So you've decided it's time to travel around Australia and you want to know how much
it's gonna cost g'day I'm Brett and in this video I'm
going to run down all my costs for my 2015 trip around Australia which lasted
304 days or ten months traveling solo just me in this 4-wheel Drive doing a
half lap of Australia skipping Western Australia so I'll breakdown each of the areas
which were the main consumers of money which were fuel accommodation food
spending money and then vehicle repairs and maintenance now my 4x4 is
completely self-sufficient for sleeping cooking and food and water storage now
all these prices are in Australian dollars so fuel technically came in as
the most expensive in my car's a diesel and I consumed 3,300 meters of diesel
and travelled nearly 30,000 kilometers the price came in at four thousand five
hundred and eighty seven dollars for fuel
now you'll find fuel varies quite wildly wants to leave the metropolitan areas
and the prices I had where one dollar and nineteen cents per litre in New South
Wales as the cheapest and two dollars and nine cents per litre in Kings Canyon
Northern Territory now I've got plenty of fuel range on this car 185 litre
worth of tanks so I can fill up cheaply in town and then head out and save fuel
rather than refilling in some of the more remoter fuel stations now before
you head out you need to work out your fuel consumption for your vehicle when
fully loaded my car unloaded does about 10 kilometers per litre but when
fully loaded it gets down to eight kilometers per litre so that we help you
work out how many kilometres you want to travel around Australia work out the
estimate and see how much it's going to cost you for fuel just doing a basic
calculation accommodation is the next expensive thing you'll find now I
typically camped out national parks and free camped as much as possible
I prefer to spend most of my time traveling Australia in nature rather
than doing lots of coastal places and cities which don't really appeal to me
so most of it was in free camps national parks or caravan parks and only stayed
in backpacker hostels a couple of times I never stayed in motels or
hotels so national park campground fees can range quite widely throughout the
states and territories and they would range from being free up to fifty three
dollars 30 per night which was at wilsons promontory in Victoria as the
most expensive place but the typical fee is probably around $10 on average per
night though again this was in 2015 and I've noticed many parks have raised
their prices since it's now 2018 caravan parks range from $15 to $40 with around
$30 the average now I typically had unpowered sites because I'm fully
self-sufficient with solar for running all my appliances with the occasional
top-up with power but again it can vary quite widely some parks are actually a
bit cheaper down at $10 per night but there probably it will run down the
total accommodation cost came in at three thousand nine hundred and ninety
one dollars food is the next expensive now I cooked the majority of my own
meals on the back door here with my little gas stove and occasionally using
caravan park kitchens the meals I eat were pretty simple meat veggies fruit
rice pasta noodles tacos I really ever ate out at restaurants maybe a couple of
times or I'd buy a pie for lunch but generally I made all my own meals to
save money I also do not drink alcohol soft drink coffee ready drink tea don't
drink really fruit drinks either I drink water so right there I probably saved
two grand or more in money just by not consuming all those junk drinks that may
be something you'll need to consider how important it is
whether you consume those things or whether you want to travel more
kilometers in more time now I typically purchase between one to two weeks of
food and keep it on board that way I can buy up cheaply in the bigger towns
and would save me having to spend money on more expensive little towns but food
was three thousand two hundred and fourteen dollars spending money was the
next big thing this is spending money for tours entry
fees public transport souvenirs other consumables like batteries and personal
hygiene products in any other knickknacks I found this came in at four
thousand two hundred and thirty one dollars so I typically might do a few
boat tours entry fees into art galleries things like that but I wasn't very big
on major things like ballooning or whitewater rafting whatever other you
know adventure sports but if you're into that then you have to factor that into
the cost all the different experiences you want to try technically speaking my
car was actually the most expensive at eight thousand six hundred and thirty
dollars but that was only due to a couple of major mechanical issues which
appeared despite having already spent many thousands having those replaced
before the trip which was a major setback for my my funds but the typical
costs without those major issues was two thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars
just for general maintenance every five thousand kilometers I had the car
serviced to change the oils filters and a general check over to make sure it's
still going because it is taking a lot of beating from rough corrugated
tracks which rattle things around.
so the total approximate costs for three hundred and four days with one man
traveling solo around Australia minus the major vehicle repairs was eighteen
thousand nine hundred and fifty five dollars this works out around sixty two
dollars per day which i think is fairly reasonable to do that and travel that
long
now this was in 2015 like I said and it's now 2018 and I've already noticed
some of these are becoming more expensive already due to inflation and
global markets. so I will do a new video in a year or
two time when this current trip is finished for my 2018 update. visit my
website www.roamingtheoutback.com for the companion article to this video
listing all my costs for my 10 month trip around Australia. now to get the
initial estimates I recommend the Expedition Australia free big lap budget
spreadsheet which you can download on the site called Expedition Australia
just google it it'll come up and this should be a page where you can enter
your name and email and get the free spreadsheet I found that was very useful
in the beginning for getting the basics going but I did find once I hit the road
that the estimates were nearly a thousand dollars more per month than
what I was actually spending because I didn't quite have the experience yet to
enter good numbers at least you'll have an excess of money and allow you to
have a bit longer than than what you otherwise would have been able to do so
I hope that helps give you a bit of an an idea of what it would cost for one
man nearly $19,000 for ten months it's nearly a year travelling for like
half of someone's annual wage basically now as far as budgeting goes and saving
money for your trip I saved at least a good three years It took me three years
of preparation to get my car complete ready to travel
I'd recommend setting up a secondary bank account and having money Auto
deducted from your pay each week and sent to that secondary account which you
do not touch unless it's something specific for purchasing for the trip and
that will help you a lot now you also need to work out some of the
expenses you consume each day like coffee alcohol cigarettes and workout
how important those things are to you compared to traveling Australia if your
passion is to travel and see Australia then you may want to consider reducing or
giving up some of those addictions or desires each day like I said I don't
drink alcohol coffee or soft drinks right there you know four dollars a cup
of coffee per day that works out well probably over a thousand dollars or more
that's fourteen hundred and sixty dollars a year that's a whole month of
travel money that I just saved for not drinking coffee one coffee a day four
dollars and that's a cheap coffee I'm sure I'm sure that many people spend a
lot more than that on a nice cup of coffee not saying you do but work out if
your budgets are limited what's more important having a coffee a day or
seeing Australia for a whole entire month as well as that find other areas
you can sell off some of your old possessions I had a couple of big sales
on eBay and online on gumtree selling off my old possessions I no longer used
I went through virtually everything all my old DVDs gone some Johnny Cash
memorabilia I'd collected over the years that no longer had value to me I've sold
them got some money in any old car stuff even sold by 1965 Morris mini that I had
since I was fifteen I no longer drove it because I had this so I had to sell it
but that gave me another you know four or five grand of travel money so look
around and sell off things that no longer really have meaning in your life
and they're just empty clutter and you'd be amazed at how much people were
actually prepared to spend or pay for some of your junk I was amazed
things I was going to throw away I put them on eBay
it's still about 40 or 50 bucks for them it's incredible so I hope that gives you
an idea of what it's going to cost to travel solo around Australia. So stay
tuned for my 2018 update and subscribe to follow me on my current travels
around Australia visiting Australia National Parks doing bush walks and
4x4 tracks, and if you enjoyed this video and you'd like to help support the
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