We spent 362 days traveling around South America with backpacks. And although I wasn’t able to keep up with posts about all the places we went, I was able to keep up with our expenses. So here they are, the costs of two senior citizens roaming through Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, with a brief visit to Paraguay for one year (June 1, 2024 – May 29, 2005), compiled and averaged out, with pie charts and bar charts, summaries, and analyses of what we could have done better to save more money.
The Grand Totals
International Flights: $2,205.04
Learning Spanish: $2,984
Everything Else: $32,056
The Grand Total: $37,245.04
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Category Percentages
Here are some colorful charts to help you visualize our expenses. I have broken them up into general and more specific categories.
And here you can see which categories we spent the most on.
Hopefully, these charts and percentages will help you visualize how we spent our money and how you can plan and save money on your own trip wandering around South America. If you don’t drink booze, don’t have a storage locker, have good teeth, and don’t intend to get your phone stolen? Awesome! That’s 10% of our total!
But there are even more ways we could have saved. So let’s dive deep into the individual categories and see how we could have done better to save money….
International Flights
We spent $2,205.04 for two people to fly from Denver, Colorado to Cartagena, Colombia ($500.10), from Lima, Perú to Asunción, Paraguay ($595.52), and from Asunción, Paraguay to Charlotte, North Carolina ($1109.42).
We were surprised at how cheaply we could fly from Colorado to Colombia, especially since we only purchased our tickets two weeks before we left. I thought our flight from Perú to Paraguay was reasonable. But the flight back to the US was a bit more than I had hoped for.
Could we have done better?
Yes, probably.
Our departure from the US was contingent on the sale of our van. We spent 3 months house-sitting in Colorado, trying to find a new owner for our beloved rig. We were ready to move on to another city and another market when somebody suddenly drove into town and bought it. We had to make plans fast. We secured another house sit and booked our tickets to Colombia within days. I had been tracking ticket prices for months, so I know if we had had more lead time, we probably could have found a slightly better deal.
We bought our tickets to Paraguay about 4 weeks out and our tickets back to the US about 6 weeks out. The flight to Paraguay was direct. I didn’t do any ticket tracking, so I don’t know if we could have gotten a better deal. Our flight back to the US was a long overnight trip with 3 stops. I spent a lot of time trying to find a cheaper flight that didn’t add on significant hours. It was impossible. I’m sure I could have found more economical tickets if we had left from a bigger South American city. Perhaps we should have taken a bus to Buenos Aires and flown out of there? I’d love to visit Buenos Aires! But our new van was already on order, and we were ready to be back in the US.
Learning Spanish
The impetus of this journey was to learn Spanish. I thought if we spent 6 months in Spanish school, we would leave South America conversational.
We took 7 weeks of Spanish while we were in Medellín, $2556 total, averaging out at $365 a week for the two of us. We loved our classes at first, but then we had a change of teacher. Unfortunately, we did not love her as a teacher as much. We fully intended to take more classes once we moved on to Quito, Ecuador. But the schools we contacted there were either unresponsive or wanted us to take more expensive private classes. We decided to opt out of school and just teach ourselves.
We spent $409 on online programs. In the end, we didn’t use many of these programs but continued doing Duolingo, which we had been using for years.
Duolingo and immersion became our teachers. We did not leave South America conversational, unless the conversation is simple, slow, and clear, but we did improve our Spanish. We are continuing to practice and learn now.
Could we have done better?
I don’t know.
Guatemala was the cheapest place I found to learn Spanish. However, I wanted to travel to an entirely new continent. The adventure became our focus, and the Spanish learning happened naturally.
Communication
– Phone, $54 per month.
We used a combination of different plans.
Our first 3 months in Colombia, we were using Greg’s US international Google Fi plan at an average of $60 a month. It was great to touch down in South America and immediately have phone service. In those next few days, I got a SIM card and a pay-as-you-go plan from Claro (a major phone service carrier in Latin America) for about $10 a month. This was great while we were in Colombia. Once we got to Ecuador, Greg’s 3 months of international data with Google Fi were up. We downgraded his plan to just phone and text so that he could retain his phone number, call his mother, and text his friends. This brought his phone bill down to about $26 a month, plus the cost of calls to the US.
In Ecuador, I got a new pay-as-you-go plan from Claro for around $12 per month. Then I got my phone stolen (for the second time). When I went to get a new SIM card at an official Claro store in Ecuador, I was talked into getting a regular plan (opposed to a pay-as-you-go plan). It was a bit more expensive (about $19 a month), but it would allow me to have service in 4 countries: Ecuador, Colombia, Perú, and Bolivia. Since we were definitely going on to Perú and might go to Bolivia, it sounded perfect. They told me I could pay for it online. I tried, but the website wouldn’t take my US credit card. Back at the Claro store, we decided to pay in advance for 4 months. This would get us to Perú, and I assumed I could just stop by any Claro store and top off my balance.
It didn’t work that way. Claro in Perú is different from Claro in Ecuador. I had to get a new plan (about $19 per month) in Perú. Since I was going to be in the country for so long, they sold me another regular plan. All I had to do was find a Claro store wherever we went and pay before the due date. Although this was a pain, we actually didn’t have much of a problem finding stores to pay my phone bill at.
The Peruvian Claro plan included 5 GB of international data. So when we flew to Paraguay, we didn’t need to get another phone plan. We were covered until the end of our South American journey.
Could we have done better?
Yes.
Before we left the US, I ported my phone number to Google Voice and cancelled my phone plan. I tried doing this with Greg’s number, but for some reason his number was unportable. Although I would have rather saved that money, we were happy to have his data when we touched down in Colombia. When his 3 months of data ran out, we continued to pay for a reduced plan just to keep his phone number and for him to be able to call his mother in the US. I didn’t realize at first that I could make international calls with Google Voice over wifi, so unfortunately, we racked up a few charges for phone calls.
If we could have ported his phone number, we could have saved enough money for another whole month of eating out or another month of groceries.
We could have also saved money by choosing pay-as-you-go plans. But the benefit of having a regular plan was that they didn’t run out as long as you paid your bill on time, and when we crossed into a new country, I didn’t have to worry about finding new service right away.
Consumables
– Groceries, $359 a month.
We like to cook our own meals as much as possible, not only to save money but because we are vegetarians and there just aren’t as many options for us to eat out. We shopped at large grocery store chains and fruit and vegetable markets. In small towns, we often had to go from one small store to the next to find all the ingredients that we needed. Occasionally, we couldn’t find what we needed at all. I did a poor job of trying to explain in my limited Spanish what tortillas were to a shop owner in Pozuzo, Perú. She didn’t have any.
In the bigger cities, we could find specialty items that we enjoy, like tofu. In Lima, after several visits to a health food store, the tempeh order finally came in, and I was able to make my lasagna recipe.
Could we have done better?
Yes, probably.
My friends from Roaming About, who have been traveling around in a truck camper in South America for the last 3 years, also track their expenses. Their monthly average when they visited the same countries in 2023 was $100 lower than ours. Some of this could have been due to more favorable exchange rates, but I also think it is because they travel around with their own home which they can stock it up with food, and because they are more conscious about prices.
We didn’t have the advantage of buying food in bulk. We had to buy small amounts of things (which were more expensive) and try to use up as much as we could before we ventured on to the next place. A third of my backpack was dedicated to spices, vinegar, oils, and other cooking staples.
But we could have saved money by shopping less in big chain grocery stores and more in local mercados. The big grocery stores were generally more expensive, charged a steep sales tax, and often charged an extra fee for using a credit card. This could have partly accounted for our very expensive grocery month ($640.34) when we were in Lima. The mercados, on the other hand, didn’t charge tax and only accepted cash.
We were also not the most economical in the mercados. Instead of buying individual things from the merchants with the best prices for those items, we preferred walking around until we found a vendor who was selling the majority of the things we were looking for. We would then make all of our purchases from them. This was convenient for us because we weren’t constantly having to change money (which can be a chore because no one ever seemed to have enough change – especially for big bills). The bonus to this method is that we’d often get a free orange or other piece of fruit for buying in volume.
We also readily accept the prices that people quote us. We don’t like to haggle. In the more touristy areas, I’m sure we paid a “gringo tax” on our fruits and vegetables.
– Booze, $77 a month.
I stopped tracking alcohol on the blog but continued to record the numbers. And honestly, I don’t think $77 a month is that much to spend on booze – especially because we weren’t swilling the bottom-of-the-barrel brands. Of course, if we didn’t drink, we would have been almost $1000 richer at the end of our journey (a whole month’s worth of lodging).
Could we have done better?
Us? Probably not.
It was fun trying new beers in South America. And it was relaxing to have a few in the evening.
– Paper products, $4 a month.
We bought a few paper products. We stayed at many places that didn’t provide enough toilet paper. We bought aluminum foil to wrap up food.
Could we have done better?
We did fine.
But it did annoy me that places didn’t provide enough toilet paper for our stay – and that I had to pack up our unused rolls and carry them with us when we moved.
– Medicine Cabinet, $33 a month.
This category contains everything you might find in your bathroom or medicine cabinet. Shampoo and toothpaste were readily available at any grocery store. But things like eye drops, contact lens solution, vitamins, supplements, and pain relievers were only available in pharmacies.
Could we have done better?
I don’t know.
We could have brought more of this stuff with us, especially the pharmacy stuff like contact lens solution and supplements.
But although this stuff seemed expensive at the time, looking back at my past expense reports, we didn’t spend that much more than we had in the US in the past.
Entertainment
– Eating and drinking out, $492 a month.
We ate and drank out a lot more than if we had been traveling in our camper van. There were various reasons: to get a flavor of the places we visited, to have fun and relax, to be out and about in the place we were visiting, because we didn’t have an adequate kitchen to cook in, to have a break from cooking, and for convenience due to our travel schedule. We also had friends visit us twice in Colombia, and we ate almost every meal out during their visits.
Could we have done better?
Yes, of course.
If we were really budget-minded, we could have eaten out far less.
And when we did, we could have chosen cheaper options that still gave us a flavor of where we were visiting.
Menu del Día is the best option for eating out on the cheap. This is where the locals eat. It is usually a set menu of two to three courses, including soup, appetizer, and a generous entrée (and sometimes dessert). The cheapest vegetarian Menu del Día we had was $3.80 for the two of us. We always felt very welcome at these restaurants, and the service was always great.
Street food is also a good option for eating out cheaply, but we hardly ever eat street food unless it is advertised as vegetarian.
We could have also been vigilant with checking prices.
Our highest eating out bill, $106.45, was in Cusco. The food was reasonable, as was the beer we chose from the menu. But then we moved from our table to the bar and ordered a beer we saw on display. It was good. We had a few. When the bill came, we found out they were $17 each!
– Museums/Attractions/Music $125 a month.
We visited museums, ruins, and a couple of forts. We went on free walking tours and tipped guides. We did a chocolate tour and went on a few boat tours. We visited parks and rented a scooter to tour the National Reserve of Paracas. We did a night walking tour in a rainforest in Ecuador.
And since we didn’t have our own transportation, we found ourselves taking lots of bus/combi tours. These tours lasted anywhere from 4 to 8 hours and had several stops. Occasionally, there were additional entrance fees or tips for entertainers.
Our biggest entertainment expense was in April when we were in Cusco. Tickets to Machu Picchu for the two of us cost $86.89. This would be a seriously good deal except for all the other expenses (transportation and accommodations) involved with visiting the ruins. Still, Machu Picchu is spectacular and shouldn’t be missed. Our ten-day Sacred Valley tickets in Cusco cost us $71.32 and allowed us to visit 16 different attractions (ruins and museums). We ended up buying a second set of Sacred Valley tickets ($37.36, two days for 4 attractions) when our stay in Cusco got extended, and because we failed to see all 16 attractions we were interested in before our 10-day ticket expired. If we had joined a tour instead of taking public transportation, we could have seen everything in the ten days and saved ourselves the second ticket. But without a tour, we got to spend more time in the places we visited.
We also spent a good amount of money on a flight over the Nazca Lines in Perú. The plane tickets cost us $160. There were also airport taxes and fees of $16.23 and $25.85. I couldn’t tell you if this was worth is because I was too busy having motion sickness.
Could we have done better?
A little, maybe.
If we had skipped Cusco and Nazca, we could have brought our entertainment costs down below $90 a month.
We could have saved money by skipping many of the bus/combi tours and using public transportation to get to some of the sights we wanted to see.
We could have price shopped more and only chosen to visit more economical sites.
And there were plenty of free things to do, parades, festivals, and processions abounded. We enjoyed hikes in the mountains and walking around cities. There was public art and walking through mercados. public parks and plazas.
But all these attractions and tours also served as a way for us to practice and improve our Spanish. In the Andes of Perú, we found ourselves on many tours that were only conducted in Spanish.
Dentist/Doctor
While we were in Lima, Perú Greg had an infected tooth pulled and a crown replaced ($308.10). $25.73 more was spent on pain meds and antibiotics. $334 total.
Could we have done better?
No.
This was pretty cheap. We could have only done better if Greg didn’t have bad teeth.
Personal
– Clothes, $37 per month.
About a third of the total amount we spent in this category was for new hiking boots for me, $159.82. I had bought boots about a year earlier when I thought that this trip was imminent. Then things in our lives changed, and we ended up leaving about 9 months later. So by the time September rolled around, my boots were worn out. We were in the big city of Quito, Ecuador, so there were plenty of options to replace them.
I also replaced worn-out leggings, socks, and my beloved pandemic Cabbagetown Chomp and Stomp hoodie. I lost my hat and had to replace it. Greg didn’t bring a hat with him, so he bought a nice Panama hat in Ecuador. That hat didn’t last, and he bought another one in Perú. We also bought T-shirts, which served two purposes: replacing worn-out clothing and as souvenirs.
Could we have done better?
Yes.
I should have bought better boots before we left. I should have kept better track of my things and not lost that hat. That hat was from Mexico, and I loved it! My leggings were falling apart before we left for South America. I should have replaced them then. My socks wore out because my old boots tore them up. I knew I was going to have to eventually replace my hoodie, but I loved it, so I wore it until it was hanging in shreds.
– Gifts/Charity, $18 per month.
About half of this total expense ($212) went to gifts for family back in the United States. About a quarter of it was for things we gave to people we met along the way. Pastries for the staff of our language school on our last day. Snacks and gas money for the young people we met in Cuenca, Ecuador, who took us on an excursion to see ruins. Candy for a Halloween party at a language exchange in Cuenca. Candy for the grandson of the woman whose hostel we stayed at during Christmas. A bottle of liquor for traveling friends we met up with in Perú. The other quarter went to a GoFundMe for a friend who is self-publishing a book.
Could we have done better?
No.
This stuff is totally optional. But we didn’t spend much. I enjoy giving gifts, and I enjoy hunting for the exact right thing to give someone. Walking through gift markets was part of the experience of our journey, and we were glad when we could support local craftspeople and businesses.
– Gear, $11 per month.
Most of the things I included in the Gear category were things that made our lives just a little more convenient on the road. There were a couple of umbrellas, some food containers, a couple of change purses, a good cooking knife, a foldable cooler bag, a keychain bottle opener, and an ice pack. I also threw into this category a few small souvenirs, a harmonica, and the cost of Greg’s guitar rental while we were in Lima.
Could we have done better?
Maybe.
I could have brought some of these things from the US. But we didn’t realize many of our needs until we were already on the journey. Good cooking knives were rarely found in the Airbnbs we stayed in. We bought food containers and a cooler bag to tote our food from one place to another. We brought one umbrella with us, but then realized we needed two. Then we lost an umbrella and had to replace it.
Then there was the guitar rental, the harmonica, and a few souvenirs. We could have lived without any of these things. But they added to the enjoyment of our journey. And our house sit dogs loved hearing Greg play the guitar.
– Phone Replacement, $807.
I incorporated this expense into gear when I was doing my monthly expense reports. But I am separating it out here because it is not an expense anyone should have on their budget. I had my phone stolen twice while we were in South America. Read about the first time here.
As we traveled, people who passed us on the street were constantly warning me to be careful with my phone. I could have stopped using my phone when we went out, but that would have meant I couldn’t take pictures. That wasn’t an option for me.
Could we have done better?
Most certainly.
The first time I had my phone stolen, I was in a tightly packed Pride parade in Medellín. My phone was in the front pocket of my camera bag. If I had just turned the bag around so the clasp was against my body, it wouldn’t have been accessible.
The second time my phone was stolen, it was taken right out of my hand as I was taking pictures in a seemly empty plaza. A guy ran up behind me, grabbed it, and kept going. Greg, who was trying to be aware of our surroundings, never saw him coming.
So after the second time, I bought a phone case that allowed me to tie a shoestring to it. I tied the other end of the shoestring to my camera bag, which was always strapped across my body. I almost always kept the string wrapped around my wrist when I was using the phone. If someone had tried to steal my phone, they would have had to pull me over. I was betting that robbers would prefer to look for easier targets.
– Subscriptions, $61.
We regularly subscribe to Netflix, Adobe Photoshop, The New York Times, and our friend Michael Fox’s (A freelance filmmaker, journalist, podcaster, and musician reporting from the road in Latin America) Patreon account. We also subscribe yearly to my friend Holly’s Substack.
Could we have done better?
Maybe.
Obviously, all this stuff is optional.
I could use any number of free photo editing software programs. But I’ve used Photoshop for years and I love it.
We could have gone without Netflix. But most of the Airbnbs we stayed in had smart TVs, but didn’t include streaming services. You had to provide your own. We truly enjoy ending the day by watching a TV show.
One way we did save money was by cancelling Greg’s NY Times subscription. I then subscribed, and because we were in Perú, I got the Peruvian introductory discount rate of $10 for the first year. This also included all access to the NY Times puzzles. We love the puzzles.
We subscribe to Michael and Holly because we enjoy what they do, and we want to support them in their creative, writing, and traveling pursuits. If I had more disposable income, I’d subscribe to support even more travelers and creative people.
Traveling Life
– Storage, $79 per month.
In total, for the year we were in South America, we spent $948.00 to store a small pile of belongings back in the US. This included things like tools that we would need to build our next van, the lithium battery cells that we had already bought to build our next van battery, all the little things that we didn’t sell with our old van, Ballena Blanca, that we would need in our new van, a bunch of clothes that we will need to get rid of, Greg’s guitar and ukulele, a 3D printer, and some old photographs and keepsakes that I still need to find homes for. I hate having a storage unit. It is such a waste of money. But it would have cost us more to replace all of that stuff.
The unit is gone now. We are toting all the stuff around with us in our new van as we build it. And once it’s built, I promise all the extraneous stuff (extra clothes, old photographs) will be gone. Everything we own will travel with us.
Could we have done better?
Yes, of course.
We could have pared things down, gotten a smaller storage locker, or stored things in family or friends’ attics.
– Accommodations, $891 per month.
I made my goal ($900 a month) on this one!
This is one expense area where we were actively trying to save money.
We spent a lot of time shopping for places to stay using Airbnb and Booking.com (and twice by finding locations on Google Maps and sending WhatsApp messages to the proprietors). We looked at price, comfort, and location. We liked being close to the center of town. But somewhere like Cusco, we choose to stay a little farther out due to price and comfort. It worked well. We were actually closer to public transportation and places to get groceries.
We would stay in hostels occasionally to save money. We stayed in a hostel in Paracas ($28 a night) because all the private accommodations were just too expensive. But hostels weren’t a full-time solution for us. We like to have space and our own kitchen to cook in.
We also managed to snag two house sits in exchange for free lodging using the subscription service Trusted House Sitters. This saved us two months of accommodation expenses. We sat a cat for 3 weeks in Cuenca, Ecuador, and two dogs for 5 1/2 weeks in Lima.
We also saved a little money due to Airbnb problems and cancellations. We had hosts cancel on us 4 times. Airbnb gives you a $25 credit each time this happens. And if you complain enough about what you think are unfair cancellations, they will give you coupons. They gave us coupons twice, $155 and a $100.
Our biggest splurge was for accommodations over New Year’s in Pucusana, Perú. We stayed in a free-standing house overlooking the water for $81.48 a night. Pricey! But we had a lovely experience there – and the prices actually went up after the first.
Could we have done better?
Someone probably could have, but not us.
Hotels are cheap. But with hotels, you will end up eating out more.
Hostels are affordable and usually come with a communal kitchen. If you are a single person, the cheapest option is to stay in a dorm.
Many people rent out a room in their home. We did this for 4 weeks in a trendy part of Medellín for around $26 a night. We also stayed in a private home overnight on our way to Paracas from Trujillo for $12.51.
If you are traveling with other people, splitting the cost will save you lots. We stayed in a huge three-bedroom apartment in Loja, Ecuador, for about $42 a night.
You can also find cheaper accommodations outside of booking sites. We found a couple of places on Google Maps and contacted the proprietors directly through WhatsApp. We stayed in a hotel in La Unión in Perú for $13.56 a night. And at a rundown hostel run by one of the most interesting people we met in South America for $13.46 a night.
– Transportation, $195 per month.
We had a few transportation expenses that drove this number up. Our trip to and from Machu Picchu on the train cost $250; we had a very expensive taxi ride from Huanúco to Tarma, Perú, $109; and we took a bus from Cusco to Puno, Perú, which included tourist stops and lunch for $100.
But despite some extra expenses, I think $2,345 for a whole year of traveling isn’t that bad. In fact, I compared our numbers traveling as backpackers to a year’s worth of numbers from our friends at Roaming About, who traveled mostly the same countries in their truck camper in 2023. You can see their year-end report here. For gas and vehicle maintenance, they spent $4,527. To be fair, their truck, Thirsty, is a gas guzzler. But we are the clear winners! Of course, if you look at every other category in Roaming About’s yearly report, we fail miserably compared to our friends’ frugality.
Could we have done better?
Yes, maybe.
We could have used ridesharing apps more. Taxis are ubiquitous in South America, so it is easy to just walk out in the street and get a ride wherever you are, so sometimes we would forget about the apps. With apps, you always know what your price is going to be before your ride shows up, and we found them almost always cheaper than taxis.
We could have also followed the guidance of tour guides and accommodation hosts, who often told us what the price of a ride should be. But even though we would almost always ask a taxi driver what the fare was before we got in, we never argued with them about price, even if it was higher than what we were told it should be.
We could have saved money by taking an alternative route to Machu Picchu. I talk about this in my March Expense Report.
We could have taken the night bus (which would have cost us about $40) instead of the very expensive taxi ride from Huanúco to Tarma, $109.
And maybe we could have walked more.
But transportation was more about getting from one place to the other. It was part of the experience. We rode in an open-air Chiva, on the back of a jeep, and over the landscape in a teleférico in Colombia. In Ecuador, we rode in Turnos, which transported people in the indigenous villages on the hills around Saraguro, Ecuador, into town and road in the back of a truck with our Airbnb host, Rosa. In Perú, we experience the thrill of riding in the back of a mototaxi in the busy and chaotic city of Jaen. We shared cramped colectivos with locals and had a few interesting chats.
Conclusion
We could have spent less, but we spent what we could afford. We had some amazing experiences and a whole lot of adventure.
To see all of our expense reports for South America, click here.
If you are interested in reading other expense reports from nomads who really know how to live cheaply while still having a good time, check out the blog from our friends Mark, Liesbet, and Maya, who are currently traveling in their truck camper in South America at Roaming About.
If you are interested in becoming a Trusted Housesitter or having a Trusted Housesitter take care of your pet, use our link for 25% off!
I love the way you did this post, Duwan, with the break-downs, the reflections, and the hindsight. Thanks for mentioning our site and some comparisons. 🙂 That photo of the cell phone vendor and the fruit lady is priceless. Such a cultural and color contrast!
As expected, your lodging was the most expensive. I can’t believe there were four cancellations by hosts. Luckily, Airbnb honored some coupons and discounts. And the learning Spanish came with a steep cost as well. Those two house sits added to the experience and saved you big bucks.
When I read your grocery and alcohol expenses, they seem to be pretty close to ours. Apart from the shopping splurges in Lima, haha.
I think your entertainment budget is fine the way it is. One of the reasons one visits South America is to see and experience the sights. It would have been a shame to miss out on some of the highlights.
I remember you comparing your public transportation costs to if you were to have a van, but, as you noticed, there are a lot of extra maintenance costs on top of the fuel when comparing those numbers. Using public transportation is the winner, by far. But, for a true price comparison between the two different ways of exploring South America – by backpack or overlanding – we would have to combine your transportation and accommodation costs to our car and camping costs. Not that this was your goal.
Wow, such a big, interesting, detailed, and time-consuming job to put this post together. Well done!
Thanks Liesbet!
This was one of those posts where I knew what I wanted to write but not how to organize it so I ended up writing a lot of stuff a second time once I figured it out. I also had to look back at old blog posts and expense spreadsheets to remember some of this stuff. I really want this post to be useful.
Thanks for commenting on the fruit seller. As I was walking towards them I knew I had to capture the scene – the gringo lady and the fruit seller who just looks tired. It sums up a lot about these ex-pat cities. But of course not every gringo is like that.
One cancellation was legit. The road had washed out. There was going to be no way for us to get there. And one was the morning of our reservation. Very, very frustrating. But I was pleased that Airbnb tried to make things right.
I think your grocery expenses are a lot cheaper than ours were. But as I pointed out, you have some advantages – like being able to carry more groceries with you and being more frugal people in general!
With transportation, I also didn’t know how many miles you traveled. So I guess it isn’t a really fair comparison. Also, we had to pay for tours to many places you can just drive to. But yes, if you combine transportation and lodging (even with paying for camping), I think overland travel is a lot cheaper. I can’t wait to be on the road with our new van!