South East Asia not on a Shoestring: Travelling the world for a year with kids - the commitment and the cost (By Neil)

Lonely Planet’s ‘South East Asia on a Shoestring’ was the travelling ‘bible’ in the 80s and 90s.  Everyone backpacking in the region – India, Nepal, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand etc. had one.

It was aptly named given the book promoted ‘a dollar a day’ living in India, and not much more for the rest! You could spend months drifting from country to country without making a big dent in your student loan – and I did.

One of the great things about travelling is the people you meet along the way. We haven't met any families who are travelling for a whole year, although we have met families away for 2 to 4 weeks, and single travellers who are away for a few months. When Justine (my wife) and I talk about our travel plans for the year with our three young daughters (Ella 11, Amy 9 and Anna 5), we usually get a great response, and quite often our new friends tell us they are inspired and delve deeper to understand how we plucked up the courage to pursue our dream. There is always lots of interest in how much the trip will cost and how we can sleep knowing we are spending all this money when there will be so many bills to pay in the future! 

Well...Justine and I had pondered the conundrum many parents face – not being able to spend ‘enough’ time as a family given other priorities.  ‘Spending too little family time is the biggest regret parents have about their children’s early years (according to a study)’; 'You need to make sure you live a whole life, which means being really clear on the priorities in your life and investing in them all the way (Gail Kelly, ex Westpac CEO)'. I visualised myself in a few decades time on my deathbed, murmuring the words 'if only I had spent more time with the kids when they were younger'.

We reflected on the balance between our priorities and where we were spending our time; we considered how much we loved our kids, how quick they were growing up and how little time as a family we seemed to have. We set about exploring whether our feelings were justifiable ....or were we just whining POMs! And agreed spending time as a family would become our biggest priority.

Taking a career break would free up the bulk of our time... and home-schooling the kids would 'free up' some of their time - so all we had to do now was decide when... and what we would do.

We mused over just staying in Sydney, taking a short trip (3 months) or taking a long trip (12 months).When we considered renting our house out (most tenants prefer an annual lease), additional disruption to the children if we travelled for part of a school year, and also career and tax breaks (given we could spread travel across two financial years) – we persuaded ourselves that we could commit to a full year of family time. Further discussions with our children's school teachers centred around the positive aspects of travel for the children - education, fun, family time - and encouraged us to take the next steps.

We pulled together a master list of why we could, and why we could not do this trip – accepted the risks along with the opportunities and after discussing our ideas with the children, the whole family agreed we would make the time to spend a year together as a family. We chose 2015 as it was the best time given the age of the children – pre high school and pre teen!

Just thinking how much such a trip would cost was enough to initially put us off exploring what at the time was still a dream. We knew to move forward with our dream, we needed to think differently about money.

Our usual objective of accumulating wealth had to be relegated down the list. Money had to become just a factor we needed to manage in order to realise our dream. I pulled together projections for the cost of travelling for a year round Australia (with caravan), or travelling for a year round the world. The projections for a round the world trip were based on our travelling through warm climates in safe and predominantly cheap countries, during off peak times, travelling budget airlines, booking smartly (DIY) and occasionally stopping with family.

The year round the world was cheaper at AUD$120k! A massive amount of cash would be required, yet spending a year with our kids whilst they are still kids remained the most important thing to us. So we set about convincing ourselves that AUD$120k for the year was good value! It was less than the average annual swing in a Sydney property price, less than the cost of private education for one child, less than the cost of the average divorce (which we aren’t planning – so we banked that as a save), less than the average house renovation. We convinced ourselves it was a bargain!

With a full year away travelling around the world, we could have a fabulous adventure as a family, and also spend lots of quality time with our extended families and friends in Europe and USA.

Having an idea of the cost of the trip meant we could set about planning to ‘cashflow’ the trip. We had both been working for many years, and together with saving hard, driving clunky cars and generally being spend thrifty, we felt that spending some of our savings on this trip would be money well spent.

Amongst the excitement of planning the trip, our mindset began to shift. We were moving away from our usual year on year financial objective of hoarding more cash for the future – to thinking how we could spend some of our ‘savings’ to fund what was rapidly becoming a realisable dream. When we doubted our ‘vision’, or became nervous after talking to well meaning friends who impulsively thought we were on planet Mars when it came to education, or would be working until we are 100 – we would bring it all back to our very simple objective; we want to spend a whole year together as a family, and would then overlay that the timing would never be better than now. 2015 would be our year together as family.

And then when you are finally on the road, you are wildly free dancing nude in the desert blowing your savings …

… Well not quite. We aim to stick within our budget, and we see the value in every dollar we spend and track our expenditure; every couple of days we all spend a few minutes updating the master spreadsheet! Knowing where our money is going helps us feel in control of the big picture. The children also help manage our financials, and are learning the value of money. Ella’s limited birthday list – Vegemite, Colby cheese, a pair of headphones and an ankle bracelet – hit home to us that the kids also understand our need to tightly manage our costs.

So we are 10 weeks into the trip; we are on page 23 of our itinerary, have taken 6 flights and have travelled Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and are coming to the end of our first of four weeks in Thailand. Our next stop is Nepal, then onto Europe and Africa, then back to Sydney via the USA.

We have spent close to AUD$ 20,000; we feel we have had great value (we are used to Sydney prices!) with good 3* accommodation (often 2 bedrooms), great budget flights (mostly Air Asia) and great food. And we have experienced so much and made so many memories already.

‘SE Asia on a Shoestring’? – Not with a family of 5!