AND HOME AGAIN!
After 12 weeks travelling
We are almost at the end of an amazing trip. 12 weeks, 6 countries, 9 US states, 3,700 miles driven, 9 flights, 25 different beds, God knows how many sights and experiences - AND NEVER A CROSS WORD.
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Sara and I have been together 24 hours a day for three months and have not as much as got annoyed with each other. That says something for the power of Valium.
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Only joking! It has been a privilege to share all this with my darling. I would not and could not have done it with anyone else (and believe me I asked loads of others but they all laughed, looked away and made snide comments about my character - JOKING - at worst I asked three others) .
By their very nature trips like this where we have almost NOTHING booked in advance, just a flimsy outline plan of where we going, could be stressful. As are all those airports and flights and car hires and booking into all those hotels., let alone Sara choosing said hotels sitting next to me at 90 miles an hour for the best part of a 100 hours in a car on the wrong side of the road. Not me on the wrong side of the road I assure you, just from Sara's perspective. How she managed it all I don't know - "and neither do we!" I hear you chorus in reply, I can hear you even from here. Well we did, so there.
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Well done darling!!!!! Here's to next year. Bali, Sumatra, Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore and maybe even Australia....
Indeed, how much does an jaunt like this cost? Because we self-design these trips then it is pretty essential that we have to have an idea of what it is going to cost before we set off.
We start with a basic guesstimate of daily costs and work from there. The guesstimate comes from records of all our past costs on all our trips over the past ten years. That has given us a pretty tried and tested broad rule of thumb to guide us.
We work on £220 a day to pay for everything except air fares and car hire. That £220 a day is the total budget for both of us and includes hotels, food, social life, booze, taxis, the works, Pretty much £110 for hotels and £110 for the remainder. As you can see from the blog we don't skimp, we do expensive and cheap, we eat in and out, we do all the local things and we visit all the sights, and over a long trip it pretty much balances out.
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We work on around £70 a day for car hire all-in with all the bells and whistles.
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We work on about £300 an internal flight across the board, including checked bags.
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The we add the cost of the big flight to whichever continent you are starting from....
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And that is the cost of your holiday.
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And would you adam and eve it? Over the main trip, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Las Vegas, road trips 1 & 2 and the cruise and it worked out at exactly that, £220 a day even in expensive America. Then we added in the crazy expensive skiing and Mardi Gras, and the over the top cottage in Nassau for a week - and even after all that it rounded out at £245 a day for two (plus flights and cars on top).
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So the rule of thumb on our do-it-yourself, bookings.com, skyscanner, last minute, go-as-you-please type of travel really does work. Thank Goodness!!!! Otherwise I would be both broke and in big trouble with my travel partner . Probably end up making up the difference.
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Try it sometime, it's a great way to travel. I just hope this tiny bit of information on costs helps.
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Brian and Sara, signing off, from Nassau in the Bahamas, just before we fly home to a beautiful English spring.
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25 March 2022
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