During their 10 months of travel, Laurie and Bryan Tighe traveled through West Africa, the Middle East, India and Nepal. Along the way they were meticulous in keeping to their budget. And with their computer programming skills, they were able to develop an online calculator to keep track of their money and budget. And now they are sharing that with others with Budget Your Trip.

Budget Your Trip is designed to help travelers track their spending and expenses. After registering you can create a trip and enter your daily expenses. The website creates charts and tables that break down costs by category and location. The layout lets you find out if you’re spending more than anticipated on transportation or which country ate away more of your budget.

Furthermore, the website’s budget calculator allows users to estimate the cost of future trips. The budgets provided by other travelers are used to determine the average cost of countries, cities, and categories a traveler might visit. Visitors to the site can search for the average daily costs of accommodation, food, and numerous other categories for cities and countries around the world.

Budget Your Trip also offers a “Travel Cost Calculator Widget” so travelers can search for travel costs directly on your website.

Be sure to check out Budget Your Trip for future trips. And if you have budgets from previous trips, be sure to enter them and help out your fellow travelers!

Two Backpackers (currently in Peru)
One week into our trip we arrived at Panajachel, Guatemala. When our bus stopped, 5 men were already pulling our backpacks off the roof rack and taking them to their own taxis or boats. We asked where a hostel was that we had reserved. The first man assured us that it was across Lake Atitlan, a 1hr boat ride away. We retained our bags and walked away, nervous about the situation. We found a tour shop and asked again. They told us it was a 10 minute walk up the street.

Lesson learned: Whenever you arrive at a transportation station make sure you don’t say yes to anything being offered. Get a hold of your bags and escape the chaos of offerings by finding a place you can sit down and think about your next decisions. Early in the trip we found ourselves being rushed into a bus or taxi with no clue where we were really going.

What’s Next:
Our plans have changed drastically during the last month. We have realized that traveling fast is not what we enjoy. It’s no longer a race to literally travel around the world, but rather to enjoy our visits to different countries throughout Latin America. Latin America is a vast area to explore and most countries have their own unique culture which we would like to experience. So Southeast Asia is off the list of destinations for this trip. I am sure we will get there some day. I am most excited about trekking through Torres del Paine in Patagonia and Aracely is looking forward to visiting the Amazonian Jungle.

Bert & Patty (currently in Malaysia)
The biggest thing we’ve realized is that no matter what you pack, or try to not pack – in the end, you will pack too much. For us, the big question was; how to pack for 13 months, for all climates and temperatures, from beach to mountain, snow, sun and rain?

We realize now – don’t worry, you can buy almost anything while traveling. Clothes, shoes, sundries, electronics – anything/everything you need – and most times, it’ll be cheaper than in the States (don’t forget exchange rates in your calculations). I was surprised by the vast selection of medicines that you can buy over the counter.

Op-shops and second hand stores can also save money while traveling. While in Taupo New Zealand, Bertie needed a fleece/pull over/jumper. She got a cool Rip Curl jacket for $6AUD, and when she was done with it, she was able to leave it behind without worry. While in Indonesia, she bought a few beautifully colored, cotton, light summer dresses from the local markets for $5-6USD each, which replaced her shorts/tank tops. Now she wears them almost every day.

What’s Next:
We are looking forward to traveling through Malaysia, spending time in wacky Bangkok, getting our fill of temples, eating lovely food, exploring Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, checking out the pyramids in Egypt, being dazzled by the landscapes of Greece, seeing friends in the UK, meeting my best friend in Dublin and finally settling in Edinburgh, Scotland. We still have so much ahead of us and from what we hear from other travelers, it’s going to be quite the adventure.

Alonna of Ben & Alonna (currently in Ecuador)
I definitely do not feel like a pro! Everywhere we go is new with different rules and customs, and it always takes a few days to figure things out. But I would say that I have definitely changed my perspective on traveling. Things that previously would have stressed me out (not having a hotel room booked, not knowing how to use the buses or trains, not knowing where our next stop is or how to get there, etc) don’t bother me anymore. When we go somewhere new, we just have to figure out the slight differences or quirks of the place. No big deal.

What’s Next:
I’m so excited for the rest of our trip; to see more of the world and to continue meeting new people and learning about different cultures. We still have many amazing places to visit like Patagonia, Istanbul, Egypt, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

• Do a test pack of backpack to make sure it’s not too heavy – Check
• Make extra copies of visas and passport – Check
• Create blog to stay in touch with family & friends – Check
• Update resume – wait, what?!?!?!?!

I know you just left your job and can’t wait to focus on your travels, but updating your resume before you leave is one of the best pre-trip activities you can do. In his post, “How My Career Break Helped My Career”, Michael Bontempi noted:

I developed a resume prior to leaving to ensure that my latest accomplishments were fresh in my mind.

After your RTW travels, the last thing you’ll want to reflect on is what you did during your last job. When Sherry Ott returned from her first 16-month trip, she:

…actually got out my resume and looked at it wondering what all of it even meant. I really, really tried to remember specifics about my old job – what software we used, what vendors I worked with, what projects I worked on for three years – and I could come up with nothing but faint memories of bad florescent lighting and eating at my desk.

David Lee had a similar experience:

After 20 months away, I returned home to the DC area 72 hours ago. I knew I should’ve updated my resume *before* I left home in late 2007, but I was frankly too lazy. It was much more fun to anticipate the adventures that lay ahead. Of course now that I’m back, I’ve forgotten all the details of my previous job, and will be dependent on reconstructing accomplishments from my annual performance reviews.

When you return from your travels, you’ll still want to revisit your resume and rework it in any way necessary. If you want to go back into the same field, it may not need much tweaking. But if you want to explore new career opportunities (which many career breakers do), it may need to be reworded. But the good news is, you’ve already made note of your most recent accomplishments!

And unlike younger backpackers who may not have as much work experience under their belts, you don’t need to pad your resume with experiences from your travels. Instead, use your cover letter and interviews as opportunities to explain your decision to take a career break and travel and how it has helped you focus on your next career steps. (See: Getting Back to Reality and Resumes)

However, if you did any extensive volunteer work where you utilized some of your business skills, it may be worth adding something to your resume.

Sarah Van Auken of Volunteering Global, a site that educates prospective volunteers about international service trips, offered this advice:

Depending on how long you went or how involved you were in a project, put it in the professional experience section, rather than listing in a separate section of community service activities, as oftentimes employers gloss over those. This works especially well if you helped with any type of administrative activity, such as fundraising, grant proposal writing, career training, or similar.

Talk about what the project goal was – such as raising funds to build a new school for an underserved community, and talk about what you did to further that goal.

Part of my volunteer experience with Peru’s Challenge was to take photos of the children in the community and help design a calendar for fundraising purposes. The calendar sold out immediately and helped to raise over $5,000 for a community emergency medical fund. As I’m a freelance photographer and designer, I made note of that under my professional experiences.

So take the time to do what may seem like a tedious task before you travel. You’ll be thankful you did so when you return.

Still they knew that if they didn’t take this opportunity now to travel the world, they would regret it down the road. And they found their corporate experience to be very beneficial in planning a year of backpacking the globe.

“We used our previous travel experience and our Corporate America budgeting and Excel skills to plan an overall budget. Our budget was broken down into maintenance costs (storage, cell phones, etc.); time for ‘re-entry’ (into the work world), and actual travel money. Our travel money allowance allowed us to establish a monthly travel budget and pick destinations and activities that we could afford.”

Bill & Cindy are now more than half way through their trip, and even managed to extend it from 12 to 14 months by stretching their travel budget even further. They took time off from the road to share with us their favorite tips on creating an itinerary that works best for you.

1. Don’t try to cram in too much in a short period of time. Three months in SE Asia may seem like a lot, but it’s not. It’s hard as Americans who normally have to carefully plan our limited vacation to just go with the flow; but you’ll find it will save you money and provide you with a lot more flexibility to experience the places that really speak to you. Plus the more you are on the move, the more costly it is. We learned this lesson the hard way our first few months on the road and had to readjust our mindset accordingly.

2. Strive for as many authentic experiences as you can. Stay with local families, friends living abroad, or home stays when you can find them. Volunteer in local communities, especially those places you visit that need it the most. My husband and I volunteered in a Cambodian orphanage and schools in Indonesia, and are planning to do more volunteer work in South America later in the year. These experiences will turn out to be the best and most authentic of your travels, and provide memories that will last a lifetime.

3. Focus on the travel schedule that is right for you. For both of us, it was important to connect with our family and friends, so we planned a two-month US tour in the middle of our year of traveling. We saw a lot of new places in our own country and spent quality time reconnecting with the people we’d missed the most. As an added benefit, it gave us some mid-point reverse culture shock relief!

We already know that our biggest lessons have come from our new perspective on our world and the most important things in life. So many Americans are tied down with too much debt, too many ‘things’ and the expectation to acquire more things! We have vowed to maintain a budget travel lifestyle and continue to strive for authentic travel experiences and the flexibility to continue to travel as much as we can in the real world. In the meantime though, we are just enjoying each other and new experiences every day.

You can follow along on their adventures at The Blonde Wanderer. And we look forward to watching them transition through the re-entry process when they return to the States in 2010.

BEING CULTURAL RESPECTFUL
It’s very important to understand the culture and etiquette of a country you are traveling to so that you can be respectful to the people you may encounter.

Travel guides are a great source for this information, but during her six-month trip, Barbara didn’t want to have to drag these heavy books with her. Instead, she visited sites like Wikipedia (type in “Culture of [insert country]”) and Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum to find this information.

Then, she uploaded text files to her iPod for reference. When she was getting ready to enter a new country, she could easily read up on their customs and etiquette to avoid doing anything that might be offensive.

TRAVEL SAFETY SECURITY KIT

As a woman traveling solo, Barbara packed a few items that made her feel a bit more secure on the road; common sense being the first and most important one. Other items in Barbara’s “Security Kit” included:

• A small padlock for lockers at hostels or train stations. She also packed a cable in order to lock her suitcase to the upper rack of buses or trains. This prevented her bags from being “snatched and grabbed”.
• Rubber door stop – when shoved into the door from the inside, the stop prevents others from breaking into your room.

Other useful security measures Barbara utilized included:

• Scan everything (credit cards, passport, drivers license, tickets) before leaving home and upload them to your webmail. This way you always have copies available to you.
• When checking into a hotel or hostel, be sure to pick up a business card. It is easy to get lost in a new destination, but this easy tip insures you can find your way “home”.
• Barbara also used Journeywoman, an online travel resource just for woman, to find local guides.

BARBARA SAYS:
Don’t leave home without a flashlight! She says “it’s amazing how often that comes in handy.” We couldn’t agree more! Read about why we love headlamps.

Visit our Store for the Recommended Gear