Travel Skills Tuesday #4

Welcome to Travel Skills Tuesday! in these issues of my Travel Newsletter I’ll drop travel tips and tricks with a shared topic! The theme for this “Travel Skills Tuesday” newsletter is…

How to Make a Travel Budget

This week I’m sharing my 5-Step Plan for making a travel budget! This post will be packed with how I estimate costs and keep them organized. I will also show you an example for every step! Gret ready for full financial awareness on your travels!

• 📋First Things First - Tools to Make a Budget In

• 💵Step 1: Start With the Most Expensive Items

• ⛷️Step 2: Add Planned Activities

• 🚕Step 3: Estimate Transportation Costs

• 🍽️Step 4: Average Cost to Eat Per Day

• ✅Step 5: Adjustments & a Buffer

First Things First

There are many tools to make a budget for your trip, my favorite is a simple document or calculation page like GoogleSheets or Excel. We just need something we can list our expenses out and total, and re-total, them up as needed!

Your budget might be a continuous process because travel plans can change! The awesome benefit of a budget is it will give you a good understanding of your expenses, so when something comes up, you’ll know if you can swing it!

Step 1: The Most Expensive Items

When I budget, I start with the most expensive costs! This will probably be your flight and hotel. Luckily these are easy to estimate while you plan and research these items. I complete this budget process BEFORE I book anything.

Are you going to an all-inclusive resort or a high-cost event like a food festival, add this cost here in Step 1 too. Let’s list these items, example below.

So far we have budgeted $700 for our trip!

Step 2: Add Planned Activities

I’m a big planner so I research a list of activities for my trips. As I research activities, I note the cost and location. Review activities cost, operating hours and relative location to decide which ones fit best into your trip. Sometimes I’ll even re-budget and pick a hotel closer to the activities I want to do!

Don’t worry, if you have no idea what activities you are going to do you can drop in an estimate instead! In a busy city, I like to budget at least $100 per person a day for activities.

Let’s add our planned activities OR a daily estimate of spend to our budget tracking! Example below.

You can see now the budget for our trip is $975.

Step 3: Estimate Transportation Costs

Now that we have an idea of where we are staying and what we’re doing, We can estimate the costs for getting around on our trip! Put your airport, hotel and activities on a map (like google maps to even get transport methods) to see how far your items are apart. Here are examples of transport costs you’ll want to budget for:

• To and from the airport - at home AND your destination - test the route on your rideshare app to get an estimate

• Metro/Bus Day Passes - these are a cost rate for a number of days

• Daily Rideshare to get around - these can be $10-$40 per ride - great for groups

• If you are doing a road trip,

  • estimate parking by checking hotel and activity lot costs

  • calculate gas cost based on your vehicle:

    • Miles there and back (divided by) Car MPG = Gallons of cas needed

    • Gallons needed X avg price of gas - I use $4/gal to be safe

• Don’t forget car rental costs if needed

Most trips I plan on walking a lot. If I am there for more than 3 days, I’ll get a metro pass. I also try to stay at a hotel walking distance to a transportation hub or with included airport transport.

For this example, all of my activities are within a walkable area of my hotel, so I just need an estimate for getting to and from the airport. Now my travel budget for the trip is $1005.

Step 4: Average Cost to Eat Per Day

I love to try new restaurants and grab like 5 coffees a day from local shops while I enjoy exploring a new city, so I give myself a hefty meal budget of about $30 per meal. I don’t spend this much every meal, (I often enjoy the free hotel breakfasts), but this is my average. I’d start here, then update this if you see you spend more or less on average.

Multiply this average by the number of people in your group and the number of meals you’ll be having. This will give you a good estimate!

Now that we have added a meal estimate, our new estimated budget is $1185.00

Step 5: Adjustments & A Buffer

Now the fun part, let’s review! does this budget make sense? is this the amount you want to spend on this trip? if not, that’s ok! because we haven’t “spent” anything yet, we can make adjustments:

• Hotel or flight cost too high? look for a cheaper one!

• Is the rideshare too expensive to that food tour across town? look for a public transportation option or swap out this activity for something closer

• Is the cost of that history tour too expensive? swap it out for 2 or more other activities

Pull the strings of your budget by increasing/decreasing the spend of different items to get the final amount that fits your needs!

I also add a 10% buffer to my budget, because things happen. From missing the metro and needing a costly taxi to make your flight home to seeing an amazing activity last minute and praying you can squeeze it in. Up this to 20% if you see you are spending more than expected. This breathing room will give you peace!

Now you’re ready to have full financial awareness on your travels! Check in with your budget while on your trip and even afterwards to see how you did!

Thanks for Reading! I’m Wishing you a full and peaceful season! Feel free to reply to this email to contact me or request any blog topics!

Keep Traveling & Pouring into Yourself - XOXO - Lydia

My Travel Planning Template Includes a Budget!

I love being organized when I travel so I’ve decided to share my FREE Travel Planning Template via GoogeSheets! This template has an itinerary that automagically creates a budget for your trip! it also includes travel packing and to-do lists. Upon opening, select “make a copy” to save it to your google account. Each newsletter will have link to get your copy, so lookout for updates!

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