Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So it's just to say that, like,you know, your budget
can be range from like very frugal to,
splurging on things.
And it really depends on what you value
and, you know, understanding the costsassociated with those values.
This is Worldschool and Q&A.
(00:21):
I'm Astrid,creator of The Wandering Daughter.
As a traveling family,we've spent four years traveling
full time to over 18countries and six continents.
Wherever we go, we try to learn
as much as we canabout the countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coined the term,we like to call this worldschooling.
Using the world as our classroom.
(00:43):
Each week, my husband, Clint, and I willanswer one question about worldschooling
and share our experiencesof traveling the world with our kids.
Ready to get started?
Great. Let's dive in.
Okay, so today's question is
(01:04):
how do I budget for a worldschooling trip?
Yeah.
Do you want to start?
Yeah.
So I think the first thing
we've made mentioned thisin previous episode,
but really having, like,an idea of what your family values are.
Yeah.
And this comes this is super important
(01:27):
with budgets because depending on what you
what you value spending your time doing,that's really going to affect your budget.
So for example, if you're the typeof family who likes to eat out a lot,
that's going to be different than a familywho likes to stay in cook a lot.
If you are a family that wants to go doa lot of activities and really experience
(01:52):
the culture around them,that's going to change your budget versus
a family who likes to stay at homeor go to just kind of be,
more simple,go to parks, that kind of thing.
So it really your family
valuesare really going to play a big part in
how your budget is going to come out.
(02:14):
But also say, like your family's
kind of related to,
your values is like the level of comfort,
you know, or even like your needs too,because you and I, we work,
we work remotely,and we continue doing that when we travel.
So, like,we're not going to be able to do camping,
(02:38):
and travelingor like off the grid type of travel
for an extended period of time,because we're going to need to be
in a place that at least has like reliableinternet connection and Wi-Fi.
But, you know, again,that goes back to like, what is it
the things that you value,
or that are important to you to maintainwhile you're traveling?
(02:59):
Yeah.
Another example of something for usis that we we love cities.
We are, we are a city family,I think, for the most part.
And so that that means we end upspending a lot of time in cities
which can be more expensive than stayingin smaller towns or the countryside.
(03:19):
But that's one of the family valuesfor us.
I want.
To add or I want to kind of take a stepand talk a little bit about just like,
kind of related to this is
I think there's a, a habit
among families to sort of like,
(03:41):
especially like worldschooling families
to, like, shame others for,
wanting to spend a lot of moneyon travel, like, I think it's sometimes
like a badge of honor to be able to say,like, yeah, I'm a budget traveler.
I, you know, like,we just live as frugal as we can
and we can travel around the worldon, like $20 a day.
(04:04):
I don't think anybody can travel$20 a day,
but I'm just throwing that out there.
And I think that's great.
Like, that's great if you can do that.
But, you know, it's also
okay for a family to want to splurge and,
you know, stay at hotels or do hotel
(04:26):
stayswherever, whenever they travel or do,
like, eat
at nice restaurants, placesthat they're not able to eat at in the,
in their home cities or home places.
Yeah,I think additionally to that is that,
for example, we as a family,we we like doing touristy things too.
(04:49):
We like doing non touristy things. Yeah.
But we are equal opportunity experiencepeople.
We, we like going tothe touristy places also
and we know that that's the trade off.
We know if we go to see the Eiffel Tower
area in France, we knowthings are going to be more expensive.
Yeah. We just we understand that.
(05:11):
And I think that
while I can completely appreciate,really hardcore
low budget travelers, this isn'tjust what the world is going world.
It's with with travel forever.I feel like.
Yeah, definitelythe digital nomad world and family travel.
(05:31):
There's always beenthis badge of honor of of.
Oh, I can we can do it for cheap.
And a lot of that comes from like,we're leaving expensive areas.
So like westernized countries,like the United States.
Right.
We're leaving those expensive countriesto go travel long term and save money.
And while that's true,
I think there
(05:53):
the reverse happensis that there's a stigma against people,
against families who enjoy,
doing those more touristy things.
And we're not just saying this anecdotallyor we're saying this with no experience.
We'vewe've been shamed on groups and things for
because we like to go out to eator because we like to visit
(06:15):
touristy gadgets and stuff that we,
we, we've,you know, been called out of like,
oh, you're not really travelersor tourists and things like that.
And I, I just, I don't know,I that gets me.
I don't think there's any roomfor that in the world's going world.
I think, yeah, it'ssuch a positive environment in general,
and there's so many other thingsthat we as world scores
(06:38):
should be thinking aboutas far as responsible and ethical travel.
Within the countries that were being at,
we don't wethere's no room for to spend energy that.
Yeah.
And that's notwhat we're going to cover in this episode.
So we just a little tangentwe wanted to get off our chest here.
So it's just to say that like you know
your budget can be rangefrom like very frugal to,
(07:01):
splurging on things.
And it really depends on what you value.
And you know, understanding the costsassociated with those values.
And I think to add one more thing,you've been really great about this,
since the day one,
since day one of travel is you've beenreally transparent about what we spend.
Yeah.
If anyone asks us or in Facebook groupsor Facebook posts and stuff like that,
(07:24):
Astrid's done
a really great job about being transparentabout what our daily budget is.
And, that's not always the case.
A lot of times you you'll hear people, oh,we we don't spend
like we don't we travel on this, in this,in this per day,
but then they never give detailsabout how they travel.
And that's the right.
They don't have to share theirfinancial details, that's for sure. But,
(07:48):
we're very transparent.
And we know otherfamilies are very transparent about what
they spend, and why we spend thatand where it comes from.
And so if that's a value to your, to youas well, is,
is the transparency of family sharing,then seek out those families
that are willing to share sharethose details with you.
(08:09):
Yeah.
There's a couple articles on my websiteabout like how to budget
for an overseas trip or how to do
like affordable world travel.
So definitely check those out because I do
give actual numbersof how much things cost for us.
So let's go into just the line items.
(08:30):
Like what?
You know,
if you're if you're going to be budgetingfor a trip, like, what are the costs
that you need to be aware ofor that you need to, like, plan for?
Yeah.
It's actually pretty similarto what day to day life is.
Yeah.
The big ones are lodging, food, insurance.
(08:52):
Transportation. Station. Yeah.
And then some additional onesthat come up with travel
specifically is like air travelor any sort of like, transporting from one
region to another, whether that's trainor air and and activities.
Yeah. And activities. Activities.
Something that I always put inis like a miscellaneous line item.
(09:12):
Because like,
I don't know, when we were travelingfull time,
we ended up buyinglike, household supplies.
We don't think about thatif you're just visiting, but, like,
you know, shampoo or laundry stuff
or vitamins or things like that,that eventually we'll run out.
(09:34):
It makes no sense to, like, have to lugall of those things around with you.
Just buy it inthe location that you're at.
When our
kid was like four and we were traveling,we would buy
step stools, like plasticstep stools in the different places
because the Airbnbsare not really equipped for kids.
(09:55):
And he could never poor kid would neverbe able to reach like the sink.
And and instead ofjust like moving a chair,
we're just like,let's just get a step stool.
You can find it at the marketand then that's easy for him to like,
reach for things.So things like that. Yeah.
And then anotherlike another miscellaneous thing
that we never really thought aboutuntil we started traveling is,
(10:16):
when you're staying at a monthor longer somewhere,
a lot of timesthe kitchen's really barebones.
Yeah.
Usually there's just enough to get you by,
and usually there's not very
many groceries, especially somethingthat would last over a month or whatever.
So we've bought things like pans,
a knife, like we start traveling with,a kitchen knife, which.
(10:39):
Is your checked. Bag.
No, don't bring that in. Carry on.
Knife sharpener. Yeah.
I can't tell you how many dull kniveswe've come across.
That's really frustrating.
So it's very, like spatulas, but,
I mean, it's just a number of thingswe've bought over time.
Because if you're in a place for a monthand a half, really like trying
(11:00):
to deal with inferioror nonexistent stuff.
And when I say inferior,I'm not being, like, pretentious.
It's like sometimes it's like, somethingthat's literally broken or not working.
Yeah.
They, they still as part of the kitchenutensils or whatever.
So yeah, that's a whole topic altogether.
Like if we ran our own Airbnb,this is what we would offer.
(11:23):
Yeah.
Now the home exchanges and housesitting,that's different because those are people
living there full time.
So yeah, those have been great.
It's really just the Airbnbs.
I think that that.Yeah. But yeah, beyond that,
I think medical
costs, I think you need to keep inconsideration medical costs.
You know, obviously if you'rein the United States, for example,
(11:44):
you have medical insurance here.
A lot of times that means nothing
or very littlewant to travel outside the US.
Yeah.
And if it does a me it's usually is a
you have to pay for it upfrontand then file a claim if you want to,
you know honestlylike once you get outside
the US, it's actuallynever been a big deal even in the UK.
(12:07):
Even in more westernized countries,
we've always paid out of pocketfor medical care, right.
And it's never been an issue.
Maybe that's another maybe that'sanother topic for another episode.
But, yeah.
But yeah, you did mention insurance,and I think it is important to have even
even though medical costs are muchcheaper, it's still important
(12:29):
to have in casethat there is a big, emergency
that requires, you know, evacuationor surgery or something that you can't
really pay out of pocket.
There's a company that I
like called Safety Wing,and they have insurance,
specifically medical insurancespecifically for digital nomads.
And so,and it's affordable for families too.
(12:52):
So that's one that I like to use.
And we've used it in our past, travels.
Yeah.
One other thing that I guess we wanted tomention is kind of a line item,
or it has to do with lodging in general,actually kind of touches all these things.
But it's also a familyvalue of ours is the idea of slow
travel versus fast travel. Right.
(13:14):
That can be a huge change or variantin your budget in general.
And what we mean by that is we'veI think we've mentioned this several times
in other episodes, but I don't thinkwe've ever actually defined it.
But like slow travel is going for a monthor longer in a location.
And versus fast travelwhere you're getting two weeks or less,
(13:35):
in a location and there'sa number of benefits, additional.
So I will say deep travel two. Yeah, yeah.
Detail was really staying within a regionand trying to explore
as much of that regionas possible over a slow period of time.
And the reason
why is transportationcosts are less, right?
Your lodging is lessbecause usually you can home base for,
(13:56):
for a longer things to say.
And like we're in southern Spain,for example, we did a three month lease
on an apartment and that saved usmoney over shorter terms.
Yeah. And then we just homebased out of that and did road trips.
Variousyou can get better deals on rental cars.
There's a lot of considerationswhen you go
slow slow travel and deep travel as well.
(14:18):
Yeah.
So I think the last thing and I
say or touch on is just a
if you need, you know, like
if you're kind of like a tactiletype of person need like a worksheet
or something like that,
I actually have a travel budgetworksheet on my, available on my website.
(14:39):
Any of the budget, like
if you go to the articleabout how to budget for an overseas family
trip,you'll be able to find a link, to access
that worksheet. And,
also, I, I cover, like budgeting
for a longer term travel in my book.
Hey, kids, let's go travel.
So, you can get that e-book
(15:01):
and, look at the resources there.
Cool.
Anything else, I think? Nope.
I think that's it.
That's good.
Well, that's all for today.
Thank you for joining uson this episode of Worldschooling.
Q&A with Astrid and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notesfor any links we mentioned in the episode,
and visit my website, TheWandering
(15:22):
Daughter.com, to dive deeperinto worldschooling and family travel.
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(15:42):
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(16:03):
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Until next time, happy travels. Bye.