WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO SPEND

THE THREE BIGGEST EXPENDITURES TRAVELLING AUSTRALIA ARE

FUEL, FOOD AND ACCOMMODATION!

Making a travel budget is an important part of preparing for your trip within or around Australia.

Deciding how much to save and budget for, plays a huge part in the length of your travels. Being able to plan ahead and prepare for expenditures is the key to avoiding any spending shocks. For us, we calculated our expenses based on the trip we were doing. Taking into consideration the amount of kilometres we were going to travel, how much free camping we intended on doing and feeding our family of 5. Also things to consider are big ticket activities and experiences such as a Whale Shark Swim in Exmouth, WA or the Horizontal falls experience in the Kimberley?? These are expensive and can blow out your travel budget if not prepared.

Fuel – To begin, start by deciding on a timeframe for your trip and kilometres travelled, then you can calculate your fuel expense based on the current dollar. We use an excellent app called ‘Fuel Map’ and this keeps a record of money spent and kilometres travelled as well as the L/100km used. It will also calculate your averages per fill.

Food – A weekly food bill is easily determined by your current grocery bill, although you do need to account for remote areas, as groceries tend to be more expensive here. We are a family of five and budget for approximately $300-$350 a week. When in remote areas we expect to pay anywhere from $50-$80 extra per week.

Accommodation – deciding on how much you will free camp and how often you will stay in a caravan park will help figure out your dollar figure. For our family travels so far, we have done about 60% caravan parks and 40% free or low cost camps. The price of caravan parks in iconic destinations such as Broome, can be pricey at around $55 per night, not factoring in kids which can be an extra $5-15 per night. Many parks will charge from the age of 4, however, we have come across plenty charging from 2 years of age! So be prepared.

We think a good amount to work on is $1000 a week on average.. 50-60k for a year!! If you come in under budget “YOU BEAUTY” – Keep Travelling!!
WE HAVE PUBLISHED AN E-BOOK FULL OF INFORMATION TO HELP YOU HIT THE ROAD FULL TIME

WE HAVE ALSO CREATED A SPREADSHEET THAT ALLOWS YOU TO CALCULATE HOW MUCH YOU WILL SPEND ON YOUR TRAVELS BY INPUTTING DATA SPECIFIC TO YOUR TRIP AND YOUR FAMILY…

THE STATS!

We have done regular budget updates on our big lap(s) and you can see some examples below. It’s good information for when you commence your trip, wherever it may take you!

Below are our budget stats for our first big lap (plus a 4 month update) and a return trip to Cape York from the Sunshine Coast in 2017.