I really like, after a significant travel adventure, to put a little time into reviewing it's finances; to get an idea of overall costs after so much time of looking at finances from a one hotel room to the next view. And since I find it so interesting, I thought maybe other folks might too. So here's how the money panned out for this last trip. (Oh, and if you like this kind of stuff, you might like previous trip recaps here and here.)
(Interesting side note: I spent over $55 in "international exchange fees" from my stupid bank on top of bank withdrawal fees. This 3% on all non-domestic expenses is worth keeping in mind (and is going encourage me to look for a new bank for my next travels))
Major Transportation Expenses | Flight Seattle -> Puerto Rico | $188 | Cruise Puerto Rico -> Portugal | $452* | Ferry Spain -> Morocco | $50 | Flight Casablance -> Amsterdam | $122 | Flight Amsterdam -> Vancouver | $515 |
Day to Day Expenses (hotel, food, domestic travel, sights, etc.) | Place | Duration of stay | Total Cost | Cost/day | Notes | Puerto Rico | 2 | $70 | $35 | This was just bare bones hotel and food. We didn't do any internal transportation (except for a city bus or two) and no sights/museums/tourist activities*. I imagine if I was to visit in earnest (rather than a cheap as possible layover with trips to the beach), these numbers might be higher. | Cruise | 10 | $452 | $45 | For the caliber of food, lodging, entertainment, and more, this was a spectacular deal. The fact that it covered transporation as well* just made it all the better a deal. | Portugal/Spain | 9 | $425 | $47 | For Europe being one of the more expensive places in the world, I feel like these totals aren't bad at all. | Melilla (Spanish Morocco) | 2 | $125 | $62 | I used this time to huddle up in a hotel with wifi to do some work, so I imagine I could have gotten by slightly cheaper. But Melilla doesn't have cheap hostels*, so housing, at €35, really makes it an expensive stopover. | Morocco | 11 | $465 | $42 | Morocco was quite a cheap place. A bit of an extravagant 2-night trip into the dessert at $130 greatly up the per day. | Amsterdam | 3 | $195 | $65 | Again, lodging was the culprit for such a high per day, but again, I'm pleased with being able to visit a European city for such a relatively low cost. And since this 3 day stopover saved me $200 on airfare*, I consider it pretty much a free stop in an awesome city |
Overall | Total cost | # of days | Total cost/day | $2653* | 38 | $70 |
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