Cost of Living

Good luck to you wanderer, as for an annual figure not real sure, best way would be to work average km's you tend to travel in a week, try and stay at free camp sites as much as possible and buy your food in bulk in the big towns so your not buying at caravan park prices.
Darren

Haven't done the full lap yet, but look at your lifestyle and expectations.

Will you have a home to up keep as well? If so, you may have a lot of "double up" costs. If you have sold your home to travel, look at how much it cost you to live at home, and add a margin for remote location.

Food will cost you more - can't bulk buy for economy, and in many places groceries will be dearer than at home.

Will you be free camping for much of the time, or paying for camp sites?

What extra excursions will you pay for? Flights? Fishing charters? If you are only going to be there once in a lifetime, and let's face it, it has cost you a lot to set up your rig and get there, allow for some expenses like these. Also allow for some souvenirs and mementos of your travels.

Cost of photography is essential to me - i want to be able to re-live the wonderful trips for the rest of my life. A good digital camera with lots of memory makes this easier and cheaper.

Cost of communication: Do you have family who will want you to report home regularly? Do you have aging parents who may need extra contact when you are away? Will you need to allow for the cost of a flight home if necessary (as well as storage of your rig)?

Look at kilometres travelled and bear in mind cost of travel. Fuel (you will use more towing) can be expensive in outback places. Do factor in higher than usual replacement of tyres, and look at the maintenance and repair costs of long distance travel (something is bound to need repairing, and it may be a high cost because of location).

I hope this helps you plan a wonderful and carefree lifestyle. I wish it was me.

Wanderer
You are 3 months to early with your question.

My sister is setting up a site for Just that. She hopes to be up and running about xmas or early next year. She would love to chat directly to you or any one else on E-mail: novation123@hotmail.com
On Patrol.

Fuel is the killer. If you intend to travel great distances every day, may dollars will be spent!

If you do the tourist things, entry fees etc. another big cost.

If you eat out at restaurants and takeaways. Phew!

If you stay at bed and breakfasts and swank hotels.... rich people only.

I however you prop at a nice spot for a week or few days at a time, eat from the supermarket and enjoy mooching around, poking your head into interesting spots and meeting locals, then not much more cost than living at home!

In fact, you might find it cheaper!

just recently we had a list done of all the expences we anticipate for long term travel. Reason was to identify the target for the super/pension (monthly) ... we compared it with our "normal" travel costs .. house and fixed costs for house not included ... but
all else .eg. Private Health Insurance, Fully comprehensive car/boat, Life insurance (my wife insists :)) .. 25.000 km/year fuel allowance, 150 hours a year fuel allowance for the boat .. Median price of 25$ for campgrounds at 50% of the time, Maintenance and Repair cost for vehicle, camper, boat, Internet connection, Phone, Food etc ... We average around $5000 a month ... this does not include major entertainment sprees but does include scuba fill ups etc .. Photography does not cost me anything .. computers, cameras and lenses are paid for .. (I have a repair position in the budget though) ... To be comfortable we would want a safety net of 1K/ month. We are planning on $6K a month (today) for long term travel ... and we do not plan to eat into the capital ...
Add all the little stuff (club fees,VKS737,subscriptions etc .. it all adds up ) ..
We know a couple (they did house sitting for us) they have been travelling on less than half with a lot of house sitting (can be a good thing). I could live with quite a bit less without the boat .. and it really depends how far you drive ..
good luck
gmd

I suppose it all depends if your a rich grey nomads or a poor one? (which I will be, poor I mean haha) We reckon we spend less money when we go away then we do sitting at home, have not worked that out yet.
All the best in your travels Wanderer we still got 6 years to go.
Cheers Bruce.

Hey guy's - check out Peter and Sandy's web page. I met them a few years back up in Babinda and they have been travelling for years.

I am sure thay can assist.

Here Tis....

www.users.bigpond.com/Peter.Burns/

Grrr!!!

Thank goodness we did the "On the Wallaby" bit in the mid 90's when fuel was 65cents/litre and our food bill was $50 a week. We lived well and travelled for 5 years(260,000km) on $20,000 a year.

This past year we did a 56 day stint into the Western Deserts with one night in a motel and five nights in Caravan Parks and 50 nights or thereabouts free camping.
We managed this all on the pension. All up cost was $3000 for the trip.

You can still have fun without spending heaps of money despite the high fuel costs.

Cheers

My experience is similar to Motherhen. On our recent Kimberly plus (16 weeks), trip we spent about $1,000 per week. Biggest expense was fuel.

Leave out fuel ($330 per week av on our trip) and 'tourist stuff' ($120 a week av on our trip) and you live much cheaper on the road than at home.

Grog was (embarringly) also a big expense for us ($140 per week av). But we don't smoke.

Those 3 items account for over half our expenses. You can do the numbers based on distance travelled, drinking and smoking habits etc. You can live very cheaply if you want (or have to), but a big part of the reason for travelling is to see the country and enjoy life. That has a cost.

In the past six months we have spent 2 months travelling through central Oz and north Qld - travelled 10,000km using ULP and spent about 20 nights in either caravan parks or national parks. The rest of the time we bush camped. No mechanical problems. All up cost of $4,000, of which more than half was fuel. We ate (and drank) well without going overboard - self catering.

More recently we spent 3 weeks travelling in Victoria - all up cost of $1200, about half being for fuel. Same travelling arrangements, although van parks were more expensive there, and less avoidable.

But on top of this there are the ongoing costs that apply if you were at home - insurance, vehicle rego, rates and so on, as well as the set up costs for your rig, and maintenance.

John W.

Hi Wanderer,

If u choose to send me your email thingo will forward a basic cost work out to u

Regards Ken J Qld

plasdel2 @ bigpond.net.au