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, I said budget be damned, we’re paying for the trip we want. So we didn’t go with the cheapest option to get to Antarctica. We did the research, chose the trip we wanted, and upgraded to a balcony room. I make no apologies whatsoever. It was an amazing trip, we had great weather, made some amazing new friends, took some fantastic pictures, and most of all, got to set foot on Antarctica! There were a lot of penguins involved almost daily as well. I plan to share more about this amazing trip in the future.
- If you take out that $10,000, my spending for this month isn’t that bad, especially considering how much I was moving around. I spent a few days in Ushuaia after the Antarctica trip, then took a 9-hour bus ride across the border to Punta Arenas, Chile so that I could fly to Puerto Montt. I wasn’t even in Punta Arenas for 12 hours due to a bus delay, so it hardly counts as a stop this month. In Puerto Montt I met up with two other women and we rented a car to drive the Carretera Austral, Chile’s highway through Patagonia. But since that road trip didn’t end until January and we kept a tally of our spending and divided it evenly at the end, most of that spending went into the January totals. The exception is some of the “General Merchandise” I purchased before we left, including a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and kitchen utensils. Some of this was purchased in Buenos Aires in November as well.
January – Chile: Carretera Austral to Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales to Torres del Paine National Park to Argentina: El Calafate to El Chalten
Total Spending: $3,744.13
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,325.96 | 36.20% |
| Travel/Transportation | $621.72 | 16.61% |
| ATM/Cash | $548.04 | 14.96% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 2.15% |
| Restaurants | $444.03 | 12.12% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $71.92 | 1.96% |
| Streaming Services | $21.48 | 0.59% |
| Entertainment | $396.62 | 10.83% |
| Telephone | $3.00 | 0.08% |
| General Merchandise | $3.43 | 0.09% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $0 | 0% |
| Personal Care | $115.44 | 3.15% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $113.87 | 3.11% |
Notes:
- In January I spent over two weeks in Puerto Natales in two different accommodations. I also spent one night camping in Torres del Paine National Park. The night of camping was actually really expensive due to the limited space and high demand. I stayed at a B&B in Puerto Natales for a few days before camping and then at a hostel for two weeks after. The problem is that Puerto Natales is actually pretty expensive, so my accommodations there and in the park cost over $1,000! The rest of the Housing cost is from my hostel in El Chalten, where I was told to pay with credit card to avoid the tax. I should be getting part of this cost refunded due to the way Mastercard is implementing the blue rate in Argentina, but it hasn’t hit my credit card statement yet, so it will be counted in February.
- As I said, Puerto Natales was expensive and unfortunately, neither the B&B or hostel I stayed in had a kitchen. This means I was eating out almost every meal, so my Restaurant spending looks like it did before I started tracking my own spending back in DC years ago.
- As I mentioned above, I joined two other women in December for a two week road trip on the Carretera Austral, Chile’s main highway through Patagonia. We rented a car and camped the whole time, cooking a lot of our own meals. We kept a running total of shared expenses and divided it at the end of the trip. So that spending went into my Travel/Transportation category this month. Other expenses in this category were the flight from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, and the long distance busses I took from Puerto Natales to El Calafate and then to El Chalten.
- My Entertainment budget is much higher than usual this month and I’m not apologizing for it. This month I trekked on a glacier, white water rafted in one of the world’s best white water destinations, took a boat tour to see amazing Marble Caves, hiked and took a day tour to some of the main highlights in Torres del Paine National Park and relaxed at natural Patagonian hot springs. Unsurprisingly, all of these things cost money. I feel like it was money well spent to enjoy some truly unique experiences during my time in Patagonia.
- The only downside to my visit to Torres del Paine was that I lost my beloved Browncoats hat 🙁. It wasn’t even the strong winds that took it, I just dropped it getting into the bus and didn’t notice until we had driven away. I hope somewhere a Guanaco (llama-like animal) is enjoying its new hat. I was able to find another one online and ordered that, along with some shoes for another upcoming adventure. Instead of listing these in a later month when I’ll actually have them in my possession, I just included these clothing items in this month’s spending.
Tracking Expenses Made Easy
If you are worried that I am spending too much time tracking every cent, don’t worry, I’m not doing anything! I use Personal Capital to track all my spending. Which is also why my cash spending may be slightly off. If you are serious (or even just curious) about financial independence, you need to know where your money is, and where it is going every month. If you want to give Personal Capital a try, clicking the link here, signing up, and linking an account will get you a free $20 (and I’ll get $20 too). There are other applications like Mint or your bank or brokerage firm’s portfolio tracker, but this has become my preferred tracker.
So What Does This Mean?
“Thanks for showing us all your spending Rachel, so, what does it all mean?” Fair question. And while some people may subscribe to the belief that FIRE means living on rice and beans and never spending money (I met someone a few months ago who mansplained to a group that that’s what I was doing when I said I had FIREd), I am not in that camp. I would not have quit my job to travel if it meant I could never enjoy the places I go. And sometimes, it costs a little more. My budget has some cushion, and I’ll make it up in the future.
Q4 was definitely expensive for me, because of my trip to Antarctica and my time in Patagonia. My next quarter will also be expensive because I’m not leaving Patagonia until March. But it just means I have to balance out the expensive months of travel with time in lower cost destinations, which I plan to do later in 2023.
This budget also only tracks my EXPENSES, it says nothing about income. Since February 2022, I also sold my possessions including my condo and my car, received income from investment dividends and sold some of my photography in a gallery. I have yet to draw down anything from my FIRE nest egg.
So what it means is that despite worldwide concerns about inflation and recession, I am able to travel and enjoy my time exploring new countries without breaking the bank. In Q4 I traveled to Antarctica and both Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia, I’ve hiked, camped, rafted, kayaked, snowshoed, and trekked; I’m not sitting at home trying to spend as little as possible. Full time travel is not as expensive as the nodders and smilers think it is, and here are my numbers to prove it!
This post contains affiliate links and referral codes. By clicking these links and signing up/ordering items I’ve linked to or recommended, I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you. If I have linked to a product/service, it is because I have used it, liked it, and would recommend it.
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