Budget Advice!!!!

Hi guys, i'm new to the forum, just signed up yesterday! I'm 21 from Melbourne and planning a trip for September. I'm having a few budget concerns re my trip. I'm travelling with a friend, and we're going for about 6 or 7 months. We're starting in the States, doing a bit of that and Canda for 6 to 8 weeks depending. Then we're going over to Europe and doing an extensive month in Italy and then hopefully seeing the rest of Europe (we'll probably settle down and work for a bit during the colder months of Dec, Jan and maybe Feb). My only worry is how much i should budget for my trip. I have already got a fair amount of money saved up, but my friend doesn't think she'll have enough to sustain herself for that long in all those places.

Does anyone have any advice on how to budget our trip, or done something similar before and knows roughly how much it will cost us (not including flights, insurance etc just food, accommodation, transport whilst in each place, major tourist attractions).

Any advice you guys could give me would be greatly greatly appreciated, we need to work it out so we can book our ticket asap!! :-)

Hi,
Well you certainly picked the most expensive places on the planet! Sorry I don't have much insight as to a daily budget, but figure on a cheap motel in the US being about $30 - $50, food can be cheap if you go with grocery stores, as far as transport - it depends on which part of the country you are planning to see. The sights in the west are further apart, therefore could be more expensive - the east they are closer together, and could be cheaper. How do you want to travel in the US and Canada? Via train or car? Before I could give you a rough estimate for the US, you'll need to provide a bit of an itinerary as costs will vary greatly depending on where you are. For example, San Francisco and LA would be on the extremely high side, whereas the Midwest would be less expensive.

So you'll be in N. America for Sept/Oct and fly to Italy in Nov. Well, Nov is off season there so you should be able to get some deals. Though overall Italy is VERY expensive - we were just there in high season and it was awful. The cheapest rooms were about $60 - $70. It's pretty expensive all over Europe.

I think you need to grab a few Lonely Planet guides and get some general info on costs, like hotels, hostels, trains, car rental and do a bit of homework on which areas are less expensive.

To save on room costs, try one of the free accommodation sites and stay for free whenever you can. We did it a couple of times and it worked out great!
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/
http://www.globalfreeloaders.com/
http://www.couchsurfing.com/

When you say you have a "fair amount" how much is that really? Do you have $3000, $5000, or??

I think for you to get more help from this forum, you'll need to give us more info and also do some homework.

Martha

I have done my homework. Plenty of it, i was just curious to see if anyone had rough estimates or had done a similar trip before, or had been to these places before and knew how much it would roughly cost.