By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Feb 4, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET How much does it cost to travel the world for a year? Between $26,821-36,534 for two people*. In 2012 we spent $26,821**. In 2011 we spent $36,534***.
As always, the devil is in the details, those asterisks that terrorize our lives…those evil symbols that advertisers have trained us to recognize as “it’s possible, but only for a hypothetical person that we’ve never actually met, who managed to work through our very convoluted systems that our programmers assured us wasn’t possible”. Our numbers though are real, it’s what we’ve actually spent, visiting countries as expensive as Japan and Australia, and as cheap as Vietnam and Sri Lanka. This is every dollar we’ve spent traveling hundreds of thousands of miles. The asterisks are because everyone travels differently, these differences are the details that determine how much it would actually cost you.
HOW WE TRAVEL
We travel to see the sights, meet the people, taste the foods and try new things. We keep a budget as a guide, not as a limiter. Our costs reflect the following decisions:
– The length of our trip has never been a goal, we aren’t trying to stretch our time abroad by staying places for extended periods or saving money.
– We spend money on experiences. We didn’t hesitate to spend $600 per day to visit North Korea, $50 for the “world’s best” pizza in Sao Paulo, or $1000 hiking in New Zealand.
– We travel overland whenever possible. Grueling at times, overland travel has given us the opportunity to see more of countries, savor the local foods and interact with locals the way they travel. How else would you experience this!?!
We met Amit by overland traveling in India. Later he showed us Israel, this “Amit” tour was one of our 2012 highlights.
– Hostels and Couchsurfing are home. We stay in dorms when private rooms cost substantially more. We only Couchsurf when we can connect with a host, not just to save money.
– We average a new city every four days. We set off with the goal of seeing whatever interested us in the world, having visited over 200 cities we learned that a lot of the world interested us. Moving costs money as shown by transportation (ground and air) being our largest area of spending.
– We didn’t visit Europe or North America. Our costs reflect a vast majority of time spent in the developing world, which is substantially cheaper than Europe, the USA or Canada. We set off with very few goals, but number one was to see the rapidly changing developing world, we have keep true to this mission.
These are the things that affect our spending, for everyone it is different. We’ve met people that are comfortable spending $20/day and people that couldn’t possibly be comfortable for less than $1000/day.
Read the rest of…
Matt and Erica Chua: Cost to Travel the World
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jan 28, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET Travel itself is enlightening, but we learn just as much by the books we read. Since our last book report in 2012, we’ve continued reading opportunistically…reading whatever we find left by other travelers. While this has allowed us to read a variety of books, this year we purchased several titles as well. Here are our favorite books of late and what we learned.
.
HE SAID…
While wandering the aisles in a Kolkota, India bookstore this year I had a revelation: I should be using this period of my life to study and practice new skills. Then and there I committed to reading several “self-help” books that I can’t recommend highly enough.
–How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie). I saw this title on my mother’s bookshelf throughout my childhood. I always thought it was some corny sales book that focused on deception and smooth-talking. Then the monk at our 10-silent meditation retreat told us it was “Buddhism for real life” and how shocked he was that it contained so many valuable lessons. I think anyone who can get over the title will be impressed by the lessons.
–How to Talk to Anyone (Lowndes). The 92 tips in this book help people break into conversations, revive failing conversations, and get people that you converse with to leave with a positive impression. This book is much like Carnegie’s above, but more practical. Having been a wallflower at too many events, the first few lessons I turned to interested me so much I bought the book. It was an investment that will pay dividends throughout life.
–Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Kiyosaki). The seminal personal finance book I’ve read many parts, but never the whole book. I loved the aggressive “if I can do it you can too” tone of the book along with the practical lessons. He put to paper many of the lessons I’ve learned from multi-millionaire mentors I’ve had in my career that taught me to focus on investment cashflow over ordinary income.
Read the rest of…
Matt & Erica Chua: He Said-She Said — Required Road Reading
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jan 21, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET Where was your country 3200 years ago? Were loin-clothed warriors chasing wild game with spears? Were people living nomadically or in cities? If they lived in cities, did their world extend beyond the city walls? Odds are you, like I, don’t know much about what happened at our home 3200 years ago. Egypt though is different, not only is their history known, but the temples, tools and writings still exist. There is nowhere that has as much history, as old as Egypt, making the entire country a true World Wonder.
Were your ancestors being subjugated by the powerful Egyptians as these “Asians” and “Africans” are depicted at the Abu Simbel Temple?
Egypt’s major sights are spread conveniently along the Nile as the Ancient Egyptian society was for thousands of years. Where to start though? How about the bottom end of the Empire, visiting sights as the Nile flows to the North? Not only does this make for easy trip planning, but also makes the trip easier to enjoy, beginning in tranquil Aswan, working your way towards the chaos of the 21-million person capital, Cairo.
Abu Simbel’s massive statues have stood along the Nile for over 3200 years to demonstrate Egyptian supremacy. They stand to warn welcome you to the Pharaoh’s territory…
What will you see by starting in Aswan? You’ll start walking like an Egyptian in one of the country’s best sights, the Abu Simbel Temples.
Read the rest of…
Matt & Erica Chua: Walk Like an Egyptian — Starting Point
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET “India is cheap,” has been stated so many times that it must be true. Have you ever seen evidence though? Before visiting I heard anecdotes that it is cheap, things such as “a hotel costs $1/night” and, “I spent less than $5 per day.” Even though millions visit India annually, I never found any evidence of how cheap it was until I actually visited myself. Continuing on with our careful book keeping, while in India we tracked our daily spending, item-by-item, to understand how much India costs. After four months in India I can definitively say, India isn’t necessarily cheap.
Here are the numbers, broken into cost per day of countries we’ve visited. The bold numbers are the lowest amount for each major travel category. In a couple cases I excluded outliers that I know aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons. For example, the “Accommodations” and “Food” costs of Nepal are skewed because many trekking hotels provide accommodation for free if you purchase your meals there, therefore the actual costs of each category is a blend of the two. Sri Lanka’s “Sightseeing” costs are similarly skewed, therefore excluded from being called the lowest cost. As you can see, while India is the second cheapest country we’ve visited overall, in no individual category is it cheapest.
BEHIND THE NUMBERS
The reality behind the numbers further dispel the myth that India is cheap. The quality of budget travel experiences in India is shockingly low. When paying similar prices to other countries, budget travelers in India receive substantially less quality, comfort and safety for the money. India is correctly referred to as cheap because it is not a good value. Here are some examples of how little money in India gets you even less.
The bathroom of the most expensive place we stayed in India, $20/night in Kolkata. After fighting a brilliant battle the cockroaches won. We ceded the bathroom to them and used the shared bath.
Read the rest of…
Erica and Matt Chua: Is Indian Travel Really Cheap?
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
Writes contributing RP John Y. Brown, III:
One of the greatest sins we can commit is to have a chance to get to know extraordinary people. And then not take advantage of it. And you never know when the opportunity will present itself. So always be ready to talk. Even when you’re not sure.
A picture of a cat siting on a column led to some chuckles from my wife and daughter but then a nice lady with a very professional looking camera decided to take the same shot. I nudged my wife and daughter and said, “Told ya it was a good photo to take.”
The woman with the professional camera overheard us and, along with her husband, laughed. And that’s all I needed. Over the next 20 minutes I learned that Matt Chua worked as a VC for 6 years before he and his wife, Erica, dropped out and became professional world travelers 2 years earlier. They’ve visited and written about 30 countries, mostly about economic development but also offering a sort of young person’s Trip Adviser take on each destination. (Think of Albert Brooks’ Lost in America —but working out. And going international)
Next year Matt hopes to find himself in Stanford’s MBA program. And deserves to be there. And if that still isn’t enough to pique your curiosity, their website is titled “LivingIF.com” with the tag line, “Living to never wonder, What if.”
Now, we are pleased to have Matt and Erica Chua join us as weekly travel columnists at The Recovering Politician, with their first column, cross-posted from LivingIF.com, below. Please help me welcome them to the RP Nation, and come back every Monday at this time to read about their next extraordinary adventure!
===
Incomparable. Stunning. Choose your superlative…none will do the Everest Region justice. Nowhere else on earth is like it. Walking amongst the world’s largest mountains, admiring deep valleys and snowcapped peaks, will be one of your life’s highlights.
Here even view from the outhouses are spectacular…
Read the rest of…
Erica and Matt Chua: Hiking Mount Everest and Three Passes Unguided
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is not being a role model for achievement (although that is important), or being present at many of their activities (although that is very important, too), or being actively engaged in molding their child to be a good citizen (although that is needed), or being a good financial provider (although that is expected).
Rather one of the greatest gifts a parent can give to their children, in my opinion, is regular transparent glimpses into that parent’s humanness. Not showing flaws or foibles for the sake of exposure—like showing off a war wound. But an honest reflection of what that parent is thinking, feeling, and experiencing (to the extent the parent really knows him or herself). In other words, not playing the role of “Father Knows Best” or “How I Became the Queen Bee” But rather the daily role of “Father (or Mother) Tries Hard Most Days and Gets it Wrong about as Often as he (or she) gets it Right.”
The other qualities listed in the first paragraph teach children how to “appear” and be perceived by others as successful. But a parent who is consistently transparent can help set an internal barometer for children that will serve them well—helping them to know themselves and trust their instincts. Not just seem to be holding it together.
 Of course, it’s important for children to grow up to exemplify model behavior, to be consistent and active and responsible. But I believe it is even more important for them to have the confidence be be real. To be authentic…..and not be confused about how to do that. And if they haven’t learned how by watching their parents it’s like expecting a child to know the native language even though it was never spoken in the home.
No one strives to be merely authentic as an end in itself. Or the related traits of transparent and self-aware. We strive instead to be successful, great, courageous, and a dozen other various forms of “achievement.” But authenticity is often the precondition for these so called achievements. And even when it’s not, it is the greatest consolation. A person who has a long resume but isn’t comfortable in his or her own skin, isn’t self-aware or genuine, is a shell of the person who has these attributes but, for the moment, possesses a slimmer resume.
The former is more like an automaton–a robot. A well trained animal who performs on cue and is applauded.
But the latter is someone who is worth getting to know and who has something meaningful to say. And is leading a life worth living. Not merely seeking to perform a life worth applauding.
|
|
