How Much I Spent Traveling The World Full-Time In 2024

I recently completed my third year of traveling full-time! As with previous years, I’ve kept track of what I spent in several categories, and I even broke it down into how much I spent within each country I lived in.

Things to keep in mind:

I’m a cozy budget traveler who doesn’t mind splurging occasionally but generally tries to stick to the cheaper side of things.
This was the year I started doing digital nomad life, so my focus was on finding nice places to stay long-term so I could get lots of work done, rather than do much sightseeing stuff.
I’m a solo traveler and pay for everything myself.

This post is my entire travel budget breakdown for last year, and covers my stays in the US, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and the UK.

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Annual Spending

I’m interested in spending as little as I can, so I can stretch my budget further, but at the same time I don’t want to deprive myself of being comfortable or missing out on things I want to do. That means I tend to book private apartments when I stay somewhere long-term, and use hostels and coliving places as temporary stopovers.

I also do a lot of my own cooking, though I tend to cook my favorite Western meals which means spending more on imported goods. And as 2024 was the year I was focused on working, I didn’t have any plans to spend a lot on tourist activities. I also luckily didn’t have any major health problems that needed dealt with.

All that together kept my spending very low, and my total for the year was $14,620.05 USD or $40.05/day. My goal for the year was to spend less than $45/day, so I definitely smashed that goal!

Country Notes

I lived in the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United Kingdom this year, plus stopped over in Singapore twice. I’ve been to all these countries before so I don’t have any new ones to add to my list, but I did get to some new cities at least.

Most expensive country: Singapore at $63/day

Least expensive country: Vietnam at $32/day

(Technically the “cheapest” countries are the ones I had housesitting gigs for, which put them down to under $20/day. However, I only really housesat for the last three weeks of the year, so I’m not sure how helpful it is to “count” those countries SO I’m just gonna ignore it for now.)

I actually managed to keep all my expenses in nearly every country down to under $50/day. If you exclude the shopping in Singapore, even that goes down to $49/day. Pretty darned good, if I do say so myself!

You can read some monthly budget breakdowns here to see what I was spending in general in each country:

I also keep a separate “world” category because I never know where to put international flights (do they go in the country I leave from, or the country I’m going to?) or my insurance or memberships or whatever which aren’t tied to a specific location. For that category, it’s a total of $1,848 (of which $1k is flights).

Category Breakdown

Here’s how much I spent over the year in each category that I track.

Accommodation: $6,593 (avg. $549/month)

I stayed the longest in three countries: Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam at just under 3 months each.

This year I stayed overnight in the following cities: Narita, Tokyo, Odawara, Osaka, Daito, Nagoya; Singapore; Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands), Butterworth, George Town; Da Nang; London, Blackpool, Worcester.

In general, as a slowmad, I try to stay somewhere for at least a month, and I prefer to stay through my whole visa length if possible. That means I can get discounted rates for long-stay apartments, as most of them offer some kind of discount if you book more than 28 days at a time. I combined those discounts with some discounted AirBNB gift cards I snagged through AARP. Huzzah!

It’s really hard to pick a favorite country (or city), as there’s things I like and dislike about every location. But I have to say I think the best balance between modern convenience, comfort, and affordability is Malaysia. I really loved my apartment in Kuala Lumpur, the Cameron Highlands were beautiful, the food is delicious and the people are very nice.

My favorite one-off hotel stay was at Yeng Keng Hotel in George Town. Beautiful hotel, lovely staff, great location, only downside was the breakfast food really.

Groceries: $2,027

On average, my monthly cost for groceries was under $200. I buy a lot of imported stuff in Asia, as I crave certain things (like Brussels sprouts, bagels and cheese) that cost more than local foods, but I still think it’s an overall good price for a single person.

I have some posts with grocery prices you can check out if you’re interested:

Because I cook so much, I do look for places with decent kitchens, and that does mean I spend a bit more on accommodation. But it all balances out in the end, so I don’t personally worry about that so much.

Food (Restaurants, etc.): $1,265

This is stuff like going to restaurants, ordering Grab delivery, and buying ready meals from convenience stores.

Again, I don’t think this is such a huge amount of spending for a single person throughout the whole year, but admittedly I did do a lot of Grab deliveries in Vietnam and Malaysia (to the tune of over $500). It’s just so nice being able to order a meal direct to my apartment!

Eating at local places in Asia is actually very affordable. Even in Japan, which tends to be slightly more expensive, I spent less than $10/meal.

Tourism: $137

A massive decrease from last year’s spending where I went over $1,000 on tourism!

But like I said, the focus this year was on working, and all the tourist stuff I did was, for the most part, self-guided walking tour kinda things or going to free museums for the day.

I did do a few fun things that I’ve written about on the blog:

Transit (not including flights): $529

This includes trains, subways, buses, and so on.

Some highlights:

I went on the bullet train from Odawara to Osaka. The bullet train was a fun experience, but I’m still more of a fan of the highway bus for long distances, honestly.

The bus from Cameron Highlands to Ipoh almost make me puke. Then it broke down and I had to get a Grab to go the rest of the way. (Review coming soon.)

I took the train up from Ipoh to Butterworth instead of the bus, and it was definitely worth it. It’s unfortunate that the buses in Malaysia tend to be so slow, because they’re definitely a better price. But they get stuck in traffic a lot, which makes for problems.

I took my first long-distance budget bus in the United Kingdom, a Megabus! I was really worried it’d be scary or gross, but it was just a normal bus experience (luckily). Keep an eye out for my review on that later this month.

Flights: $1,053

This was all international flights; I didn’t take any domestic flights and instead used overland transport within countries.

My most expensive flight was from Da Nang to London via Singapore, for $627.90. I used $304.30 worth of Chase points to offset the cost, bringing my actual spend down to about half ($300 something). Yay!

My favorite airline in Asia is definitely Singapore Airlines/Scoot, and I’ll happily pay a bit more to fly with them versus another airline. However, I also had a good experience with ZipAir, which I took from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Very cheap tickets but the experience didn’t feel cheap, imo.

Shopping: $963

This is split between replacing items in my suitcase, souvenirs and stuff needed for the apartments I stay in.

At the beginning of the year I bought some travel clothes (including two merino wool bras), a Kindle Paperwhite to replace my aging Kindle Oasis, and random things I thought I needed like a laundry line that broke immediately.

I bought some “home goods” for all the apartments I stayed at, usually things like nicer sponges, hand towels from Ikea (which I still have with me and which are still one of the most useful things I have), a ceramic veg peeler, and so on.

The rest is souvenirs, and I spent a TEENSY bit more than I meant to. I couldn’t resist buying some interesting tidbits during my time in Japan, including some things from a flea market and a new Traveler’s Notebook leather cover (and several interior notebooks).

And finally, I bought some winter gear at the Uniqlo in Changi Airport before I came to the UK in November. I’m very glad I did, because I definitely needed it!

Medical: $982

I switched travel insurance providers halfway through the year because my old policy through SafetyWing was being discontinued, and the new one was a little more expensive than what I wanted to pay for those benefits. I moved to a policy through IMG and now pay about $36/month.

Besides that, I had some dental work done in Kuala Lumpur and got new eyeglasses in Da Nang. Medical tourism is a great way to save money on health stuff, if you don’t have decent insurance coverage in the US.

Other (Visa, Laundry, Postage, etc.): $1,042

This category includes quite a few things, including visas (for Vietnam), laundry (in Japan and the UK), postage (I sent a package of souvenirs from Japan), membership fees for sites like Trusted Housesitters and AARP, credit card annual fees, SIM cards, and so on.

The largest expenses were on my 1 year pre-paid mobile plan with US mobile ($72) and my premium membership with Trusted Housesitters ($213.75).

I’m very, very happy with my spending this year! I came in under budget, and I don’t feel like I deprived myself of anything to do it.

Me in Osaka in front of the famous Glica man

Slow travel lifestyle changes

This year brought massive changes to my travel style compared to the previous two years. I slowed way, way down, spending most of my time at month-long apartment stays.

My focus was also very different. Last year in particular I was doing a LOT of sightseeing, and moving relatively quickly from city to city.

This year my focus was on building my blog and turning it into a business, so I’ve been traveling much slower to give myself time to work.

Ironically, spending longer in one city at a time means I lose a lot of interesting in sightseeing in that city.

It’s like that thing where when you live somewhere, you don’t care about seeing the tourist stuff because you’re busy figuring out grocery stores and where the post office is. The urgency isn’t there like it is when I’m only staying somewhere for a few days. And then I find myself cramming a bunch of museum visits in the last week of my stay because I feel guilty about missing out!

I still consider myself a full-time traveler, but it’s in a different way than I thought it’d be when I first started this lifestyle. My priorities aren’t the same as someone who’s only traveling for a week or a month; I feel like I can get back to any place I want to if I really want to see something, and I’d rather spend my time working on my blog (and making local friends) than go visit another cathedral or something.

That said, I definitely feel the itch for some adventure travel starting up. Maybe I can go back to minimalist backpacker travel in 2026.

Plan for 2025

My goal budget for 2025 is $13,000 USD, or $35/day. I’m interested in seeing if I can cut even more of my expenses, and how far I can stretch things.

As for personal goals: I’d like to keep working on my blog(s) and building up income, so I can sustain myself completely through my own business. I want to keep living abroad and moving very slowly through each destination. I also want to do a lot more petsitting, and perhaps a seasonal gig or two (where housing is included).

And for travel plans: I’m currently in the UK and plan to head back to the States to visit my parents in March. I then have a long catsit starting in April in Oregon, and I’m hoping to book some more sits in the Pacific Northwest through the summer.

It’s tempting to head back to Asia again in the fall. I’ve spent almost two years there already, but there’s always so much to see and do! If I do, I’d like to go back to Cambodia, as I barely saw anything when I was there in 2023. And of course Japan is always tempting, especially the north which I’ve not been to yet.

But I would also like to visit a new country, like Mexico or somewhere in Central America! I really want to see some ancient pyramids and historical sites, and there’s tons of them in Latin America. So many choices!