What does it cost

The Length of a piece of string is twice half it's length ;))


As for the cost of a trip, who knows LOL


Cheers Kev

A piece of string is as long as it needs to be , Cost of hitting the road is as expensive as you want it to be ,, day to day living costs just the same in a $500,000 palace on wheels as it does in a $10,000 car+van combo.

Hi,
As a very rough estimate you could allow a minimum of $1.50 per km of travel.
That is to cover everday costs. Services and expensive jaunts (chopper rides etc ) would be on top of that.

Similar figures have appeared on this forum a number of times as something to work off.

Disco.

Gidday

From past experience it's about $100 day. This includes the cost of getting there, repairs and every thing else. It does'nt include the gadgets you might buy before hand.

So you'll be up for a $36,000 over 12 months unless you decide to become a hermit.

Regards

Kim

You'll need to provide a little more info like how many will be travelling (kids) and how you'll be living ie; in a van or trailer. The reasons I ask is that if you require caravan parks, as a general rule the cost goes up a certain amount for every extra person (read child) over two. Soooo a $30 buck night in a caravan park is actually closer to $50 if you've got 3 kids.

In a year of living and travelling in a camper trailer, I found the costs to be not too much different to living at home, and certainly more expensive if you owned your home in the first place. This didn't take into account the cost of setting up as well. If you spend $30K to live at home for a year, it will cost you that and probably more in a year of travel on the road.

Here's 11 months in 2006 around and through this BIG country. We didn't live high on the hog and it was for two of us in the 3L T/D Navara and a Tambo camper trailer.

Fuel $6,863.36
Food $3,451.70
Groceries $4,529.60
Accomm $3,958.29
Papers/Mags $251.10
Attractions $1,529.40
Vehicle costs $3,391.00
Misc $4,578.40
Grog $1,685.80

Total $30,238.65

Should give you an idea

Cheers Mick

If you are of the older retired generation I'd be very wary of selling up, ridding yourself of the house etc. We've come across a few nomads that regret selling up as when the travel comes to an end whether it be due to ill health, lack of funds, sick of it etc then they have nothing to come back to and find they cannot afford to get back into the housing market.
If you still have the family home and really want to sell and move base somewhere else then downsizing might be a better way of both releasing some equity to travel with and also give you a base to come back to. If possible rent it out while away to provide income and pay the bills that still occur like rates etc.
If you are young with plenty more years to work then go for it!
The $100 a day isn't a bad start point but it depends on what your lifestyle is like.
Do you intend to spend every night in a caravan park or somewhere that involves fees or do you intend to freecamp as much as possible.
What sort of rig are we talking about vehicle and van, motorhome etc.
Do you eat out a lot?
Do you do all your own vehicle maintenance and servicing or do you pay someone to do it?
All makes a huge difference, we've met other travellers that travel happily on the old age pension and others that are driving $500k worth of rig and eat out every night, go on every tourist thing you can think of regardless of cost.
$36k a year would be pretty basic lifestyle and travel would be slow I'd imagine.

hi

25-30,000 per year seems to be a basic cost if you freecamp most of the time.. depending on vehicle and where you stay.
main cost is food depending if you eat out or supermarket/freeze and cook yourself between big towns.

visit this for a good read


http://hobohome.com/index.php

this couple have been on the road for 6/7 years

good luck whatever you do

mike

Another vote for $30-35000 per year. This is based on last year's 4 month trip, 20000 km, total outlay $12000. This includes close to $2000 for vehicle repairs (mental note - don't break any more springs!) and close to $1000 for a flight and other such tourist things.

This includes very little for accommodation (we usually free camp). We very rarely eat out. These 2 areas can be major cash consumers.

A big wild card is vehicle repairs. If things go bad and you are away from your usual support networks it can cost $$$. I'd build in a contingency sum and hope you don't need it.

HTH

John

Costs? This is so variable and everyone will be different. Sorry my answer is so long Monaro, and tells you very little when it comes to jotting down actual costs, but it should be used as a formula for working out your costs, which will be different to mine, or other people who have answered.

As a rule of thumb -

If you can live on $100 per week at home you will probably do similar on the road, and if you live on $1,000 per week, you will most likely keep up the same lifestyle. It does cost a bit more for food; no home grown vegetables, no bulk buying and keeping a chest freezer full and costs in remote places will be higher, particularly for fresh produce. Work out what it costs you, and allow a bit more. Your shopping trends will be similar for food, extras and drinks as when you are at home.

Do you eat out a lot? Or do you always make your own lunch? These will be known factors and you will probably continue to do as you do at home. An occasional meal out at a local pub or restaurant can be a good way to reward a town which provides good free or very low cost camping so make allowance for this as often or as infrequently as you choose.

Fuel and vehicle costs: You will know your vehicle’s fuel consumption rate when towing. Work out how far you intent to travel, and again add on a generous extra allowance as there will always be extra trips and side trips worth taking when you find out about them. Research the cost of fuel in the remotest places to give an idea of these costs. Double the fuel figure as the same amount again should cover maintenance such as regular servicing and tyres with the occasional unforeseen repairs. This makes no allowance for vehicle replacement. Your caravan may also need maintenance from time to time for regular things such as brakes, wheel bearings and possibly water delivery hoses. Factor this into your budget. Freight costs of obtaining parts will be higher in more distant and remote locations and you may have to pay caravan park fees whilst waiting for parts if it is a breakdown that has immobilised you. How competent are you at doing your own repairs? Mechanics and technicians in remote locations will charge more to cover their costs in these locations, but doing your own repairs if you are not suitable skilled may well be more costly in the long run.

Regular costs such as insurances and licences will be the roughly same as when your rig is at home. Your regular bills at home such as rates and power will continue unless your have sold your home or someone else becomes responsible for any of these costs. Renting out your home is a whole story again – with alarm bells ringing, and tenure of rent cannot be guaranteed.

Camping fees: Depending on your camping style and opportunities for free camping, this again will vary hugely from person to person. Remember it will work out cheaper and easier to stay at a none-to-cheap caravan park at the site of the feature you want to spend a few days touring, than commute daily from a free camp some distance away. For example last year the dearest fee we paid was at Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland at $38 per night. Overall we paid a total of $1460 for camping, including caravan parks and national parks, over 65 nights. That is $22.50 average per night. In most cases we paid for powered sites if in a caravan park whether we used it or not, but sometimes opted for unpowered, particularly if there was a significant price difference. The remaining 83 days were spent in free spots, including a number of designated free camps in or near towns that welcome caravanners. Some we drove quite some kilometres to get to, so that is also a cost. We chose to drive the distance to camp for example by a lake well away from the highway, than in a crowded rest area by the edge of a busy road, or even a caravan park in a noisy town. Different areas have different priced camping fees so it depends where you are travelling as well. We were travelling in areas where we would choose to visit an inland National Park rather than a coastal resort town. Our rig is set up for remote and independent bush camping as this is our chosen way of holidaying.

Entrance fees, flights, cruises: Again you are in control. It is nice to occasionally visit a small museum in a small town, as well as high profile ones in bigger towns – just pick a selection to suit your interests. Entrance fees are variable and the cost of high profile places that you will want to visit can be researched. Cruises and flights – the sky is the limit. What you take will be tailored to match your budget. Park passes and permits are usually only small additional costs. Getting a state wide parks pass can be a saving on park entrance fees if you are visiting lots of national parks.

Souvenirs and gifts for the family: You can decide ahead of time how much you plan to spend in these areas.

Always have a bit to spare for unforeseen, or even a flight back "home" if needed for urgent health or family matters.

Lots of issues about no fixed address, including licences, insurances and electoral role.

Motherhen

Your biggest variable these days is fuel costs. We allowed an average of $1.80/L when originally budgeting in 06. Fortunately it didn't finally average out at that. Many remote areas fuel is $2.00+/L. So if travelling all day between stops your fuel bill has the potential to will well and truly exceed $100/day.

If towing allow 10% over what you normally get in fuel consumption to allow for the inevitable overloading + headwinds. Also take into account that you will also bound to be going off-road at some point so consumption will be higher. The cost of fuel in remote places can be exorbitant.

I know with my vehicle the difference between 2wd on the black top and hard slog 4wd Low can be around 4km/L difference.

Have fun, it's only money and you can't take it with you.

We are a retired couple and have found that travelling costs little more that staying at home except for the extra fuel, and that is even including park fees. I don't know why that is but over many years of travelling (only a couple of months or so at a time) that's how it's panned out.

Most costs other than extra fuel and accommodation are the same as at home. We eat well at home and when travelling, probably eating out about once a week when travelling.

If you do not own a property you will have not gas, water, electricity or council rates.

Hope it all works out for you.

Min

Hi there,

It just depends on so many things - we have recently finished a 16mth trip around Aust with 2 kids (in August 2009 we had 3 - not a new baby, my teenager who decided he was missing out on something) We sold our home to do the trip (and no we don't regret it) we purchased a BIG van with all the mod cons which cost us $60K, our cruiser needed a couple of things but for the most part was ready for the trip.

You can spend anywhere from $600 per week to $1100 per week. We free camped as much as we could, the boat to Tassie and back cost us approx $1700 (however Tassie is GREAT for free camping so not much in the way of accomm costs) We found most CP's charged a crazy amount for kids (we believe it should be a one off site fee) they charged anywhere from $5 - $10 per night per child THIS adds up.

It also depends what attractions you want to do - we paid $22 for the family to see the turtles at Mon Repos (near Bundy) and I would have paid $100 on the flip side we have paid heaps for other attractions and were VERY disappointed.

We worked in Victoria for 3 mths and worked in Kununurra for 6mths to replenish the bank (there is heaps of work out there, just can't be fussy about what you do. If you do a lot of cooking ie cakes, muffins ect for hungry kids this is cheaper than buying them ect, the same with lunchtime make your own.

Cheers
Caz
http://www.travelingoz.webs.com

Hi Larry,

You can do all sorts of jobs, I am a qualified Massage Therapist so I did a bit of massage whilst travelling, however in Kununurra I cleaned cabins and amenity blocks, Matt is a mechanic so work was never an issue for him, he also did fruit picking - I guess it just depends how picky you want to be.

People had all sorts of employment including:

Labouring
Shop assistants (especially in smaller towns when its peak season they need seasonal staff)
fruit picking
maintenance work
Caravan parks often need seasonal cleaners, receptionist and gardeners Just be sure to let them know you are looking for work when you arrive.

I am sure there are other jobs going as well

Try these links

http://jobsearch.gov.au/harvesttrail/default.aspx

http://www.aussieparkcareers.com.au/

http://www.workaboutaustralia.com.au/

Cheers
Caz